Matthew and Annie went with me, as Pierre was occupied on an errand for Matthew and Françoise was out shopping. We were just clearing St. Paul’s Churchyard when Matthew turned on an urchin with a filthy face and painfully thin legs. Matthew’s blade was at the child’s ear in a flash. “Move that finger so much as a hair, lad, and I’ll take your ear off,” he said softly.
I looked down with surprise to see the child’s fingers brushing against the bag I wore at my waist.
There was always a hint of potential violence about Matthew, even in my own time, but in Elizabeth’s London it was much closer to the surface. Still, there was no need for him to turn his venom on one so small.
“Matthew,” I warned, noting the terror on the child’s face, “stop it.”
“Another man would have your ear or have you before the bailiffs.” Matthew narrowed his eyes, and the child blanched further.
“Enough,” I said shortly. I touched the child’s shoulder, and he flinched. In a flash my witch’s eye saw a man’s heavy hand striking the child and driving him into a wall. Beneath my fingers, concealed by a rough shirt that was all the boy had to keep out the cold, blood suffused his skin in an ugly bruise. “What’s your name?”
“Jack, my lady,” the boy whispered. Matthew’s knife was still pressed to his ear, and we were beginning to attract attention.
“Put the dagger away, Matthew. This child is no danger to either of us.”
Matthew withdrew his knife with a hiss.
“Where are your parents?”
Jack shrugged. “Haven’t any, my lady.”
“Take the boy home, Annie, and have Françoise get him some food and clothes. Introduce him to warm water, if you can, and put him in Pierre’s bed. He looks tired.”
“You cannot adopt every stray in London, Diana.” Matthew drove his dagger into its sheath for emphasis.
“Françoise could use someone to run errands for her.” I smoothed the boy’s hair back from his forehead. “Will you work for me, Jack?”
“Aye, mistress.” Jack’s stomach gave an audible gurgle, and his wary eyes held a trace of hope. My witch’s third eye opened wide, seeing into his cavernous stomach and hollow, trembling legs. I drew a few coins from my purse.
“Buy him a slice of pie from Master Prior on the way, Annie. He’s ready to drop from hunger, but that should hold him until Françoise can make him a proper meal.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Annie said. She gripped Jack around the arm and towed him in the direction of the Blackfriars.
Matthew frowned at their departing backs and then at me. “You’re doing that child no favors. This Jack—if that’s his real name, which I sincerely doubt—won’t live out the year if he continues to steal.”
“The child won’t live out the week unless an adult takes responsibility for him. What is that you said? Love, a grown-up to care for them, and a soft place to land?”
“Don’t turn my words against me, Diana. That was about our child, not some homeless waif.” Matthew, who had met more witches in the past few days than most vampires did in a lifetime, was spoiling for a fight.
“I was a homeless waif once.”
My husband drew back as if I’d slapped him.
“Not so easy to turn him away now, is it?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “If Jack doesn’t come with us, we might as well take him straight to Andrew Hubbard. There he’ll either be fitted for a coffin or had for supper. Either way he’ll be looked after better than he would be out here on the streets.”
“We have servants enough,” Matthew said coolly.
“And you have money to spare. If you can’t afford it, I’ll pay his wages out of my own funds.”
“You’d better come up with a fairy tale to tuck him into bed with while you’re at it.” Matthew gripped my elbow. “Do you think he won’t notice he’s living with three wearhs and two witches? Human children always see more clearly into the world of creatures than adults do.”
“Do you think Jack will care what we are if he has a roof over his head, food in his belly, and a bed where he can sleep the night in safety?” A woman stared at us in confusion from across the street. A vampire and a witch shouldn’t be having such a heated discussion in public. I pulled the hood closer around my face.
“The more creatures we let into our lives here, the trickier this all becomes,” Matthew said. He noticed the woman watching us and released my arm. “And that goes double for the humans.”
After visiting the two solid, grave earthwitches, Matthew and I retreated to opposite ends of the Hart and Crown until our tempers cooled. Matthew attacked his mail, bellowing for Pierre and letting out a voluble stream of curses against Her Majesty’s government, his father’s whims, and the folly of King James of Scotland. I spent the time talking to Jack about his duties. While the boy had a fine skill set when it came to picking locks, pockets, and country bumpkins who could be fleeced of all their possessions in confidence games, he could not read, write, cook, sew, or do anything else that might assist Françoise and Annie. Pierre, however, took a serious interest in the boy, especially after he recovered his lucky charm from the inner pocket of the boy’s secondhand doublet.
“Come with me, Jack,” Pierre said, holding open the door and jerking his head toward the stairs. He was on his way out to collect the latest missives from Matthew’s informants, and he clearly planned on taking advantage of our young charge’s familiarity with London’s underworld.
“Yes, sir,” Jack said, his voice eager. He already looked better after just one meal.
“Nothing dangerous,” I warned Pierre.
“Of course not, madame,” the vampire said innocently.
“I mean it,” I retorted. “And have him back before dark.”
I was sorting through papers on my desk when Matthew came out from his study. Françoise and Annie had gone to Smithfield to see the butchers for meat and blood, and we had the house to ourselves.
“I’m sorry, mon coeur,” Matthew said, sliding his hands around my waist from behind. He dropped a kiss on my neck. “Between the Rede and the queen, it’s been a long week.”
“I’m sorry, too. I understand why you don’t want Jack here, Matthew, but I couldn’t ignore him. He was hurt and hungry.”
“I know,” Matthew said, drawing me in tightly so that my back fit against his chest.
“Would your reaction have been different if we’d found the boy in modern Oxford?” I asked, staring into the fire rather than meeting his eyes. Ever since the incident with Jack, I had been preoccupied with the question of whether Matthew’s behavior was rooted in vampire genetics or Elizabethan morals.
“Probably not. It’s not easy for vampires to live among warmbloods, Diana. Without an emotional bond, warmbloods are nothing more than a source of nourishment. No vampire, however civilized and well mannered, can remain in close proximity to one without feeling the urge to feed on them.” His breath was cool against my neck, tickling the sensitive spot where Miriam had used her blood to heal the wound Matthew had made there.
“You don’t seem to want to feed on me.” There had been no indication that Matthew wrestled with such an urge, and he had flatly refused his father’s suggestions that he take my blood.
“I can manage my cravings far better than when we first met. Now my desire for your blood is not so much about nourishment as control. To feed from you would primarily be an assertion of dominance now that we’re mated.”
“And we have sex for that,” I said matter-of-factly. Matthew was a generous and creative lover, but he definitely considered the bedroom his domain.
“Excuse me?” he said, his eyebrows drawn into a scowl.
“Sex and dominance. It’s what modern humans think vampire relationships are all about,” I said. “Their stories are full of crazed alpha-male vampires throwing women over their shoulders before dragging them off for dinner and a date.”