Read Online Lady Lightfingers by Janet Woods - Free Book Online

nephew though . . . my sister’s children. The girl is about Lottie’s age, the boy is still a baby.’
    â€˜They’ve named the girl after me,’ Mr Hambert said with pride.
    Alice said cautiously, ‘Thomas is rather an odd name for a girl.’
    James huffed with laughter. ‘It’s Thomasina. The boy is called James, after his favourite uncle.’
    The look Thomas gave him was crushing. ‘As you can see I’m obliged to put up with my nephew’s eternal conceit.’
    Celia giggled, her good temper restored when James whispered an apology to her. Alice was relieved that the tension had relaxed.
    A little while later the cat came in to investigate the visitors. Lottie clapped her hands. James tied a piece of paper on the end of a length of string and showed her how to tease Frederick with it. Soon, Lottie was running around giggling, with Frederick after her, his initial dignity abandoned.
    Alice closed her eyes and felt sadness inside her that such a moment of innocent happiness in a child’s life was a rare event instead of everyday normality. James connected well with children; he’d make a good father if he ever married. The cats in the area where they lived were lean, ferocious hunters, and were as numerous as the rodents they lived off. They were not fat pets to be tamed, pampered and entertaining, but flea-bitten, diseased scavengers who’d been known to devour a newborn baby abandoned to the squalor of the gutter, and they sometimes ended up in the cooking pot themselves.
    Was that what she’d become as well? A predator? What would become of her girls if the damp cough on her chest worsened. She’d turned a blind eye to Celia’s activities so far, but she’d had very little choice, and had no resources to fall back on. As a mother, had she allowed the girl to sink too low for her to be redeemed?
    No, she told herself. Celia had simply learned to survive within her environment. She was still young enough to adapt to another one . . . a better one.
    Come spring, Celia would be sixteen. If she could earn enough money she would take her children to the country, Alice thought. To start with she could sell that emerald and diamond ring Celia had hidden away. It must have been stolen, but it couldn’t be returned, and the girl was unable to wear it in case it was recognized. There were other trinkets hidden behind a loose half-brick where the girl laid her mattress – a silver locket and a brooch in the shape of a butterfly, a pretty thing shimmering with different-coloured stones.
    â€˜Another muffin, Mrs Laws?’
    Her hunger had already been satisfied by the cake, but she rarely had a good appetite these days. Celia took one, eating it in small quick bites, like a hungry dog scared it might lose its meal to another. When she placed a hand on her arm Celia remembered her manners and slowed down.
    James asked, ‘Can you play the piano and sing, as well as recite, Celia?’
    â€˜I can sing a little, but I don’t feel like it at the moment. My mother can play the piano. She learned to when she was a child.’
    â€˜That was years ago, Celia. I haven’t been able to practise,’ Alice protested.
    â€˜You can practise today. I’ve never heard you play the piano, and I’d really like to. Are you sure you can?’
    It was typical of Celia to direct the attention away from herself and on to another. Alice softened. ‘I’ll just play some short pieces then. Some fugues perhaps, and a minuet or two’ She gazed at the two men and shrugged. ‘I warn you. It’s been fifteen years since I touched a keyboard so don’t expect too much.’
    â€˜We’ll take that into account, Mrs Laws. Besides, I don’t think the instrument has been tuned in that time, so we’ll blame any mistakes that emerge on that.’
    He had lied about the piano not being tuned, she realized, as, after a