The slow creep of sorrow into her eyes remained one of his most vivid memories. It had torn at him.
“Life taught you to be careful who you grow attached to,” she said. “Life taught me that expecting fairness is a fool’s dream.”
“Is living here with me so terrible?” He’d thought she’d at least been content, maybe even a little happy.
“I’ve been safe, which I appreciate. And, heaven knows, I’m indebted to you for slipping me free of the life I’d been living.”
She feltindebted. They were at a painful impasse: she felt for him something he didn’t want, and she wanted from him something he didn’t feel.
Gemma had taken firm hold of the door handle. “If your feelings ever change, Baz, send word.”
And she’d left.
Life taught you to be careful who you grow attached to.It wasboth a true and incomplete summation of who he was and who he’d learned to be.
He was utterly attached to Gemma. He cared what happened to her. He missed her when she was gone. He was sorely tempted to beg her to stay despite knowing she’d be settling for less than she wanted.
Thatwas what life had taught him to be careful about: asking more of people than he was able to give, making promises to them, however inadvertent, that he couldn’t fulfill.
Gemma deserved to live the life she wanted on her own terms. Earlier that very night, she had acknowledged she’d never been free before, and she valued having such freedom now.
He would not take that away from her by tying her to a man who was less than she needed him to be.
Chapter 10
She told me every day that she loved me.
Gemma hadn’t been able to clear that from her mind.Every day.Before his mother died, Baz had been told by someone every single day that he was loved. No one had ever said that to her. Literally no one.
She’d always assumed that was because the Kincaids were a collection of no-account slubbers who hadn’t affection for anything but money and power. And she’d told herself Baz had never said he loved her because he’d had a difficult upbringing as well, that he likely didn’t realize what it’d mean to hear that.
She told me every day.
He knew. He just didn’t feel that for her.
Gemma’s heart had broken three years earlier, waiting for those words. A pathetic part of her had fully believed he’d say them to her eventually. Even if it weren’t a romantic-type love, she’d expected he’d at least come to care about her beyond someone he’d rescued.
She was a regular codshead, she was, thinking things’d be different this time.
Her father had been wrong about most things, but he’d been bang on the mark in saying that hearts were foolish things. She’d appreciate that misguided organ keeping quiet and minding its own business.
Baz had married her out of pity, her head would remind her. But pitiful people were sometimes endearing, her heart would insist. And, it would add, maybe Baz had a secret weakness for that particular combination.
Pathetic.
He liked having her around; she knew he did. He was friendly and kind, and they got on proper well. It made it all the worse that her heart broke so easily at knowing there weren’t likely to be anything more between them than that. She’d have given almost anything to have a bit of kindness these past years. From anyone else, it would’ve been more than enough.
Three days after starting the job Móirín had found for her, three days of pleasant evenings with Baz that never tiptoed beyond a comfortable friendship, Gemma ended her workday early and spent a few of her coins to take a hackney to Southwark, a place she’d vowed she’d never return to. She and Baz had been invited to supper at the Donnellys’ flat and planned to meet there in the evening. This was her best chance of making a much-needed journey south of the Thames with no one the wiser.
Gemma asked to be let down a bit away from her actual destination, not wanting to risk rigging the jig.She walked down the street, knowing how to avoid attention. The Kincaids were brilliant at it. A person could be jaunting down the pavement and not realize a member of her infamous family was within arms’ length. Gemma was as good at it as the rest of them. Some families passed down heirlooms; hers bestowed on their children a talent for criminality.
Why wouldn’t Baz be ecstatic to tie himself to that for a lifetime?she asked herself dryly.
Gemma eyed the people she passed, though none of them noticed her. Her father was dead, but he had two brothers who were still living. He’d never been the most dangerous of the three. It’d be best not to cross paths with either of her uncles if she could help it.
She slipped around the back of the workhouse, following Marshalsea Road to a quieter area, a darker area, a corner of Southwark where people could hide with ease. Blimey, but there were a lot of dark corners.
With her hands in her coat pockets, she likely looked as if she were trying to keep warm, when, like any South Londoner with half a brain, she had a chiv in her pocket. Knives were handy things, especially when wandering the back alleys.