The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance by Delilah S. Dawson Read Free Book Online

reveal.”
    Careful to give her space, careful not to touch her again, he waited for her to step away before whipping the curtain aside. When she gasped this time, it was with happiness.
    “Just a little something I found,” he said.
    “So you’re a sailor, a firefighter, a handyman . . . and a miracle worker?”
    “I get around.”
    She put a finger to the dimpled glass. It was nothing special, as windows went. Two simple panes of thick glass, but clean and bright and thin enough to show her the world outside, which the old window had never done.
    Without Thom, she would have had to pay someone to board the window over with scavenged wood. It would have been months before she had saved up enough money to pay someone else to install the cheapest glass available.
    “It doesn’t seem like words are enough, but thank you,” she said.
    Although Thom seemed on the verge of stepping closer, he held himself away. She felt his eyes on her, careful and taking her measure. He had the same quiet, contained comfort she had cultivated when taming small birds. They were excitable, flighty, and untrusting, and they needed space, understanding, and time before they would step up onto her finger. Frannie smiled to herself. So she was more like a sparrow than she’d thought, then. And he was more patient than she had expected. She suddenly realized that she had to see him again.
    “Do you like music?”
    The question caught him off-guard, and he warily said, “I don’t dislike it.”
    He glanced about the room, probably looking for a gramophone or some other modern contraption for enjoying music in the home—and forcing it on unwitting victims. But her bedroom was a small, tidy spot, and he’d seen everything but the closet, so far as she knew. She narrowed her eyes at the door, wondering. But if he had opened it, she’d have heard the squeal of the hinges, and he would have had a few choice questions for her by now.
    “I’ve a box at the Vauxhall for Friday night and would appreciate an escort,” she began, and a small smile quirked his full lips.
    “I’m not really the theater type, lass,” he said. “Big brute like me.” But he was teasing, and she knew it. And liked it.
    “I’m not, either. But if someone’s running about throwing incendiary devices through my window, I’d be glad to have my own personal brute in tow. For safety, you understand.”
    The gleam in his eyes said he understood just fine, but he continued to play along. “Well, if it’s a public service, I can’t really say no, aye?”
    “I knew I could count on your altruism. You seem amenable to helping a lady in need.”
    “It’s no’ a habit, but I do make exceptions. And I doubt you’re helpless at all. Ye seem a very apt lass, to me. Running this place all alone, keeping up the creatures and sorting your own house. I was raised by just my mother, and she was worn ragged from the running of things. Ye do fine.”
    She couldn’t help blushing. It was hard work, but she’d honestly never considered anything else. What else could she have done when Bertram passed? Her parents were gone in a horseless-carriage accident, and all her wider family were dour, religious folk who had never supported the idea of a pet shop. When she’d turned down her grandmother’s offer that Frannie move in and act as maid, companion, and cook, that was the last she’d heard of the humorless biddy. She’d let no one close enough to see the truth of her life, not in a long time. Except Maisie, but their relationship was based on wisdom disguised as grumbled complaints. And she never left her own courtyard, either.
    “I don’t know how to thank you, Thom. Please let me know what I owe you for your work and materials.”
    He glanced at the window, his mouth twisting. “I don’t think—”
    “Just enjoy your lunch and send me a bill, aye?”
    He grinned. “I’ll do that. Before the theater on Friday.”

    Later that afternoon, an urchin arrived bearing