Page 6 of The Twelve Days of Love

“I have it on good authority—from Stinch himself—that one will release a week before Christmas.”

“Will there be the usual reading?” Merrifield asked.

“Of course. After all, it is what Evie’s is known for.”

“I will have Stinch notify me of the event closer to the date. You know my children adore Her Grace’s readings.”

Merrifield was as doty over his family as Luke was his. The earl was easily the best customer Evie’s had, as he constantly bought books for his children and the children of his friends.

They spoke for a few minutes about the Season and what they planned to do once they returned to their country estates.

“Lord Merrifield, your order is ready,” a clerk said.

“Then I’m off. Good to see you, Mayfield. Tell Lady Mayfield hello for me.”

“And the same to Lady Merrifield,” Luke replied.

He glanced about, walking a few aisles, seeing that both Edgar and Cora were engrossed in books and Thomas was playing in the children’s area with another boy, supervised by an Evie’s employee. What he didn’t see was Lucy.

Wandering back to the tearoom, he sought her there, even looking in the kitchen, but no one had seen her. Luke returned to the bookshop and still didn’t spy her. He recalled how she liked to help create the display windows and went to the front of the store, hoping to find her there. While a clerk was changing one of the window displays, Lucy was not with him.

Worry filled him—and then he saw her outside on the pavement in front of the store. At first, he thought Lucy might have gone outside to help the clerk as he arranged the display. Caroline often did so, standing on the pavement and directing where things should be placed, with an eye to what a passerby might see.

His daughter’s back was to the window, however. She peered in one direction for a long moment and then slowly her head turned, as if she were searching for something.

Or someone.

Concerned, Luke left the store, the bell jingling merrily as he exited. He watched Lucy for a minute and then approached her.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

She wheeled and faced him, guilt written on her face.

“I am sorry, Papa. I know I shouldn’t have left Evie’s. But... I was looking.”

“You couldn’t look out the windows?”

She shook her head.

“I was worried, Lucy. I did not know where you were.”

Stubbornness set her mouth in a firm line, almost as if she were a St. Clair by birth. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“I know you do,” he said gently, remembering that she came from the streets and was far wiser about the ways of the world than most children her age. “What—or who—were you looking for?”

She sighed. “Boy.”

“A boy?” he asked. “Which boy?”

“No. Boy. My friend. I always look for him on the streets whenever we are in town.”

Two Christmases ago, Luke had found a lonely Lucy looking in the windows of Evie’s. She had revealed her father had sold her after her mother and baby brother died and that she had seen her father dead in an alley one day. Driskell, the man who had bought Lucy, had her and a boy called Jem pick pockets. Jem had been struck and killed by a hansom cab and Lucy feared she would be sent to work upstairs and had run away.

Both Luke and Caroline had known exactly what would have happened to Lucy if she had returned to the evil Driskell. They had asked Lucy to come home with them. Not as a servant—but as their daughter.

It had been the best decision of their marriage.

It took Lucy a while to fit in to a wealthy family of Polite Society but she was a quick learner and easily mimicked their manners and speech. More than anything, she had wanted to learn to read and so he and Caroline had taken turns teaching her themselves.

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