"I'm leaving, you're staying," Beth said to him.
"It really is fine, please don't go," I pressed, shuffling forward, only to have Hunter skittishly dart out of my reach and for the doorway.
"I've kept you too long," Hunter said, offering me a bow, even as he backed away. Over his shoulder, Beth still hovered in the doorway, mouthing an apology to me.
"You will come back," I said, the words firm. Hunter stood straight, eyes wide, and I folded my arms over my stomach. "You'll come to the theater again. To see me."
It was almost an order, but it did the trick. He bowed again, smiling. "I will."
I nodded and relaxed as he ducked out the door, sighing as Beth stepped inside.
"Jumpy, isn't he?" Beth said. "Bet if he'd already had his cock in you, he wouldn't have been so eager to run."
I shrugged and turned away, hiding my frown and searching the room for a proper dress to walk home in.
"Remember that time Myra brought you a troll at intermission?" Beth asked, giggling.
I snorted and winced. "Mm, she learned not to do that again."
Beth laughed. "He practically took up this whole room! Made all the walls rattle and rutted you right through to curtain call."
"And then she put us on stage together the next week," I recalled, laughing a little. I'd been sore for days after, but the troll had a dry sense of humor, and he'd whispered naughty poetry in my ear all through the second act while fucking me through a series of orgasms that left my voice hoarse. I shot Beth a wicked grin as I tore off my robe. "He was great fun."
* * *
Stepney Green was deceptivelyquiet in the late hours. Beth and I knew the best routes to avoid passing pubs where men who had too much to drink would linger in doorways, or the roads of the infamous East End where we might be mistaken for available bawds—ladies searching for quick clients. But the fastest route home from the underground station to Wellesley Street required a walk through Stepney Green park.
"Do you want me to walk with you?" Beth asked as we neared the edge of the green.
I considered it. Most nights, the park was quiet and still, or the neighborhood was jolly, excited but safe. But not all nights. Some nights, the desperation of the East End came wearing the faces of anxious thieves, those whose hunger allowed them to think of no other way but to take what they lacked. Other nights, the faces were those of men who took what they wanted because they knew they could not be stopped.
But those men could be found in parks and alleys and backstage at theaters, and I suspected many fine and grand rooms too. Jamaica Street was as dangerous as the quiet park, and a longer walk home.
"I'll be all right," I said. Beth never needed to walk the whole way through with me anyway. I stepped onto the grass and gave her a wave. "You get home, and I'll see you tomorrow."
"If you're sure," she called back, already turning and marching for the corner.
Stepney Green Park was three blocks deep, and there was a point when I reached the center and the city around me vanished, all the lamps blocked by trees and buildings. I should've been frightened, should've been afraid of how vulnerable I was in the darkness. I should've walked faster, rushed toward the corner of Wellesley Street where the lamps flickered dully, but the block was full of quiet families stuffed to the rafters of their flats.
My steps slowed in the dark, the wet grass soaking through the gaps in my old boots. The hem of my dress whispered against the ground, and an owl greeted me with a gentle cry from the trees. I closed my eyes and moved steadily forward, the air cool and damp, forcing myself to block out the sounds of hackney taxis and pubs and arguments bleeding through drafty windows. Here, in the center of Stepney Green Park I could almost forget that I was in London, or at least that was what I liked to pretend. I had never left London, barely left Stepney, but there was a part of me that knew what the whistle of wet grass and rush of wings and scream of a captured rabbit all meant. Home had always been here in London, and yet home had never been here, not for part of me.
My mother's blood, I thought, breathing deeply.
But it wasn't earth and trees and little whiffs of city smoke in my nose. My steps froze and my eyes opened at the stench of tobacco, sweat, and beer. The man in front of me was a shadow, hidden from the moon by the strength of one of the lovely oaks in the green, but my eyes were adjusting quickly.
"Purse," he said, his arm raising in the thin sliver of light just enough to catch it on a large dull blade—dull, but dangerous all the same.
I pulled my purse out of my pocket quickly, tossing it in his direction. It hit the ground just behind him, and it was obvious from the soft slap of fabric in the grass that there was barely anything for him to take. He grunted but didn't turn his back to me, only stepped backwards, knife still extended in my direction.
"I don't have anything else," I said, holding my hands out in front of me.
It was the truth—I always took a hackney right to my door on the nights we were paid—but the man let out a snarl, rising up with my nearly empty bag of coins and lunging for me. I stiffened and flinched at the huff of rancid breath in my face, but held as still as I could.
"Get on your hands and knees," the man rasped, stuffing my money away and then yanking on my arm, bringing it to his crotch. "If you don't have more coin, you can make yourself useful another way."
Except he wasn't even remotely hard, even as he forced my hand into rubbing at him.
"Let me go," I said, my words even. A warning.
He released my hand and then slapped me sharply on the cheek, a pounding heat rising on the spot. It would bruise, but only for an hour or two. I would heal by the morning.
"On the ground," he hissed.