Tangled Webs Read Online Free PDF Page B

lantern and hurried them down the same narrow hallway where Arista had been led that first night. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, the sounds of men’s voices
rumbled. Arista drew Nic’s jacket tighter around her shoulders.
    No one outside these thin walls knew that the infamous Lady A lived only a few feet away.
    At the end of the hall, Becky stopped in front of two doors and pulled out a ring of keys. She unlocked the door on the right, pushed it open, and disappeared inside the room she and Arista
shared, taking the light with her. Arista blinked against the sudden darkness.
    “Until we meet again, Lady A.” There was more than a hint of laughter in Nic’s voice.
    “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Arista used her best aristocratic vowels as she quoted a line from a Shakespeare play Nic had once taken her to see.
    They had stood in the very back at the Haymarket Theatre, and Arista held her breath until the very last line echoed in the hushed room. The tale of doomed love had been unlike anything
she’d ever seen before. Her heart had ached for days.
    Nic had just shrugged. “Neither of them needed to die.”
    Still, his words had done nothing to diminish the emotion running through her.
Was it worth it, Juliet?
Arista still yearned to know the answer, but what did it matter? She would live and
die without ever knowing love.
    “Gypsy,” Nic whispered into the darkness. He wrapped his fingers around hers, and for a second, her heart stopped. They were warm and calloused. Familiar. She started to tell him
about earlier, about the errant thoughts flying around in her head, but he stepped closer and she forgot everything. The warmth of his breath caressed her cheek.
    This was
not
part of their usual routine. Not at all.
    In the dark, where no one could see them, anything could happen.
    “I have something to tell you, but this is not the place. Meet me later, at the spot—you know.” He left before she could exhale. A key turned in a lock, a door opened and
closed, leaving Arista alone. Nic had gone down a short flight of steps that would take him into the main living area, where Bones would be waiting for the packet. Arista pushed into the shared
room and closed the door behind her. The lock clicked as it slid into place. What did Nic want to tell her? Arista tugged at the ribbon holding her mask in place. Cool air washed over her skin.
    “Oh, Miss. A feather is missing,” Becky fussed. “I’ll have to have Mr. Nic find me another before you go out again.”
    She vaguely heard Becky chattering, but was too distracted to pay much attention. What did Nic want to tell her? The look in his eyes had been strange. A sort of excitement mixed with pride. His
meeting with Bones would not take long. She had to hurry. Filled with a sudden urgency, Arista began pulling the pins from her hair to loosen the wig. Becky swiftly pushed Arista’s hands away
to do it for her. Arista fidgeted under Becky’s ministrations. She hated to be tended to, but didn’t protest.
    When Bones had taken Becky in when Arista was thirteen, Arista hadn’t expected the scared, beaten-down girl to last more than a few weeks in Bones’s household.
    She would never forget the night Nic had told her that Bones planned to sell her and Becky to the brothels. Arista would have died first, but to her shock, Becky had come up with the idea that
had saved them both. What if she could turn Arista into a proper lady who could attend the parties where jewels and money were ripe for the picking? Bones’s greed had become their savior.
He’d agreed, and from that moment on, Arista’s life was full of reminders about good posture and refined speech. Some days, Nic would sit in on these lessons and twist his mouth to form
proper vowels. It became a game, much to Becky’s displeasure at having her lessons interrupted. His accent diminished somewhat, but he would always have that roughness that defined where they
came from.
    One night,