Mortified, Rose snatched the diary out of his hands and clutched it to her chest.

“Ya left it on the settee in my parlor,” William informed her. “Found it for ya.” There was a mischievous glint in his eye that suggested he was very pleased with himself.

A sinking sensation spread through Rose's stomach as she recalled the series of events. Clara and Chester's midnight escapades had distracted her, and she'd retired upstairs without the volume. She remembered with vivid, horrid clarity the last few paragraphs of her latest entry. William had featured. Along with a shameful confession.

“You read my diary?” she whispered. The temperature of her face doubled. Regurgitation seemed eminent.

William chuckled at her humiliation. “I opened it. Just to see if I recognized the penmanship, mind ya. Skimmed a few sentences.”

“You…‘skimmed’ a few sentences.”

“I did.”

“I see.” Her gut rolled. She could see it now: vomit all over William's shiny shoes.

“Calm yo'self, Rose,” he instructed, his expression one of amusement. “No need to get your garters in a twist. Consider yo'self fortunate that I found it and not a member o' me staff. Had one o' the maids come across it first, she woulda read it cover to cover. Over tea and biscuits, I imagine.”

Rose swallowed against her nausea. How many times had Daphne scolded her for leaving her diary laying around? How many times had she promised herself she'd start paying those scoldings heed?

“That's supposed to comfort me?” Rose asked, her voice strained.

William left her query unanswered. “What was his name? Your fiancé?”

“You didn't catch his name?” Rose snipped. “During your ‘skimming’?”

Lowering his hands into his pockets, William tilted his head in a crooked nod. “August, wasn't it?”

Rose bristled. “Yes. August. August Appelbaum.”

“And he was Jewish?”

“Yes.”

“That's why he was shot?”

Her hand instinctively went to the chain around her neck. “Unofficially. But it's what I believe.”

“I'm sure you believe right,” William said, his expression unreadable. “When was this?”

“Can't your mystery source provide you with that information?” Rose snapped. “Or perhaps you could attain the answers through clairvoyance? Just as you so quickly and easily sussed out who I am, who my parents are, and the nature of my relationship with them? Come to think of it, I'm surprised you don't already know my entire history. Your omniscient powers are without parallel, after all.”

William merely stared at her. “I'm askin' you.”

Rose huffed and turned away. She knew she was pushing her luck in taking such an impertinent tone with her new employer, but she didn't care. Her life with August was her business. No one else's. She'd hardly shared her feelings regarding his death with her beloved cousins, so why on earth would she divulge anything to this man?

Unless... Unless he was willing to do the same.

“I'll tell you,” she said at last. She turned back to him, an eyebrow arched. “After you tell me how Teddy's mother died.”

William crossed his arms over his chest and continued to stare at her. “Why d'ya wanna know? Think I killed her?”

Rose's eyes widened at his blunt inquiry, but in honor of equality she answered just as bluntly, “It had occurred to me as a possibility, yes.”

William sighed. “I might as well have.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked, her brow furrowed.

His eyes hardened. “She was shot,” he disclosed. “Same as your fiancé. The bullet that killed her...it was meant for me.”

The confession, though brief and lacking, wasn't what Rose had expected to hear. Particularly the remorse in his voice.

“So...you two were together?” she surmised. “It was no passing fling. You cared for her. Were you married?” She found she couldn't quite comprehend it.

“We were married, yes. Had Teddy together. Lad looks more like her than he does me, which is probably best.” William gazed through the open door in the direction of the staircase. “Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.”

Rose was stunned. It was difficult to think of the infallible William Mercer as a grieving widower. A doting husband? Near impossible. What had he been like while married? What had his wife been like? What manner of woman could possibly endure the lifestyle that must undoubtedly accompany a marriage to a man so insatiable?

His wife had either been a saint, or every bit as rotten as he. Thinking of Teddy's sweet little face, Rose was inclined to believe the former.

“I'm so sorry,” Rose heard herself say. Her voice sounded foreign in her ears. “She was shot? Deplorable. What kind of monster would take the risk of hitting a lady with a bullet?”

“No one ever said bein' the wife of a racketeer was a safe vocation. Still, I thought I could protect her.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “We always think our loved ones are safest with us. So, you understand how I…”

She trailed off. No, he clearly did not understand how she felt. If he did, he wouldn't have a loaded revolver on his person at eight o'clock in the morning inside his own home. But it did explain why he'd been so quick to fire that revolver at Dmitri.

“When was your fiancé killed?” William asked, returning to his original question.

“A year ago,” Rose replied, honoring their agreement. “A year and a few days. Your wife?”

“The same,” he said. “About a year ago.”

“It seems we've both lost someone we loved to a pointless act of violence involving a gun,” Rose said. “In that, at least, we are alike.”

“It seems so,” he agreed. “And that's why you won't carry a gun? Even if it'd potentially save your life?”

The remorse was there once again. In his eyes. In his voice. Subtle, but there.

William Mercer was capable of great depth. At times. Likely only times of his choosing. But for a few fateful seconds, Rose saw in his eyes the person he must have been when with his wife. Some of the cold, calculating façade fell away to show a crack in the veneer beneath.

Rose would never admit it, even consciously to herself, but it was quite a beautiful thing to behold.

“Violence begets violence, William,” she said. “The only way to combat such intense negativity is by refusing to participate. I learned the art of the quiet rebellion from August. Should I pull a gun on a man who wishes to do me harm, I am no better than he. ‘An eye for an eye leaves the world blind.’ You may think me foolish, or naïve, but I believe this philosophy to be true. Perhaps I change nothing for my generation, yet if the days are brighter for our children, it will be well worth any sacrifice.”

William nodded his head once, an acknowledgement of his understanding if not his concurrence. “What about a knife?”

Rose frowned. “What about a knife, what?”

“Would ya carry a small knife?” he clarified. “While workin' for me?”

Rose pursed her lips. Carry a knife? Her? That notion was rather vulgar, as well.

Or was it? Her father carried a pocket knife. Her cousin Henry, the Viscount of Ashbourne, had a knife in his possession from his time in South Africa as a soldier in the royal army. Even August had carried a small switchblade with a decorative handle — an heirloom from his great-grandfather. If they could, why couldn't she?

“I...will agree,” Rose said cautiously. “If you teach me the proper way to handle it. A knife in my hands as things stand now would do more harm than good.”

“Knife lessons,” William said. He sniffed a silent laugh. “That can be arranged.”

“And I have one other condition.”

“D'ya now?” he asked, his eyebrows elevated. “And what condition might that be? Nothin' too extravagant, I hope.”

Rose couldn't help the little smirk that curled her lips. They were negotiating. It was a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless. And perhaps she would get an honest answer to a question that had been picking at the seams of her mind ever since she'd learned William had a son.

“Oh, I would never ask for anything too extravagant,” she promised. There was a slight teasing quality to her voice that she knew wouldn't go unnoticed. “I'm asking for a word. Just one.”

“That bein'?”

“Teddy's mother, your late wife: what was her name?”

William was silent for several beats before he replied. “Clementine. Her name was Clementine.”

“Clementine?” Rose repeated softly. “Lovely name. It means ‘merciful,’ doesn't it? Clemency?”

“Aye,” William concurred. “That it does. Fittin', too. For her. Clementine Rothschild.”

Rose jolted where she stood. “Rothschild?” she repeated. Her father had acquaintances bearing that surname within his social circles. “Your wife was peerage?”

William's stoic expression turned the faintest bit smug. “From a peerage family, aye. Her father is a Baron. Mum and dad all but disowned her for marrying me. That's how I knew to use the prospect of bein' disowned to persuade you. Knew if I brought up your mum, you'd do whatever I asked.”

“Pfft. Yes, yes, you're very smart,” Rose scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Bravo.”

“Noticed that, did ya?” His smile was small, but cheeky.

Rose fixed William with a contrite stare, all the while rolling his late wife's name around on her tongue, testing the feel of it. ‘Clementine’ seemed a highly appropriate name for a woman who would become a martyr. Her mind traveled to the blonde woman in the portrait above the staircase. Yes, ‘Clementine’ suited her.

Rose studied her employer, pensive. William and Clementine Mercer. And little Teddy. Yes, she could see it now.

Somewhere in the house below them, the telephone rang.

“That'll be for me,” William said, holding his finger aloft. “We'll continue this conversation shortly, Rose. 'Scuse me.”

With a brusque nod, he swept out the door, leaving no trace — save his scent — that he'd ever been in the room.

How odd.

Rose stared after him, uncertain what to think. An uncharacteristic moment of compassion, then back to business. Was that hodgepodge behavior what she should come to expect from her new employer?

Shaking her head, Rose crossed the room and slid her diary into the drawer of the bedside table. She must not leave it out again. If William or the staff learned more about her life than she preferred them to know, she would only have herself to blame.

She paused, listening. The house was silent. With her employer currently occupied, there was a person she'd like to visit.

Rose glanced both directions down the hallway and, finding it empty, approached the room three doors down from her own. She rapped lightly on the varnished wood, then waited.

A moment later, a child's voice called out, “Come in.”

Rose eased the door open and poked her head inside. As she'd hoped, she found the room's occupant sitting on the floor playing with blocks — alone .

“Hello, Teddy,” she said, smiling at the tiny boy. “Do you remember me?”

【♜】【♞】【♟】

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