a baby, and Clara worried terribly about every cough and cold. She dropped to her knees beside him. “You shouldn’t go into damp, dusty places,” she scolded. “They’re bad for your chest.”
Peter nodded and wheezed again.
“And cover your mouth when you cough,” she added, frowning.
“Yes, Mama,” Peter said, though he kept his hands where they were, cupped around whatever it was he held.
“Clara,” Kit said gently. “Why don’t you take him home?”
Clara gave him a helpless look. “I’ve barely done anything today.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kit assured her. “I can manage to hold the fort for a few days till Betty recovers.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, her expression worried.
“Of course. Before you came along I used to do everything myself, if you recall”—he grimaced—“not that I’d want to go back to that for more than a few days.”
Clara gave a watery smile. Then she stiffened her shoulders and turned to Peter. “Right then, my lad. Let’s go and clean you up first.
“But Mama!” Peter said, thrusting his closed hands in her direction. “I haven’t shown you my spider yet.”
“Oh no!” Clara exclaimed, horrified. “Is that what you’re got? A spider?”
Peter’s lip wobbled again. “Yes, only it’s stopped moving and it feels all squidgy—I think I might have squashed it.” When he went to open his hands, Clara yelped, leapt forward, and clapped her own around them.
“Not here, darling!” she cried, while Kit pressed his lips together to stifle his laughter.
Peter’s eyes welled with tears. “I wanted to show it to you and Uncle Kit,” he mourned. “I was going to have it as a pet.”
“Never mind,” Kit said gently, “spiders don’t really make very good pets anyway. But maybe we’ll get a little cat, like Gimlet, for our house. What do you think?”
Peter beamed, his tears magically disappearing. “I would love that, Uncle Kit! Can it be my cat?”
“Yes, but it will have to sleep in the kitchen, and it might not be for a few days. Now go with Mama and get cleaned up.”
Peter’s eyes shone. “Did you hear that, Mama? Uncle Kit’s going to get a cat and it’s going to be mine!”
Clara rolled her eyes. “Yes, I heard. Now, keep your hands closed while I fetch my things.”
She crossed to the hat stand in the corner, while keeping a sharp eye on Peter, and quickly tied on her bonnet and shawl before ushering Peter towards the door.
“Will you be home for dinner?” she asked as they left.
“Yes,” Kit said. “I’ll see you later.”
It was very quiet once they were gone. Kit and Clara didn’t talk much as they worked, but there was a very different quality to the silence in a room when you were alone.
Before Clara and Peter had come into his life, Kit supposed he had lived a rather solitary existence. He had friends—quite a number of them, actually—and he took pride in treating his staff at the club well. But after he had given up the game and opened Redford’s, he had always lived alone, perfectly content in his private rooms above the club.
And then, one day, Clara had walked into his life, begging for employment.
Kit had been making inquiries about taking on a clerk. He’d wanted someone bright, efficient, and discreet who would not be shocked by the nature of his business—not an easy combination to find, he’d discovered.
Somehow, Clara had learned of his search and, one freezing winter morning, she’d arrived at his door, practically blue with cold. He hadn’t known quite what to make of her, this genteel, highly educated young woman with a stubborn tilt to her jaw and a glint of desperation in her eyes. She had struck Kit as entirely unsuitable, and he had been in the middle of gently turning her away, when her eyelids had fluttered closed and she dropped to the ground in front of him.
When he had discovered her pregnant state, and seen too that she was clearly unwell, pale and underfed with a persistent cough, he’d found himself giving her the position on a temporary basis. And then, when he’d seen where she was living, he’d insisted she move into his apartments above the club.
A few months later, Peter had arrived, and Kit had been astonished by his own attachment to this tiny new scrap of humanity. Realising that a late-night club was no place to bring up a child, he’d purchased a new townhouse in Marylebone, and they'd moved there together, telling the neighbours that Clara was Kit's widowed sister, and Peter his