Tempting fate, he made his purchase before returning to the pavement.
In all his eight and twenty years, Lucan had never tasted a bun. Now, he lifted it up and drew in another breath. This pastry smelled exactly like the ones that the cook at Camdonbury Place had often baked. They had been his father’s favorite. In fact, they might still be, but after being cut off two and a half years ago, Lucan did not know for certain.
Yet he did not mind. He preferred the severed ties rather than the cruelty he’d experienced in his youth. His father was a brutal man, quick with a backhanded fist. It’d had come when Lucan least expected it.
“Win the trick, and a glazed bun will be your prize,” his father had said, slurring the words through his drunken lips.
Lucan remembered looking down at the cards, not yet old enough to know the game, let alone the trick of it. Asking a question that day had earned a beating, no bun, and no supper either. Then, locked in the nursery, he’d cried for himself, wondering why his elder brother—the heir—had never been punished. In fact, Vincent had stood by laughing all the while.
Later on, after Father drank himself into a stupor, Mother had stolen away to comfort him. “Poor little spare,” she’d often crooned during these nights, rocking him gently. “Why was the sweetest boy born second?”
The next time he’d stood in the Great Hall, Lucan had known better than to ask a question but had earned a backhand for not figuring out the trick all the same.
It had been worse when he’d won, however. Because then his mother had borne the brunt of his punishment. “Why are you clapping, whore?” his father had bellowed as his fist hit the side of her head with a sickening thud.
To this day, Lucan remembered that hollow sound, the sharp, interrupted cry that had followed, and the crack-thump of his mother’s head hitting the hard stone floor.
He’d hated feeling powerless. Hated feeling hungry. And hated the sight of those glazed buns. In fact, he’d vowed long ago never to eat one.
Gradually, he’d found other methods to gain his supper. He’d learned to charm the cook and the maids, and by the time he’d left for school, he’d developed a talent for it. He’d used his prison wisely, mastering all sorts of tricks and games. He’d even discovered that playing the miniature nursery piano had helped with his dexterity, eventually making him a master of sleight of hand. It was during this time that he’d first begun to realize that he could pour out everything he felt through music—fear, frustration, hatred . . .
Yet while he was away at school, there had been no one to save his mother from his father’s daily requirement of violence.
“She fell down the stairs and hit her head, son,” Hugh Thorne had said during a special visit to Lucan in his fourth year of school. “She never woke up.” But they’d both known the truth.
More than anything, Lucan had wanted to save her. He’d devised so many plans for her to stay with families who’d lived closer to him, but each time, she’d declined, stating that her place was by his father’s side and that she would be ashamed if anyone knew.
In the end, that choice had killed her.
Abruptly, his thoughts shifted to the present. A feeling of resolve washed over him now, helping him resist taking a bite of the glazed bun he held. Each time he resisted, he felt in control. Not at all like his father.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lucan spotted a familiar tuft of wheat-colored hair in the crowd and was reminded of his purpose. Leaving his spot in front of the bakery, he rounded the bend and then dashed across the street between a cart and a phaeton before slipping into the narrow alleyway to wait.
It wasn’t long before the boy appeared. That dried wheat hair stuck out straight from his head. There wasn’t much to the lad—he was all arms and legs, with a long neck supporting a round face, most of which was spattered with freckles. Resting a hand against the wall to catch his breath, the boy wiped beads of sweat from his brow.
“It . . . ain’t . . . fair,” the boy said, panting after each word. “You could at least pretend not to see me.”
Lucan resisted the urge to smile. “It is your job not to be seen, Arthur. I’ve been trying to teach you that since you first tried to pick my pocket, nearly two years ago now.”
At the time, to make matters worse, when caught, the lad had opened his mouth and unleashed a torrent of prior crimes. Yet the sheer panic in the boy’s eyes had kindled Lucan’s sympathy.
He’d seen too much of himself in those eyes. Therefore, to calm Arthur, Lucan had used a few sleight-of-hand tricks as a distraction. Soon, he’d gained an avid follower. The little scamp was a wily one too. No matter where Lucan was, Arthur would find him and beg to learn more. Lucan had agreed, but only if the lad promised to stop picking pockets. To aid Arthur in that endeavor, Lucan had found him a job as an errand runner at White’s.