Besides her father's morning stumble into the shared room of the suite and the smell of whiskey wafting from the water closet, Saira was alone for the entire week, attending the follow-up Sittings and arranging for funds to be transferred by promissory note to Bath. On their last day, (which luckily, Saira had not booked for a Sitting) George Russell stopped on his way into the loo.

"Saira," he said.

She put down the paper she was reading, open to a review in praise of The Shroud's appearance at the Duchess's ballroom near Hyde Park. They'd called her 'fascinating' and 'mysterious', and 'offering words of comfort and assurances with frightening accuracy and aplomb'. Other than the word 'frightening', Saira flushed with pride at the rest of it. "Yes, Father?"

"I would like you to accompany me to dinner with friends. Wear something nice," he said. "Four-thirty."

The request felt… wrong. For one, he was looking at her… actually looking in her direction with an assessing gaze he normally reserved for the race results. She couldn't shake the feeling that something larger than a dinner was going on, specifically because he had never invited her to go out with him in public. Not since her mother's passing, anyway.

She almost wanted to tell him that she had a sinking feeling about that evening, and that perhaps he shouldn't go either. But instead, she bit her tongue and nodded demurely, in the manner to which he was accustomed. In eleven months… only ten months in a week and a half, since she'd started counting the days, she would no longer have to yield to any of her father's wishes. What was one more request?

It was only a dinner, Saira kept telling herself as she fluffed out the skirts of a yellow evening gown Mrs. Lanchester had lent to her for her trip. The front-lacing short stays were simple enough to fasten herself, and she loved the fitted, elbow length sleeves and lack of train in the back, making the outfit ideal for travel later that evening. But when she turned to face the mirror, her cheeks heated at the lift the half-cups had given, combined with the deep plunge of the bodice front. It was far from anything her aunties would call 'modest'.

Because she had no other suitable outfit (unless she wanted to be The Shroud at dinner), she wrapped a shawl securely around her shoulders and spent a few minutes worrying less about how much was exposed below her neck and more about the fact that the timing of this dinner might have been ill-advised. The coach was scheduled to leave at six. Maybe everything would turn out, as long as the dinner started on time. So Saira did the respectable thing. The obedient daughter thing. She tipped the porter to pack her father's room and load the hired coach.

And then she wrote notes of gratitude to the Shroud's hostesses, thanking them for their hospitality.

And checked out of the hotel rooms, returning the keys.

And watched as every man in a coat and hat who passed by the hotel window turned out to not be her father.

And waited.

Every minute that ticked by was another worry. What was he up to? Why was he late? Would the coach leave without them if he didn't show?

When he ambled down the road at half-past five, she was surprised to see him well-dressed and in abnormally high spirits.

"Ah, wonderful!" he said in greeting. "We shall take the carriage to dinner!"

"I thought we were leaving town at six," she said as politely as she could, unable to imagine any dinner concluding within thirty minutes.

"Meeting friends for a last hurrah," he told her, climbing up next to the driver and unceremoniously displacing the second coachman to sit at the boot. "It's not far, I'll direct you."

Saira got into the coach by herself, ducking between the hanging lanterns. She slid next to the travel furs laid out to stave off the evening chill. She had a sinking feeling about this dinner and these friends of her father's, but had nothing to prove that her nerves were justified. It was like she was a coin, finally discovering her hidden side that relied on grit and determination, abruptly flipped back to the face of the dutiful daughter who never had her own opinion… who never spoke up… who never caused ripples in the Russell reflecting pool, allowing her father to make enough trouble for the lot of them.

The coach turned down Bow Street, and Saira tried not to look at the Theater, the knot in her gut tightening at the memory of her father's disgrace from years before. She could still hear the Baroness's tirade after the scandal broke. Felt the shame rising in her cheeks, the hurt as the Burton's Governess ushered Matilda back inside when Saira's coach pulled away from their estate.

She had been so young, known so little. And she'd never attended the Theater since.

And now…

The carriage turned onto Maiden Lane and stopped in front of a place with lit up windows and music coming from inside.

Saira cautiously slid off the seat, paid the driver extra shillings for the expected delay, and then stopped and turned, reaching into her reticule. She put two Guineas into the second coachman's hand who had held the door open for her. "Please wait for us," she whispered.

He nodded and tipped his cap. "I'll do what I can, Miss." She followed her father inside, where a butler ushered them up the stairs "to the Edward", a room too formal for a farmer, too domestic for a Duke. Curtains shielded them from the downstairs view, ensuring that no one witnessed who came and went. She followed her father to a parlor-sized room set up for cards, acrid smoke lingering in the air, burning her lungs. She tried to console herself that cigars didn't addle the brain like alcohol, and she should count her blessings in whatever form they appeared.

Her father's 'friends' were all older men, already seated around the table, some having at least a decade or more over Mr. Russell, with graying beards, patched hair and overblown noses. As they rose in greeting, she noted that each of them subscribed to the outdated fashion of band collars and stiff stocks, and even older money, if the collection of thick signet rings was any sign. She rarely judged by appearance or age, so when one of them offered his hand, Saira took it.

Her smile vanished. Her mind clawed for purchase in the barrage of images from the hand she just shook. A parade of faces… spurned women… broken promises. She almost couldn't keep her feet under her long enough to sit down.

But that wasn't the worst of it. As she clung to the arm of the chair she found herself in, drinking the glass that was lifted to her lips, Saira tried, and failed to shut out the rest of it. Somehow, Seeing into him opened the dam of the rest of the men around the table, with their own sordid illustrations of how this evening would go. Drinking… coins… later, giving those coins to needy women for unmentionable favors…

"Are you well, Miss Russell?"

Saira forced herself to focus on the question. A server in a crisp white apron was holding a water glass up to her, worry in his face. None of the other men around the room had even looked at her. They were already throwing in their antes.

She nodded wordlessly, because what else could she do? There was nowhere for her to go except this chair. She was waiting for her father to be done here so that they could go home.

"I will be fine. Thank you," she said to him.

And then reeled again. Unbidden images came at her. Unsure of their origin, Saira tried to push them away… Ladies in perpetual waiting… waiting… forever waiting on husbands who cared little for their time, their talents, or their concerns. Ladies who truly despaired in their arranged lives, and the men who assumed… or didn't even care… that they were content.

Saira would hate herself if she ever despaired.

When the images faded, Saira tried to settle her nerves by breathing steadily through her nose. Occasionally, the smoke would get too thick, and she had to cough through it. The dinner was fair, cornish hens with potatoes, served on trolleys next to the card tables to not upset the game. She held her plate half in her lap, and reminded herself that the carriage was waiting right outside, packed with all their things. In just a little while, they would be on their way back to Bath.

Meanwhile, these were the men with whom George Russell spent his time. These were the men George Russell wanted to impress.

Saira wanted to get as far away from these men as possible.

"Feeling better?"

Saira jerked away from the voice at her left. "I beg your pardon?"

"My apologies." He was a sleeker breed than the rest of the portly table, not overtly overweight, not outwardly pompous. His hair had already turned a silver sheen, and his eyes seemed at least ten degrees kinder than the rest of the table. "Lord Robert Ashbrook," he murmured, "since no one is making introductions tonight."

Saira overlooked the outstretched hand, since she had already made that mistake once this evening. "Saira Russell," she said reluctantly, as if she was giving something untoward away.

He neither looked nor acted like Garfield, but all the same, his thoughts were deafening, and Saira wished the distance between them was farther than the width of a chair.

She would prefer the width of a chasm. In a flurry of images, she knew, without a touch or question, that the recently widowed Lord had come to this table actively seeking a replacement wife. He intended to address her privately as "Harriet" (no matter her given name) in honor of his runaway mistress who had left the estate for 'milk' last month and never returned.

To Saira's abject horror, Lord Robert Ashbrook was the most honorable man in the room.

Ten minutes later… and then a half hour after that, she still sat in that smoke-filled room, having watched her father down a large share of the wine. When the server topped off his glass, she finally found her words. "Father, the carriage is waiting."

"Surely your carriage can wait for one more round," Ashbrook said, barely having touched his half full glass while Russell downed whatever they had put in his goblet. Her father was miraculously up this hand, not by much, but still ahead of his initial ante, having won two hands out of the three already. This was good. They could leave with Mr. Russell's finances in the black for once.

"Father, we really should depart," Saira said.

"The good Looord," he said, patting Ashbrook's shoulder, "has promised to cover the expense of our meals if I joined him in a round of Cribbage," Russell said, smiling. His addition of o's should have been enough to cut him off the drink, but Saira already saw a server come from behind with his 'friends' all motioning to fill his glass again.

"I don't think the carriage will wait for Cribbage," Saira angled. She hadn't paid the driver near enough to wait in the street for a full dinner either, but hoped that the good-natured jarvey was holding the reins for them after her substantial tip.

"Just one more hand," he said, his speech slurring gently. "I feel my luck is changing."

If Five, or any decent gentleman, were here, he would accompany her out of this place, away from these people, for her own comfort.

But none of these men were interested in her comfort. A year ago, Saira would have sat obediently, enduring whatever was to come with gritted teeth, pasting a fake smile on her face and waiting patiently to scream into her pillow in private later.

But now…

She honestly wanted to get right up and walk out, consequences be damned… and now Five was talking in her head… which, if she was honest with herself, she welcomed. Clearly, he would have up and left, expecting her to do the same. Expecting her to take care of herself.

An image of Garfield… Garfield of all people… popped into her head… plowing through the Garden Party… interrupting her tea… If she had rejected Garfield so easily, she sure as all the stars in the sky wouldn't accept Lord Ashbrook.

Saira had that right of refusal. She was going to refuse. Right. Now.

"Please excuse me," she said directly to her father, interrupting some joke he was failing to tell the graying man on his other side. She touched his hand briefly, staying him from throwing in the next ante. Pleading him to follow her now, before he could ruin her already-ruined last evening in London.

"I'm going to the coach."

Without waiting for permission, she rose. Ashbrook rose with her and tipped his hat. The others barely noticed, speaking to their inebriated state. She avoided the gaze of the server and hurried down the stairs and into the night.

***

The dusty streets, the churning gutters, the smoke rising from the alleys where the vagabond fires burned… Saira welcomed all of it, finally able to breathe. She made her way to the opposite side of the road where the coachman sat with the hired carriage.

He brightened when he saw her and jabbed his partner with an elbow to wake him. "All ready to go, Miss?"

"I… My father is still…"

"Saira!" Her father had followed on unsteady legs. "You cannot leave yet! We still have the arrangements to make…"

"We have already made the arrangements. I checked out of our room and the footman loaded our carriage. It is hours past our departure time."

"You misunderstand," he said. "I need you."

Something about his tone carried a meaning deeper than his words. Saira took a cautious step away from him. "I do not think I will go back in there," she said warily. "I will wait for you in the carriage."

"You must!" He grabbed her arm, and she Saw more things she wished she hadn't.

Matilda had been right. After the 'sure deal' with Garfield had fallen through (Saira's doing, which she couldn't help being proud of), Russell had been angling for a different settlement. He hoped this game would win him enough to pay the taxes for the estate, but if he lost, she was to wed the victor, with his taxes paid in full anyway. He would keep the estate and unload his familial responsibilities at the same time. For him, it was a sure win. For Saira, it was an immediate prison sentence.

She tore her arm out of his grasp, anger overriding her composure. "You must stop this at once! I am not your wagering chip!"

"But Saira… this could save us."

Here, in close proximity to her father, Saira was too raw to push away the stark images filling her mind. Russell's thoughts swirled around a chapel wedding, a joyful celebration, and then an empty house… his burdens lifted… all except for the depth of his grief. She Saw him, older and alone, visiting her mother's grave and sobbing into the dirt. He didn't like this arrangement. He didn't even want it, but in his mind, it was his only way forward. Even now, he had to know that none of this would be a happy arrangement for her, not the way her mother had wanted. He only knew the size of those mens' accounts, and nothing about the state of their characters.

But Saira was not to be wagered or won. She would neither be the entertainment, nor the prize. If he thought this was saving them, he was sorely mistaken.

"You have done nothing for my benefit in years. Get into the carriage, Father. We are leaving now." She did not relish traveling with him in his drunken state. But she was not going back inside that Hell disguised as a dinner club.

She expected an explosion. She expected shouted demands, or his face to turn to stone… anything that would match his exterior to the coldness that she'd felt every time he passed by without acknowledgement since her mother's death.

But he didn't even give her that.

Saira's whole body trembled as, right there in the street, George Russell swayed in the dim carriage light, red-rimmed eyes wavering from the carriage to the Club. As always, he gave her nothing at all. Not even his anger.

Well, that was too bad, because Saira Russell had banked enough anger over the years for the both of them. It was well past time to cash it all in.

"What was your plan?" Saira asked, heat rising in her cheeks. "Marry me off to a debtor, sell off the estate, and, what? This will only save you for the short time it takes for you to fall into another hole of debts."

"It's for the best, Saira. For all of us. The contract has been drawn. I made a deal."

Her hackles rose in alarm. "What sort of deal did you arrange?"

"For your hand, they would pay the estate off. I would live modestly."

"Would you?" she threw her hands up in the air, regarding their surroundings. The hired coach. The private restaurant they just left. "This is no modest lifestyle that you portray!"

"It could be," he said, a whine creeping into his tone. "With all the debts paid and my obligations settled…"

"What of my aunties?" she prodded. "Did you arrange for your debtor to take them in as well?" She knew he had not, from what she had Seen in Garfield's mind at the breakfast, but she was loath to believe her father would do such a thing as to separate her from the only family that still cared for her.

Oh, but he had. "The contract includes two tickets back to India." He said it like he was speaking to a banker, or a bookie. Not like he was talking to his daughter, whose family he was tearing apart.

A stone had lodged itself in her throat, and she forced herself to swallow the heavy weight before she could speak again. "Back to… you are sending them away?"

Aunty Rame and Aunty Bava would not stand for it. They would protest, and right here in the street, Saira would protest on their behalf. For the first time in her life, she raised her voice in defiance against her father.

"Stop this nonsense at once, and come home with me. Please!"

"I… cannot. I will not. The contract is already signed. The special license was drawn this morning. You will marry tomorrow."

"Tomorrow…" Saira whispered. No, that could not be. Her feet backed her up against the door to the coach, and she grappled for the door handle.

She was going home. Tonight.

"And with the debts settled, your aunts will be escorted to their ship. They will be taken care of. And so will you."

"Escorted?" she blurted out, loud enough for the jarveys on the next street over to hear. She didn't care, because her father's words made no sense to her. "In shackles? Because that was the only way Rameswari and Bavagna would get on a ship leaving England… leaving me!"

George Russell's expression remained neutral. He was just going to do this. He had taken her away from her home. Away from her aunties and anyone who could protect her from this forced… arrangement… and he expected her to comply because her aunties were getting a ticket back to India?

"Was this what you thought was best for us? Or is it best for you not to concern yourself with us any longer? You have ruined Avonburgh House, and now you have ruined this family!" She almost spat her words into the street. Matilda's high and mighty Baroness mother could happen along, and it still wouldn't stop Saira from saying everything on her mind that she had been holding back for so long… disgracing a grown man, her own father, in the street. There was no lower disgrace than what he had planned for her.

"I hope there is room in your contract for your own way back to Bath." Saira spun around and looked up at the slack-jawed driver, who gulped down his own opinion and gave her a curt nod. He was both willing and able to take her away from here.

"Saira."

She turned at the plea in her father's voice.

In that moment, Saira Saw her father's imagined future, a ruined man on the edge of even more ruin, as if he expected his bad luck to run him into the ground. Saira Saw herself, so much like her mother, and her heart ached at the picture through his eyes… and then the picture shifted, Showing her that he recognized the truth. His shame was a swath of darkness, a mess of poor decisions and even worse luck. And at the bottom of it all were the shattered pieces of every promise he had ever made.

If he had not intended to ruin her along with him, she almost… almost could have felt sorry for him.

"Before you go, do you have… anything remaining of the pin money I gave you?"

Already raw with emotion, Saira nearly choked on the quaint scene from his perspective, of her accepting a small pouch from him on her last birthday. That had been over a month ago, with nothing given before or since. In his mind, it had been a sacrifice. He'd skipped the Assembly Room games that day.

In reality, he'd come out of his study, mumbled 'happy birthday', and placed a small pouch in her hand. Then he'd turned on his heel and locked himself back in his study. He'd read her startlement as demureness and her shocked silence as gratitude.

His 'gift' had lasted no longer than a half-day at Market. She'd barely had enough for a new length of hat trim and a set of secondhand gloves, which she mended herself, and that was after Mrs. Lanchester's apprentice discount.

She didn't have the time or energy to sift through all the ways Mr. Russell's deluded mind had watercolored his absentee relationship with her over the years, or how his grief had overshadowed his duties.

Aunty Bava and Aunty Rame in Bath…

The coachman who had all her belongings packed and ready…

That sham of a dinner, where one of those old men would handily force her into their carriage at the end of the night…

Five (who might not be waiting for her, but she imagined it anyway, if only to steel her resolve) telling her to take care of herself…

Those were all the reasons that Saira reached into her reticule, grabbed a handful of Shroud-earned coins, and threw them at her father's feet.

Her stomach churned at the way he scrambled to his knees in the gutters, sorting through the filth to pick out the coins. But then the flurry abated. Bleary eyes focused on her fully, perhaps for the first time.

Saira blanched at his assessing gaze. Of all the times she'd wanted him to look at her like she meant something, as if she held value other than a negative drain on the family coffers, this was not it. She didn't need her Gift to Show her what scenarios ran through his head, or what his opinions of those scenarios may be.

But it was too late to block out the images as George Russell took the time to think of her as his daughter, and all the means by which a young woman acquired copper, silver.. He wiped grime off the Guinea, marveled at its shine in the street lamp. He looked back down at the gold coins scattered in the street… enough to cover half of Mr. Tinley's quarterly wages… and then aimed his red-rimmed eyes at her. Slowly, he rose, holding the coin between them.

"Where did you get this?"

Without a word, she got into the carriage and pounded the roof until the big wheels started turning.

Tears stung at the edge of her eyes, but she didn't allow herself to cry until she saw the sign marking the edge of London town, knowing that she was truly away from that place where her father tried to sell her out. Had he always been this man? Had he ever been kind and good? Had he ever truly loved her?

Let him think what he wants of me, she thought furiously. It served him right that he should have to wonder how desperate she might have become during the years of his neglect. She'd Seen what the women of London had to do to keep food on the table and stay off the streets. Saira was lucky to have her aunties and her Gift. And she had her plan.

She stared out the window, watching the lights of the city fade away. By the stars, her mother… her mother would be horrified! Had Gautami Russell's Gift been as blind to George Russell's true nature as Saira was blind to Five?

That was not something she could allow herself to think about right now.

She wrapped herself inside the fur lined carriage blanket, shielding herself not as much from the evening chill as from whatever unknown consequences awaited her back in Bath. She didn't know what state her father would be in the next morning, or how long it would take him to get back to Bath.

If he returned to Bath.

And who would follow… Saira tried not to imagine a prison coach with her locked inside, carted off to some unknown manor by some unknown Lord (which, even now, she believed her father would never do, but those men around that table easily had the wherewithal and lack of scruples to arrange it, sentencing her to a life-term of forced wifery).

Saira could no longer wait ten months and eleven days. If George Russell was this desperate tonight, what would he be capable of a week from now… a month?

She had vowed not to get trapped into a life dictated by a man. Despite her best efforts, it was happening. Had she ruined everything? If she had been braver and Seen her father's truth sooner…

Would she have sacrificed her last few hours with Matilda and refused to go to London?

Would that have stopped him from thinking he could get away with selling her off and sending her aunties away?

She and her aunties needed to leave Avonburgh as soon as possible.

He knew about her money.

If he got his hands on it… if he found out how she was earning it… In the worst-case scenario she had imagined inside her head, he would make her continue to earn it, and take every shilling for himself.

This was the thing she had been afraid of. The reason she'd kept all of her earnings a secret. The reason her father didn't know about The Shroud. In her one moment of losing her composure, she had given away her own secret to the one man who could ruin her.

To the one man who was already trying to ruin her.