A few days after the charitable endeavor in Shoreditch, Fletcher Walker and Elizabeth Black dropped in to take supper with them. Gemma felt almost like a regular gentry mort, playing hostess to fine guests. Except Fletcher sounded as London as she did. No one hearing the two of them would’ve believed they were anything but riffraff.

Elizabeth hailed from outside London, the only child of a fine-feathered family and now the headmistress of a respectable school in London. Fletcher and Elizabeth seemed terribly mismatched. Unless one watched ’em together—then it became clear how perfect they were for each other.

“I’m sorry I ain’t read any of your novels,” Gemma said to Elizabeth. “I ain’t illiterate, mind you. I simply haven’t coin for books. I’d likely not be able to twig what they was about as it is.”

Elizabeth didn’t turn up her nose at that. “Thank the heavens we live in a time when there are offerings available for all tastes and preferences and incomes. Stories are such wonderful things.”

“I keep telling her she ought to chuck her bonnet in the penny dreadful ring. I’d wager she’d be proper good at it.” Fletcher tossed a wink to Elizabeth, who shook her head at the tease and smiled.

Some of the fine and fancy writers would likely be offended by the suggestion, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind.

“Iffen you’re itching to dance that jig,” Gemma said, “you’d do well to spin tales of something other than medical mysteries and oddities. I understand there’s a writer what has already made a name for himself in that category.” She twitched her head in Baz’s direction, though not the least subtly.

“There is, indeed,” Baz said. “But he’s rubbish at it.”

At that, laughter rang out from all of them. Baz didn’t always let himself join in a jest, but the rare sound of his laughter was one of her favorite memories of him.

“Was Barnabus publishing his stories when you two first met?” Elizabeth asked. “I confess, I’m not certain when either began.”

“I had dabbled a little,” Baz said. “But I hadn’t had the right push to take the full leap until—”

“Until Gemma gave you that push?” Fletcher asked.

Gemma wasn’t certain about that. She had nudged him.

Barnabus nodded. “Every time I told her that I was certain the story I was writing wouldn’t go anywhere, she said I wouldn’t know until I tried, that new things were always the most daunting before they were started, and that I oughtn’t give up on myself. I don’t know that anyone has ever expressed such faith in me.”