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Mama had once said.
    Besides, Nick was no Mr. Darcy.
    But she was glad to have done it; it was good to know that something as seemingly simple as a kiss could draw the will straight out of you. And she thought she now understood how Mama, who had been a lady longer ago than anyone could remember, could have come to marry a man like Papa and stay with him even through the loss of everything.
    When Lily reached McBride’s shop, she stopped and waited a moment to allow her indignant heart to slow its pumping before she pushed open the door.
    McBride was vigorously scrubbing at something on the counter with a cloth; the movement made what was left of his gray hair spin out from his head like streamers on a maypole. He looked up when he heard the door open, and when he saw Lily his face split into a delighted open-mouthed smile, revealing teeth and gaps where teeth used to be in equal measure.
    “Oi, Lily me love, and when oh when will ye be me bride?”
    “Oi, McBride, I’m assemblin‘ me trousseau even now.”
    “Yer troo-sew !” He cackled appreciatively. “Ah, Lily, ye’ve a wit about ye, ye do. Say more things to me in that voice of yers. Like smoke from a fine cigar, it is. A man could forget ‘is troubles jus’ listenin’ to ye speak.”
    “And ‘ow would ye know any thin of fine cigars, McBride?” Lily teased. “Or troubles?” He always made a great fuss about her low, distinctive voice, insisting it belonged in the body of an expensive courtesan and not a mere slip of a girl.
    “Ah, Lily, the things I once knew…” His eyes went dreamy for a moment from memories, or perhaps from the bottle of gin he’d had with his midday meal. “Well, and what have ye brung me today? Nay, dinna touch the wood here,” he said hurriedly, when Lily moved to rest her elbows upon the counter. “I’ve spilt summat what will take yer skin right off.”
    Among other things, McBride was an apothecary. He specialized in treating ailments brought about by indiscriminate lovemaking, but he also offered a range of elixirs for those unable to make love at all. “I’ve summat fer the ups, and summat fer the downs,” he maintained cheerfully. His clientele spanned all social classes and he charged them ridiculous sums for his cures. They were usually desperate enough to pay it and too mortified to ever complain if the cures didn’t precisely work as advertised.
    Lily looked askance at the noxious vapor rising up from the little pool on the counter. From the looks of things, the potion would cure the problem by eliminating the anatomical source of it forever.
    “A cure for piles?” she guessed.
    “A cure fer the pox. Needs a little work yet. Have ye any goods fer me today, me love?” McBride also made a tidy living as a trafficker in stolen things.
    Lily dipped her hand into her apron pocket and spilled her day’s slim haul onto the counter a safe distance from the wisping puddle of pox cure: a watch fob and two silver buttons.
    “Is it gold?” she asked McBride eagerly when he poked a long finger at the watch fob.
    “Hmm… I dinna ken, luv. I’ll give ye four shillings fer it.”
    “Four shillings!” Lily was indignant. “And do ye take me fer a fool, now, McBride?” They both took great pleasure in the haggling.
    “Four shillings ha’pence, then.”
    “Five shillings,” Lily insisted. McBride glared at her, outraged. She glared back.
    “Five shillings, then.” He sighed. “Lily, me love, ‘tis cruel ye be.”
    Lily snorted and held out her palm. She suspected she was benefiting from McBride’s soft heart. He’d tried before to give her more money man her haul warranted, but she was not foolhardy enough to protest today—not when she and her sister, Alice, needed to eat Besides, at the rates McBride charged for his potions, he could probably afford to buy a town house in St. James Square.
    “And a shilling for the buttons,” she added.
    McBride sighed and begrudgingly counted the coins out into her