When Victoria hears that Joe's brought home another stray child, she's not even really surprised. He brings them home like puppies, and Macy doesn't seem to mind, but Victoria wonders if the thoughtless boy realizes how much of the work he leaves for her, with all his bleeding heart antics.

So maybe Victoria is a little frustrated on Macy's behalf, ( Read more... )

Greta held out the lemon for the middle Alex. He sniffed it and made a face. Greta tried not to laugh. "It's a lemon."

The smallest Alex was staring, and Greta held it out for him. His chubby fingers grabbed it and tried to lick it, and he made a curious face, unsure whether he liked it or not.

Over at the table, the eldest of the boys watched, ( Read more... )

Alex slips out of the workshop quietly--he knows where Marshall's gotten to, but if Macy finds he's snuck off to the docks again, none of them will get dessert over at Mike and Kevin's tomorrow night, and if Nick's baking, there is no way in hell Alex Johnson is missing that.

Singer's probably with him, too. Some role model he is, Alex thinks, ( Read more... )

Joe's talking about how much can be learned about the body from corpses, how much research has turned up recently after dissections. Victoria knows, though, where the dissected bodies came from; these 'experiments' have been going on for years, since she was a girl in the gutter who knew, just knew, that if she died where she was, her tiny child- ( Read more... )

In the end, Nick has to ask, "Are you enslaving Joe's kids?"

"What do you mean, 'his'? It's not like they belong to him. They belong to themselves. Also, they love it. Don't you love it, my little Alexes?"

The three skinny boys all nod furious before they go back to scrubbing tables. Nick scowls. "You know Kevin's opinions on making the kids work ( Read more... )

Singer is Macy's favourite, and Johnson has become Greta's apprentice, but it is Marshall that becomes Joe's shadow, always watching and learning, listening to the diagnoses and being helpful by first running messages, then boiling tools, then sitting in with the patients ( Read more... )

For all that she loves the business of serious espionage, simple gossip has always been something she appreciated, and Alex and Cash know how to do it right. And they're smart about it, too. They know how to cause a scene that sets a ball rolling that makes people go how they want One of the reasons Cash's such a good officer is he can see things ( Read more... )

Alex didn't see Cash off this morning--he always does, but he and Macy had been elbow deep in a new mixture, and Alex's head had been a million miles away when Cash put a hand on the small of his back and said, "Got to go now. See you later, Singer?"

He'd twisted around for a quick kiss goodbye, but he'd stuck around the apothecary to hammer out ( Read more... )

Cash had been taught that (despite his name), money was something to be hoarded and guarded and only let out under strict supervision.

Then Alex asked him to come along as he ran a few errands for Lady Saporta.

"A few errands," it seemed, translated into "get everything I need for an epic ball."

And whilst shopping for flower arrangements and catering ( Read more... )

She doesn't pick this Alex out, choose him to be her protege, set out to select an heir, but sometimes, she'll give him a little, secret smile, and he'll smile back. Sometimes she'll ask him what he's thinking about and let him go on about Greta's lessons in engineering or the stories Frankie brought home from his last trip. Sometimes, ( Read more... )