I'll Be Watching You

2. Every Move You Make...

All this week, it had been home to hack, hack to printer, printer to hack, hack to home. 

Colin had almost become bored with it. But he'd take that boredom a hundred times over any variation on it.

He supposed he'd become too used to this routine by now that he took it in stride. Sometimes he had to stop and remind himself that this was no street-wise maid. This was Miss Penelope Featherington. And she was a proper young lady. And she was out after midnight.

Colin growled under his breath, no longer able to stand there waiting, stalking toward the print shop. He usually kept his distance, but things were different tonight and he'd damned well like to know why.

He stared at the shrouded window, a muffled version of their nightly argument becoming clearer as he drew closer, clutching his walking stick... not that he need it to walk. It had other uses.

The glass was soaped over, but he could see inside at the edges. There she was, just like any night, that supposedly Irish maid of Lady Whistledown's banging her little fist on the counter, counting the coins, berating the man about the news-boys. That last seemed to be a constant point of contention for her.

From what he'd gathered, there had been some new system in the last year, involving the boys purchasing their pamphlets and keeping their earnings, since she didn't trust the printer to pay them properly, but apparently that had now gone awry.

"...and I thought this was to be fair," she said, the nameless maid— whatever she called herself, Colin had not caught it yet — poking a finger at him, "but from what I hear—"

"It is fair," the man groused. "They take home what they make.."

"I heard from one boy that ye make them pay three pence a paper," he heard her say now, practically growl at the much larger man. "What can they possibly take home, at five pence, if they don't sell 'em all?"

"I give them a reasonable price," the man said. "If they don't sell, that is their problem."

"And I heard from another, you make him pay four," she cut in. "That sound reasonable to you?"

Colin had once thought her foolish, tiny as she was, to threaten a man with such a hulking presence, but he'd seen by now that the much larger man was actually a little bit terrified of her.

As if to prove it, he paled now. "That is only during the first printing. They buy more, they try harder, they sell more. It is good business."

"I don't think you understand me." She planted her palms on the counter now, leaning toward him. "My mistress does not want these boys paying more than tuppence at any time."

"Tuppence?" the man spat. "So they make more than half while I—"

"Sit on your lazy arse pulling a lever while they run all over town," she said over him without hesitation. "Some of them have families that depend on them for food and shelter. Some of them have no families to go home to and can only sleep safely if they pay for the privilege."

"So? Is it my problem?"

"You are collecting more than they can afford to pay," she said hotly, "as you well know."

"And what is your mistress collecting?" The man grumbled, his voice defeated. Even Colin could see the supposed Irish maid had worn him down yet again.

The Maid drew up to her full height then, which wasn't much. "My mistress is collecting what she is due. Without her, there would be nothin' to sell. Best you remember that." She held out her hand. "Her takins, please?"