The Curse of the Brimstone Contract

by Corrina Lawson

  “That’s why I came to you. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Coming to me was quite the most intelligent thing you could have done. That may have staved off disaster, not only for you but for many others.” He paced the room in silence, holding her glove tight in his fist. Lost in his own world, she thought, as if he’d momentarily forgotten her existence.

  “What’s going on, sir?” she asked.

  He stopped pacing. “This is a knot that is nearly Gordian in nature. I cannot see clear to the solution yet, save that you and your family are in serious danger.”

  “I knew that already,” she snapped.

  “So you did and so you came to me. But now you have someone who agrees with you and will work to save you from the danger.”

  “A champion?”

  Sherringford knelt and grasped her hand again.

  “Sir?” She cleared her throat. Did he want her to submit to something indecent as part of his fee? “You caught me off-balance previously, but what you are doing now is a liberty that I have not granted.” Yet.

  But if he requested, she just might. This was the most stimulating conversation she had had in ages and certainly the most stirred she had ever felt by anyone’s touch.

  “Give me just one moment. This is necessary.” He brought her hands closer to his face. His warm breath tickled over her skin. His touch was light but firm. He slipped her other glove off, barely brushing her skin with his fingertips. She could not help but notice his long and delicate fingers.

  “You work with your hands.” He lightly tapped her calluses. “You hardly ever wear gloves.”

  Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “Of course I work,” she finally said, though her voice trembled.

  He fingered the seams of her gloves. “Where did you get these? They are most…interesting.”

  He had only touched her hands to examine the gloves? How disappointing. “I made the dress but hadn’t had time to sew matching gloves. These are a pair I made for a client.”

  “But the gloves were in the possession of your business for some time?” he asked.

  “Not in my personal possession but at the shop, yes, for about a week.”

  “I must keep these gloves,” he said.

  “No, you cannot, I—”

  “It is of the utmost importance. Lives are at stake, not just yours. Think of the late Lady Grey and how she deserves justice.”

  “The gloves are for one of our richest customers. There will be difficulties if they are lost. We cannot afford to lose this order. Our creditors will be at our door soon as it is.”

  “What you cannot afford is to throw away my help.” He straightened. He made no move to return the gloves and kept them clutched in his hand. “I must work.” He stared at her, intent again. “You have trusted me with all this, Miss Krieger, and you were right to do so.”

  “I hope so,” she muttered.

  The man was unnerving, intelligent, arrogant and intense. And attractive. Very attractive.

  “I’m touched at your faith in me.” He smiled, this time turning the full force of his personality on her. For the first time, his remote exterior completely disappeared, leaving her with a handsome champion. She suspected if he asked her anything short of murder, she might agree.

  “I have never turned away a Jewish seamstress, especially one who could see through my doorway illusion.” He grinned, brought the gloves up to his nose and sniffed. “Will you continue to trust me?”

  “Do I have a choice?” She smiled back.

  He snorted. “No.”

  “Well then.” She shrugged. She’d replace the gloves. Somehow.

  “Outstanding.” He held up a finger. “One last thing, it is important that no one knows you have come to see me.”

  “I told no one I was coming here.”

  “Keep it that way. Discretion may keep you from harm.”

  She nodded and stood. He raised her bare hand to his mouth and kissed the top of it. Her breath fluttered and, she suspected, so did her heart. “There’s one last thing I would have from you, Mr. Sherringford.”

  “Which is?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “You said I had magical talent. That begs explanation.” She looked him in the eye, having finally found her nerve.

  He reached out and lifted her heart-shaped pendant from where it was hanging over her breast. She swallowed hard and found it difficult to breathe.

  “This pendant was a gift from a family member?”

  “My grandmother.” He certainly liked to touch the things she was wearing.

  He let go of the pendant and stepped back. “It’s a magical focus, Miss Krieger. It’s designed to protect the wearer and focus their magical energy to keep them safe. If it is a family heirloom, you aren’t the first in your family to have this ability. The more magical energy an owner possesses, the better it works.”

  Oh. “And how much do I possess?”

  “Quite a lot. No doubt that is why the ruffians in my neighborhood left you alone. The pendant made their idea of your assault most unpleasant.”

  Quite a lot? “Magic kept me safe? How?”

  “The focus does exactly what it was designed to do: protect the wearer even if the mage talent isn’t wielded deliberately. Unless you have training, it’s impossible to do more than that with it. Alas, it is illegal to train those not of the noble classes. It is said the working men cannot be trusted with power.”

  There was an edge to that statement. “You don’t agree with that.”

  “I have seen too many noblemen misuse their power to believe that wrongdoing is solely limited to the rest of us.”

  “Will you train me?”

  Unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed. “I do believe it would be incredibly stimulating to train you, Miss Krieger, as well as exceedingly dangerous. But today is not the day. I must start to work on your problem, you must get back before being missed, and, in any case, training can take years.”

  “Training must start sometime.” Yes, she had to get back. She no longer cared about that. I have a mage gift.

  “As I said, training is dangerous, and even a very basic lesson would take more time than you have today. Keep wearing that pendant, however. All signs point to a mage being involved, given how Lady Grey was killed. The pendant is your first line of defense.”

  “Mr. Sherringford, I arrived on your door for help to solve a problem and, instead, all I have is more questions.”

  “I am told I have that effect,” he said. “Off you go.” He waved a hand at her dismissively. “Let me work.”

  “Just because I asked for help does not mean I will be content to sit back and do nothing but await your report. I’m not made for idleness.”

  He tilted his head and stared at her. She met his gaze, unflinching. It was quite, well, fun to challenge him.

  “All right,” he finally said. “Spend some time with Sir August Milverton. See if you can discern anything more about him other than his desire to marry you. His part in this could be larger.”

  “What should I look for in him?”

  “Sniff around for his motivations in all this. Gather as much information as you can. Your instincts are good. Follow them.”

  She set her jaw and nodded. Spending time with Sir August was the last thing she wanted. But if it solved the mystery, she would.

  “You’re a brave woman, Joan Krieger,” he said. “Just pray that the knowledge to solve this conundrum does not cause more trouble than you already have at your door.”

  Chapter Five

  After promising to be in touch as quickly as possible, Sherringford escorted Joan from his office to a cab already waiting in the street.

  “How is it that you have a cab ready for me?” she asked. “Some kind of magic?”

  “How not?” He took her elbow, saw her safely aboard the horse-drawn hansom cab and departed.

  Off-balance from his cryptic answer, she settled back into the passenger seat. Lady Gr
ey had been murdered, somehow, by something Joan herself had made. She possessed magic. More, her grandmother had given her a magical “focus”.

  Any one of those revelations would have roiled her brain. All together…she could barely think. She must clear her head, somehow, to make sense of it all. Perhaps that pile of clothing awaiting mending next to her sewing machine would work.

  In the meantime, she stared at the world around her. It seemed less—or perhaps more—real now.

  It had been years since Joan had ridden in a hansom cab. In the upper-class sections of London, the cabs were all steam powered. Her nose wrinkled at the unfamiliar animal smell but she had to admit the clip-clop sound of hooves on cobblestones was nicely soothing. A pattern to concentrate on so she could think of little else. London had grown so quiet with the advent of the steam vehicles. As if responding to the lower noise level, Joan had found people had lowered their voices on the street as well.

  The din had diminished, leading to a much more eerie feeling on the days where the fog shrouded London in grey. Today, at least, the sun shone. People smiled at each other on the street. It was good to have winter over.

  When they were a block from Krieger & Sims, Joan asked to be let out. As the driver helped her down from the cab, she could not resist indulging her curiosity. “How is it you knew to be waiting outside Mr. Sherringford’s home for a fare?”

  “Milord keeps us on retainer, miss,” the driver said. “We take shifts and keep watch on the light set in the second floor of his building. When it goes on, we know he needs us.” He smiled. “But usually it’s him himself demanding to go somewhere fast. This was a pleasant change of pace and passenger, miss.”

  “Thank you.” Milord, the cabby had said. Odd, given Sherringford had not even wanted to be called sir. “Why did you name Mr. Sherringford ‘Lord’?”

  “’Cause he is one, no matter how much he says we need to call him ‘mister’, he’s a lord, for certain,” the driver said. “Younger son of a duke, I hear. My boy who takes the night shift knows which one but I get all t’names mixed up. But my boy drove milord to his family’s estate one time.”

  How interesting. What was the younger son of a duke of the realm doing playing detective and scientist in such a backward spot and denying his rank? Now she even doubted whether he was using his real name. She thought back to Sherringford’s manner during their meeting. Imperious, yes, but serious. No, he was not playing at all. He must have his reasons, though she could not fathom yet what might drive such a man. She wondered if it had anything to do with his possible Indian heritage.

  “Lord Sherringford is trustworthy, then?” she asked.

  “Completely,” the driver answered. “He got my boy out of a spot of trouble last year. He might be odd and all, and there’s some that call him foreign, but I’d trust him with m’life.”

  “Thank you,” she said and set off down the street. Sherringford certainly knew how to engender trust.

  She kept her head down to avoid being recognized and slipped over to a side street that led to the back delivery entrance of her family shop. Their current lack of business helped her, as no one was in sight. Once, the street would have teemed with deliverymen bearing cloth and other materials. Now, no more deliveries would come unless the funds to purchase the goods came first.

  Her key opened the back entrance.

  Home.

  She flew up the steps to her second-floor room at the top of the stairwell, rushed inside and locked the door behind her.

  She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She had been able to stay calm all morning but now that she was safely home, her nerves could no longer be stilled.

  She had done it! She crossed her arms over her chest to still their tremors and thought about Sherringford’s caress of her hands. It was well he did not take advantage of her. Only just now did she realize the enormity of the risk. He could have easily overpowered and taken her.

  If he wanted.

  But no, he had believed her. He’d told her she had a mage gift. He had taken her case.

  And if she had wanted him to take her?

  She shook her head, rueful. That kind of misbehavior would only make her situation worse.

  She took off the pendant and stared at it. Sherringford claimed she was a mage, potentially a powerful one. Yet he had also said training her was illegal. Hah. He didn’t seem to be a man who played by rules. As soon as this was over, she would insist that he train her. Or find someone who would.

  Someone knocked at her door.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes?”

  “It is Mr. Roylott, miss.”

  Despite his professional status with Krieger & Sims, it was most unseemly of him to seek her out in her room. “You overstep your bounds, Mr. Roylott.”

  “I know, Miss Krieger, but your mother was looking for the new gloves for Lady Eleanor Glass,” he said. “I thought you might know where they are.”

  “Oh, those gloves.” Joan looked down at her bare hands. “I spotted some uneven stitching on the seams yesterday and brought them up here to fix.” Drat the man for asking for the one thing she did not have. At least she could give a reasonable explanation. She was the best hand in the house, and everyone knew it. If only her life depended on her sewing, rather than her marriage, she would not be in this fix.

  “You should have let us know you had the gloves, miss.” Roylott’s voice was muffled by the wood of the door.

  Go away, she thought. “Why? Delivery is a week away.” She unbuttoned her dress, pulled it off and laid it over the table next to her sewing machine. “What is the rush?”

  She slipped her everyday dress over her underclothing and tucked her grandmother’s heart-shaped pendant under her dress. From now on, she would not take it off. Her grandmother had insisted that she have it. Had she recognized another mage, or at least someone with the underlying gift?

  But if none outside of the noble class were trained as mages, it begged the question of how her grandmother had known enough to gift her with the pendant.

  “Our customer came looking for the gloves today, miss,” Roylott said. “I think she was seeking a chance to back out of the deal due to, well, our current circumstances. Your mother tried to reassure her.”

  “Is the customer still here?” Disaster. She’d have to say she’d ruined the gloves.

  “No, thankfully, the client accepted your mother’s explanation that her gloves were receiving your personal attention. And Emily helped. The two of them were able to placate the lady.”

  Her mother had a fine touch with clients. Add in Emily, whom everyone loved, and they could melt stone. She frowned. First, it was her mother’s place to tell her this. Second, their client had left at least semisatisfied. Yet Roylott pestered her.

  Joan pinned back her hair and opened the door to Roylott. The man stumbled back, as if he’d had an ear pressed to the door. Spying, she thought. He might suspect she’d gone out alone. “How was I to know that the client would want her gloves so soon?”

  “I simply wanted to tell you to finish tonight. She may be back tomorrow.”

  Joan closed the door behind her and stepped into the hallway. “This could have waited a few hours. Yet you intruded on me. Why?”

  “I worried about you, after what happened yesterday.”

  Ah, yes. Her father’s assault. “What happened yesterday with my father has happened before and you have never stood as my champion. Why now?”

  “If I could help you, I would,” Roylott said, his voice near a whisper. He glanced at the door to her parents’ room at the end of the hallway. “I’m very sorry about your situation, miss.”

  “This is the first I am aware of that.” Roylott was precise and logical, not empathetic. He also never stood up to her father. She had been the one to take the blow yesterday in lieu of her mother. Roylott had done nothing, as usual.

  Sherringford’s sympathy about her bruises had made her realize that she despised Roylott for his i
naction. She cared not if it was because he was afraid of being fired by her father when he recovered his wits or if Roylott felt it was not his place. The proper sort of man would not have allowed the mistreatment.

  “My well-being is no concern of yours, as you have always made clear.” She swept past him, going back down the stairs that she had rushed up only moments ago. He followed at her heels, not taking the hint to leave her alone.

  Roylott turned to her as they reached the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. His round face was caught in a long frown. He rubbed his thinning hair away from his eyes. Joan had always thought, with his small stature, that he resembled an oversize dwarf. Their clients loved his careful attention to detail, which was why her father held him in such high esteem. No word of the real nature of her father’s illness had leaked out from him. But for the first time, she wondered what had led to her father hiring him.

  “What is it now, Mr. Roylott?” she asked, cautious.

  “Will you agree to marry Sir August Milverton?”

  “Is that what you really wanted to discuss after all?”

  “I know it’s not my place. I will have my say despite that.”

  “Obviously.”

  Roylott lowered his voice. “’Tis not right, what your father does. Milverton seems overly fixated on you.”

  “He would have to be, to seek a wife so far out of his class.”

  “Too much attention can turn into obsession. I would rather the family find another solution to the monetary difficulties.”

  “Are you offering to help me halt the marriage?” She could have misjudged him. She’d thought he was just standing by. He might help, after all.

  He blinked. “I would if I could. Pardon my familiarity, but I’ve come to think of you as a favorite niece. It nearly makes me ill to think of you unhappy.”

  Careful. Roylott could be sincere, and she could not afford to turn away any help. “Are you saying you can change my father’s mind on my marriage or that you know of another way to solve our financial difficulties?”

  “No, miss. But I wish that I could,” he said fervently.