by Anne Mallory
He looked closely at all three faces, eyes narrowed. His lips pressed together hard enough to hurt due to what he read there. They had claimed her as one of their own.
He thought of six ways to insult a man’s mother.
But he would bend this, or break it, to his will, just as he did everything. Roman was always trying to coerce him into giving people what they thought they needed while taking everything he wanted, whereas Andreas would rather simply take what he wanted and be on with things.
He addressed Carrot-top. “Send Donald to me. Tell Lefty to put the building on medium lock starting now.” They would move the gaming tables on the ground floor to the hell on Third Street. Slowly, night by night. “Start spreading the rumor among the ranks that we are renovating here in order to expand.”
He needed to get the building secured. No more invited attempts—his lips thinned further, and the boys across from him shifted at the action—she had been right on that guess.
Now with his new . . . guests . . . he couldn’t skirt the edge of death. Not here.
“Who knows our guests are here?” he asked.
“No one, sir.” Carrot-top looked eager for redemption. “The lady asked real nice-like.”
He simply stared at the boy, tapping again.
“She requested our silence on the matter very politely. Sir,” came the belligerent addition from Tommy. Andreas shifted his gaze and gave the boy a dark look. Belligerence lifted the small chin, trying vainly to cover all other emotion. “And we’ve all held true to our word.”
Penetrating little gaze as if the bastard were daring him to say otherwise. Roman had been right to keep this boy away from him. It was like staring in a mirror that reflected one’s core personality instead of one’s face.
“You had better. Tell Lefty. Send Donald.” When they seemed to be waiting for additional instructions, he said somewhat more forcefully, “Leave.”
They exited the room in much the same ways they had entered. He half expected Tommy to send him a rude farewell gesture as he shut the door.
No one would guess the Paces were here from the procedures he was implementing. This was something most people in his position would have done long before now. Hell knew Cornelius cowered down like the rat he was when his location was known.
His enemies would simply think Andreas was scared. Let them. A cruel smile curved his lips. This would be over soon.
The smile abruptly dropped. Until then, he needed to maintain the safety of others. It was unnerving, really, that he was allowing her to stay. Had allowed the net to reach forth and tug him too, entwining him in his own plot.
Which turned his thoughts to the occupants upstairs. He had hoped the boys would trip over themselves to give any information, no matter how superfluous. They usually did, especially when he leveled that stare on them. But . . . tonight, though they had revealed the answers to his direct questions, they had been more reserved, as if they needed to watch what they said. She had infected them too. The large boy and scarred boy held that tight-laced zeal when speaking of her—like they would jump in front of a bayonet should one be pointed her way.
Stupid biscuits laced with warm poison.
He tapped his pen, then tossed it across the room. Shit.
He had no presumptions that any of the others would be less immune. He would search, though, and see anyway.
The bigger problem was that his mind kept saying that if he did find someone less than enamored of her, he should get rid of that person instead. The thought did not endear itself to him.
Andreas could hear Donald walking down the hall—identifying him by the sound of his long and even strides. Donald almost stood eye to eye with him.
“Enter,” he said before the stride fully stopped.
Donald slipped in, long hair sweeping across his forehead. He casually flung his head to remove the sweep, and it worked for a second, then slid back down. The hair had never changed, not since Andreas and Roman had met him when they were, what, seventeen? Yes. It had been just after the main street revolt. Seven years on the streets, and Roman and Andreas had been making headway toward taking them over.
He took the chair in front of Andreas and waited, his eyes steadily watching. Steadiness was why Donald was in charge of this particular hell. Their other hells had overseers as well, with Milton acting as a sort of overall manager and enforcer across the establishments. But this one, where Andreas lived and worked, had required someone who could deal with him on a day-to-day basis.
He was well aware of what an ass he was. Only Roman could tolerate him, really. Stupid, charming bastard.
“I am giving the order for a security lock. Medium now, full in a week.”
Donald just inclined his head, waiting.
“Have you observed our guests?” He couldn’t help his somewhat surly tone, not that he was trying to help it.
“Yes.” The normally stoic man surprised him by continuing. “They haven’t asked many questions. Yet.”
That questions would be asked eventually hung between them. Andreas didn’t shift though his leg pinched. Scratching. He’d have to visit Mathias soon.
“The girl is persistent though,” Donald added.
“I want to know who she is particularly close to among the staff here.” Who is besotted with her. Hell, they probably all were. Except Donald, who rarely broke his stoic façade. And Andreas. “And what questions she asks.”
Donald inclined his head, hair slipping a fraction more. “It will be done.” He watched Andreas for a moment. “And she and her family will be safe here,” he said, gaze steady, eyes just an extra bit bright.
Andreas nodded sharply back, dismissed him quickly, all while trying to hold back the curses layering his tongue at the words that were both said and unsaid. Donald was infected too.
Goddamn biscuits.
Chapter 10
Golden brown hair, lit by the light streaming in from the windows behind her, made him stare in shock for a moment. When he had encountered all three locks to his office door disengaged and free of scratches and gouges, he had envisaged a great many possibilities. Except this one.
Phoebe Pace sat in his chair, head bent over a ledger, a stack of invoices beside her, intense concentration on her features.
He hadn’t forgotten that she was living here for the unforeseeable future. How could he when he recalled every few seconds that she was sleeping just down the hall from him? But he had thought maybe he could avoid her.
Better that than to think of what deals had and could be made.
“What are you doing?” He had meant to bark it or hiss it or emit it the way some feral animal might. Instead, the question emerged strangled.
“Oh!” She looked up at him brightly. “Good morning, Mr. Merrick. I thought you might be abed a few more hours. You aren’t much of an early riser.”
He felt like snapping out something such as how he had gone to sleep three hours before and part of that was because he kept seeing her in his mind’s eye. He reined it in with difficulty.
“What are you doing?” he repeated darkly.
“I have been painstakingly working on these figures. Numbers are not my strength, unfortunately, but working diligently—long and hard—I believe I can meet even your exacting standards, Mr. Merrick.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. So he strode toward the windows and yanked the drapes closed, plunging the room into darkness, only slivers of light seeping through the edges.
“Too bright for a creature of the night?” she asked lightly.
He didn’t answer, lighting the lamps on his desk instead, as she smartly slipped into the seat on the visiting side.
“It is as if you are expecting an attack through a second-story window,” she mused. “As if someone might shoot you from a broken pane across the alley.”
“What are you doing in here?” His seat was still warm in the little space that had held her rear. He shifted.
She nodded at her p
ages. “Math. Or I was. It is hard to do anything with such little light. You are going to go blind, Mr. Merrick,” she said cheerfully.
“Why are you in my room?”
He didn’t ask how she had entered. Three sets of locks on the door open and unscratched. Either someone had let her in, or Roman had left a set of cranking master keys in his bedroom.
“I had thought your room was upstairs?” she said.
“My office,” he responded, in a more surly manner.
It looked like she tried to keep the smile from her face but then decided to let it bloom anyway. “I needed somewhere to work, and I wished to speak with you. Your office suited both desires.”
He could throw it in her face that the exchange had included her promise to leave him alone in order to stay in his brother’s rooms. But something about that smile prevented the words from emerging.
And that irritated him.
“Well, speak, then leave.” He started writing on a piece of free paper on his desk, tasks for the day, anything to keep him from looking at her.
“I would like to use some of your staff if you would allow it.”
“No.” She could probably cause the lot of them to revolt.
“Just for a few small tasks. Like taking Mr. Wiggles out for walks and relief, which I have commissioned help with already,” she said lightly.
He continued scrawling on the page. “You want them to look for your brother.”
She said nothing for a full minute, damned by the silence, even if he hadn’t been sure of her motive before. “Yes.”
“Do you think to find your brother in London? Not even a mudlark would help you now.”
The silence after that statement grew heavy and weighted. He rubbed his chest. Damned guilt. He had survived splendidly without it for thirty-odd years. “Fine. You can choose three of them to help you.”
God, he was going to regret this. It was like loading a pistol, then handing it to the enemy.
“Truly?”
Her voice was warm and happy, and the feeling in his chest loosened. Shit, shit, shit.
“Yes.” He raised his gaze, pinning her. Not so far away, really, with the way both of his arms were resting on the desk’s top, his shoulders well over the edge, leaning toward her. He watched the pulse leap at her neck for a moment, unable to look away. He finally tore his gaze back up to hers. “But you can’t leave this building. And if someone with loose lips inadvertently gives away your location and leads trouble here, I will kill the lot of you myself.”
She smiled, bright and warm, the rays of it lighting the room as if he’d never pulled the drapes.
“Thank you, Mr. Merrick.” She leaned across the desk, meeting him halfway, a stretch that lifted her rear into the air, and lightly kissed him on the cheek, a brush of warm wind and soft lips. He froze.
“And I’ll have the numbers done tonight,” she said, pulling back to meet his gaze. “I’ll bring them to you by nine.”
He was so shocked he didn’t ask her what numbers before she disappeared, smiling, from the room, ledgers pressed to her chest.
He stared at the figures in front of him for the twentieth time. It was an easy task. Add, divide, subtract. Nothing taxing. And yet each set of numbers might as well have been recipes for apple pie written in Sanskrit.
Indecipherable and twice as useless.
The padding of steps thumped softly above.
He desired to take a look inside Roman’s rooms. To see James Pace and figure out what the devil was going on there. He had listened with varying degrees of incredulity to five different men report on the arrival of the Pace family. Dressing the man as a woman had actually been brilliant. Three older servant women entering the hell had provoked not a single bit of talk outside of it. And nondescript bags containing their personal belongings had been brought in at various times throughout the day to avoid speculation that someone was moving in.
There had been a tremendous amount of forethought given to their move, especially with the nondescript baggage. The thought that she had planned the move in advance wasn’t a new one. But he wondered for how long she had done so. Right from the beginning? The thought of it made him nervous. No, she made him nervous.
Which all spiraled back to the reason he wasn’t upstairs asking questions and demanding answers from her parents—for it meant that he would have to face Phoebe Pace too.
And her lips.
So he sat holed up in his office, finding it increasingly difficult to sit still in his seat.
How the hell had she gained the upper hand? He could threaten anyone. He could make giants cry in their porridge with little effort. He had had her exactly where he wanted her last night. Hell, she had promised him thirty percent of her company last night. If that wasn’t victory, he didn’t know what was.
And yet, here he sat, feeling completely on the defensive. Had let her breeze by earlier, granting her request to investigate them. My God.
She knocked on the door just as the clock’s hand clicked, and the first of nine chimes began. He had felt and heard her since she’d stepped off the landing. If he were honest, he had been avidly listening for her steps every time he heard the creaking of the floors upstairs.
“Enter.” He didn’t look up as she walked inside and closed the door. This was a business meeting. A simple transaction. “Very punctual, Miss Pace.”
“You seem a punctual sort of person, Mr. Merrick. Or at the very least, one to expect punctuality.”
“And here I thought you sought to defy all expectations.” He looked up as he said the last, trying to inject the appropriate amount of dark sarcasm.
She gifted him with a brilliant smile. He stared at her bright lips—truly as soft as they looked he now knew. “You’ll make me blush, Mr. Merrick, with such complimentary humor.”
He waited a moment to make sure his voice didn’t emerge strangled. “What figures do you have for me?”
“The last of the figures to straighten out the books. Or up, as you will.”
He simply waited for her to continue.
“And I am settling things so that you have action on our account for our company holdings.”
He stared at her for an indescribable moment. “What?”
She shrugged lightly. “Well, I did promise you a thirty percent stake last night. And combined with your other single shares, you are close to a controlling percentage already. If anything happens to us—should we go to prison or disappear more permanently—I want someone with intelligence and foresight to deal with Pace & Co. of London. It is my father’s legacy,” she said, the last uttered more quietly but no less resolutely.
That feeling stoked again—fire burning under his heart. Guilt.
“Why wouldn’t you make this deal with your friend,” he said harshly. “Edward Wilcox. With the provision that Lord Garrett, his father, cannot touch the company.”
She tilted her head, a small smile upon her lips. “Why indeed. Why do you think I am dealing with you instead?”
“I don’t know. I am hardly omniscient,” he said tightly.
“That is not what those around you think. A god among men.”
“I am something far darker, if anything.” He leaned forward as he uttered the silky words, expecting her to back away at the dark net flaring toward her. Considering their previous words, he didn’t know why he expected such a thing, for she leaned forward as well. As if she wanted to be entrapped by the spell.
He pulled back instead. “Why wouldn’t you offer to Wilcox? He has gained his majority and does not need to answer to his father. Garrett would be horrified.”
It would actually have made things easier and more difficult for Andreas’s own plans if she’d done that from the beginning.
“Edward, though he is a dear, is uninterested in financial matters. Even with his estate accounts, he is smart enough to know his limits and hire others to help. However, there is no other I would trust to pick out livestock and good, arable land.” She
tilted her head. “We all have our skills. But his father is still able to bully him. And Henry too. It would be a burden for them in the end, and they would not be able to save the company.”
“And you think I will?”
“I know you will.” She said it simply.
“You are assuming I want to.”
“You are heavily invested.” She tilted her head. “It is a boon to us to have you heavily invested, actually.”
He didn’t verbally acknowledge the thought that she might have planned this all along. But it was a distinct possibility that he would not lightly dismiss.
“Some investments turn out poorly.”
“I have heard that you make very few bad investments.”
“It sometimes happens.” He lifted a shoulder. “I do not have control of everything.”
“No?” She examined him. “I think I would like to see you out of control.”
His body reacted to her words, unfortunately. Already watching him keenly, her eyes followed the sudden movement of his lower body shifting behind the desk.
He quickly leaned forward, unnerved and irritated with his own reaction. And hers. “You choose to put your company and lives in my hands? You play a dangerous game.”
“I do.” She watched him, head tilted up, eyes holding his. “Will you do it?”
“Yes.” It was as if the word had been just sitting there, on his tongue, waiting to be said. Everything up to that point leading to it.
“Good. Do you have a copy of The Statutes of the Realm?”
He started to point, but then realized it was the perfect opportunity to avoid looking at her. He stood and briskly walked to the bookcases beside the door. He pulled the legal volume from the shelf and turned around, only to find that she’d followed him. Trapping him.
He hadn’t realized the danger he had put himself in by escaping the barrier of his desk.
“Thank you.” She looked at the volume, then back to him. He hadn’t felt so trapped in a very, very long time. It made him want to snarl and push away. But instead he kept himself still, muscles tight.