She chuckled, dismissing his words as she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Posh. I don’t think you truly believe that. I know I don’t believe it.” Tugging at his arm, she started walking toward the office.
He followed along. “How was your meeting with Mr. Olston?”
“Good. Many questions were asked, but I think they believe me about the validity of the mine. They were most impressed that I was below ground and saw the vein with my own eyes—though I left out the part about my complete loss of sanity.” She gave him a smirk over her shoulder. “They do want to meet with you or your solicitor before they sign the note.”
“They?”
“Mr. Olston has an associate—a woman—who has been eager to invest in an opportunity such as this. She may be quite useful in the future for the Revelry’s Tempest. The worth of my bank can be volatile, depending on the action on any given night. So I am beginning to see the advantages of having several sources of credit.” Stepping inside the office, Violet spun in front of him, settling her hands onto the ridges above his hip bones as she looked up, her eyes sparkling. “But even more important, how did your meeting go with Baron Telliton?”
A smile came to his lips. “You were right. He is a slippery eel. He attempted to dance his way around it, claiming it was such a long time ago and he was sure he paid it in full. But because you warned me, I pressed, and he looked at his books, and, lo, to his utter surprise, he hadn’t paid the debt.”
“Remarkable, Theo.” She hopped a gleeful step, squeezing his waist. “I am so relieved that was discovered. Did he say how long it would take to gather the funds?”
Theo scoffed. “Two months.”
“You did not let him get away with that?”
“No. I told him two weeks would be more than sufficient.”
“I would have demanded one.”
“And I am sure you would have gotten it.” His hands wrapped along her shoulders. “But two weeks is fine. The funds will come in at the same time as the gala—from which I plan to steal you away at the end of the evening.”
“Steal me away to where?”
“My bed. With the utmost discretion, of course. And then we can wake up in the morning with no pressures upon our shoulders. Just you and I, and whatever we decide we want for the future.”
Her eyes opened wide. “That…that sounds like a dream, Theo. Like a dream I could have never concocted for myself.”
He grinned. “Not a nightmare, I hope? Waking up next to me?”
She pinched his side. “No. Don’t be obtuse. A fantastic dream. A particularly wonderful dream.”
He leaned down, a taste of the curve of her neck too much for his lips to resist. How had he ever walked away from this neck last night? “I have missed you in my bed, Vee. I don’t care for the fettered access I have to you here in London.”
She pushed slightly on his chest. “You are far too adept at diverting my attention, Theo. So before you make me forget every task I have set out for the day, I have a question for you about the ledgers we brought back from Glenhaven.”
He reluctantly released her, and she went to the bookcase that fully lined a wall of the office. She had asked to borrow Theo’s most recent set of ledgers so she could go through them more closely. She thumbed through a number of volumes on a shelf, finally pulling free a red leather-bound ledger and turning to set it upon the desk.
“I found them in this ledger.” She flipped open the cover and thumbed several pages inward.
Looking over her shoulder, Theo could see this ledger held the most recent accounting records of the estate.
She stopped flipping the pages and the tips of her fingers ran down a column of entries. “These names. I did not recognize them as their purpose is not noted, and I could not find them in earlier entries, but then I saw them in another book.”
Her forefinger stopped under a name. Louise Macintosh.
Theo froze.
“This one and this one.” She pointed to a name six entries down. Gerald Heltren. She looked over her shoulder to him. “But the other book is so odd. It gives no indication as to who these people are, and it uses odd markings and symbols I don’t understand.”
Theo stiffened, taking a step backward as he attempted to keep his voice even. “What book is it, Vee?”
“Oh. Let me get it.” She turned and stepped to the bookcase. Bending slightly, she looked at the spines of the books on the shelf at her waist. She pulled a small, thin book with a worn black leather cover from the shelf.
The edges of the book were tattered, bent inward as if it had been flipped through endlessly.
Unmistakable.
She set the book on the desk next to the ledger and untied the leather strap holding it closed. Opening it, she splayed her fingers wide on opposite pages to hold it from closing. “I remembered the names from in here, and then I mat—”
“You have it?” The growl in his voice was uncontrollable. “Who in the hell said you could take this book, Vee?”
Her hand snapped away from the book as she jumped. Released, the pages of the book fanned in a wide arc. She spun to look up at him, her hand flattening against her belly. “I—I found it at Glenhaven with the other ledgers and I thought it may be important so I had it brought with the set. It looked recent and I—”
He pushed past her, making her stumble as he snatched the book from the desk and slammed it shut. “You had no right to it, Vee.”
“What? Why are you snapping at me, Theo? You asked me to look again into the ledgers to see if I could find anything else that was missed—”
Turning from her, he tucked the book into an inside pocket of his tailcoat. “I didn’t ask you to snoop into things that are not your business, Vee.” He pierced her with a glare.
“Not my business?” Her face crumpled as if he had struck her.
The obvious hurt did nothing to dissuade his anger. “You cannot just sneak around my belongings and steal whatever piques your damn interest, Vee.” He took a step toward the door.
“Wait, Theo. Why are you yelling at me?” She reached out and grabbed his forearm. “What is in that book? Who are those people?”
He shook her grasp from his arm. “I said it was none of your damn business, Violet.” He whipped from her, stomping out the office door.
Blinding red clouding his vision, he made it out the front door of the Revelry’s Tempest and to the street within seconds. His legs shaking, running.
Away.
He needed away.
How in the hell could she take the book? Look at it? Who in the hell did she think she was to demand right to it?
Away.
He needed away.
{ Chapter 14 }
Twelve blocks passed before his lungs were near enough to exploding that his legs stopped.
Staggering to a brick wall for support, he bent over, clutching his knees as he gasped for breath.
Without thought, without even knowing he had been sprinting down the street, he found himself finally pulling his look upward. Where the devil was he?
He couldn’t orientate himself with the dreary sky—clouds covering the city so thick he had no hope of finding the sun. Just buildings. Row houses surrounding him.
Rage still palpitating in his blood, he huffed, coughing, the air not making its way into his lungs fast enough.
What was Violet thinking, taking his book? What the hell was she doing stealing away the one tangible hold he had onto sins of the past?
A carriage roared past in front of him, a yellow phaeton with matching white speckled mares far too enthusiastic for the inexperienced young dandy attempting to control them. The horses swerved, one stepping onto the pavement and almost crushing a coal heaver busy with his work.
The coal heaver jumped, scampering out of the way as he shook his shovel, screaming unintelligible blasphemies at the fop.
Idiot man. Driving a team of horses he had no idea how to control.
Theo shook his he
ad.
Idiot man.
The two words repeated in his mind. Taunting him. Turning on him.
Idiot man.
A third time, repeated.
Repeated for a reason.
He was the exact same thing. Idiot man.
He couldn’t control Violet. Couldn’t stop her curiosity. Couldn’t stop her desire to help him. Especially when she didn’t have a clue what that book meant.
It wasn’t what the hell she was doing. It was what the hell he was doing.
Violet had taken one tiny step into his past, and he had needed to run. Away from her. Away from questions he couldn’t bear to answer. Away from secrets that were his alone to bear. Away from admitting to atrocities he couldn’t admit to himself.
She had ventured too close. Too close to his failings.
And he was a bloody coward.
He had seen it in her eyes as he had escaped the study. Her confusion. The turmoil on her face.
He was bloody well sinking a knife into the only thing that had brought him air in the last two years.
Violet.
An idiot—yes—he’d been that before. But a coward—never.
And he wasn’t about to lose the last attribute he still possessed that held a modicum of honor.
He pushed off of the brick wall to stand straight, a breath hissing into his burning lungs.
Violet deserved more of him—expected more. And he wasn’t about to disappoint her again.
If she became horrified at his words, if she cast him aside because of what he had to admit to, then he would suffer it. Truthfully, it was what he deserved. And he would walk into his fate with courage.
He started back to the Revelry’s Tempest.
Fifteen minutes he walked, every breath bringing sanity back to his mind, every step buoying his confidence. At the end of the block that the Revelry’s Tempest sat in the middle of, Theo’s steps slowed as he watched an older man and a woman, both well-dressed, walk down the front stone stairs of the Revelry’s Tempest and toward a waiting carriage.
A wide-brimmed black bonnet covered much of the woman’s head, and just as she grabbed the hand of the footman to step up into the carriage, she paused, looking to the street, her face unobscured.
The devil take him to hell.
Not Fiona.
It couldn’t be her.
Not the bloody ghost.
Theo broke into a sprint, but was too late to catch the coach. He veered up the stairs to the Revelry’s Tempest instead.
Bursting through the front door before a footman could open it, he ran into Cassandra in the foyer, nearly knocking her over. Grasping for a limb of hers to catch before she fell, he managed to snatch a forearm and pull her upright.
With a gasp, she grabbed a hold of his wrist, steadying herself. “Theodore—”
“My apologies, Cassandra, but there is no time.” Her feet steady, he released her. “Who just got into the carriage outside?”
“What? Who? I thought you were upstairs and—”
“Outside, Cassandra. They just came down the steps. Two people—who are they?”
“The creditor? Mr. Olston? I just finished meeting with him.”
“No—the woman—who was the woman?”
“She is Mr. Olston’s associate. She has funds readily available, and he thought she would be a good match with our needs.”
“What was her name?”
“Lady Toplan.” Cassandra’s eyebrows drew together, perplexed. “Do you know her? They actually want to meet with you to audit the mine’s output before we finalize the loan.”
“When?”
“I do not know—”
Theo grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “When, Cassandra, when?”
“Theodore, truly, you must calm.” Her hands came up to knock away his arms, breaking his lock on her shoulders. “Today, tomorrow, they were not specific—they just said they would have an answer for us two days from now.”
He jerked a step backward, realizing he was acting like a madman. “I apologize.”
“What is amiss, Theodore?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I need to talk to Violet.”
Without waiting for a reply, he abandoned Cassandra in the foyer and ran up the stairs two at a time.
He stopped abruptly just outside the ballroom entrance.
He had to calm. He had to be sane.
Violet surely already thought he was addled after yelling at her about the book.
Three deep breaths to calm, and he turned the corner into the ballroom. Far to his right, Logan was in the connected drawing room talking in low tones with three of his guards. A quick nod in their direction, and Theo walked toward the office along the back wall.
He could hear Violet in the office, fingernails tapping methodically on her desk. She had to be looking at columns of numbers. She always tapped her fingernails when she was deep in ledgers.
His footsteps soft, he stopped in the open doorway. Her head was bent, her focus on the sheets in front of her, her left fingernails tapping, just as he had heard.
“I want to tell you, Vee.” His words were rough, softly floating into the room.
He held his breath, waiting. It took her a long moment to look up from the desk.
She stared at him, her lips tight, silence thick in his ears.
“Not here, Vee.” He looked over his shoulder, shaking his head.
“Tonight is a gaming night, Theo.” Her voice was terse. “Guests will be arriving in a few hours. I cannot leave.”
“Upstairs?”
Her blue eyes were waning, but her mouth remained set in a hard line.
He stepped forward as he fished his black leather book from inside his jacket. He set it gently on the desk, nudging it toward her with his forefinger. “Please, Vee. It is yours to study, if it makes a difference. I had no right to yell at you like I did.”
She sighed, motioning with her hand to the door as she stood. “Let us go quickly, as I have much to attend to.”
After grabbing the book from the desk, Violet stepped quickly around him, giving herself as much distance from his body as the office would allow. Theo turned and followed her, knowing full well he deserved her ire—her complete avoidance of an accidental touch from his body.
Up one flight of stairs, she moved to the left down the long hallway of private card rooms. At the third door, she turned into the room.
Walking into the card room, Theo recognized it immediately. The black fabric stretched tight over the large octagonal card table. The thick draperies along the far wall to match. Gilded gold sconces throughout the room for elegance. A full sideboard of the finest brandy. It was the room he had been gambling in—and losing horribly in—the night he ruined Violet’s bank, decimating it with flips of his cards.
She stepped behind him, closing the door and locking it.
He turned around to find her standing with both hands behind her back, fiddling with the book.
“I am sorry, Violet.”
Her bottom lip curved into a frown. She gave what looked like a quick nod as she moved past him, setting his book onto the card table. Her eyes lifted to him as she took a quick step backward, distancing herself from the table.
“Whatever is in that book, Theo, I want no part of it. I want to understand—but not at the expense of your anger. You yelled at me for no reason when I was merely trying to reconcile your numbers.”
“You were trying to help. I understand that and it was unfair of me.” His look darted from Violet to the book. It sat there, lonely on the table, a wart on the smooth surface for all to see. His fingers itched to snatch the book back, to hide it away, and he had to stomp down the urge.
He ripped his gaze away from it, his look landing on Violet. “So let me tell you, Violet.”
Her arms crossed over her ribcage as her eyebrows lifted in question.
“Those names you saw—the ones that were in both books. They denoted payments to the families of men I
owe debts to.”
“What kind of debts?”
“The kind that I can never repay.” His words came rough, dragging from his throat. “Those are the families of men that died under my command. Men that were killed for decisions I made. So the woman in the ledger you noted—she is one of the widows. The man—he was the father to one of the dead.”
She pointed at the book with her head. “So this book—it is a book of amends?”
“So to speak.”
“How many names are in here?”
“Many. The dead. Their relatives. Some of the men had large families they were supporting. Mothers and brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins. For many of those families, the death of their loved one and the loss of that income put them into bone-crushing poverty. I am attempting to rectify that. But I cannot do it all at once. I do not have enough. So I do it when I can, as it becomes available.” He paused, shaking his head. “Always to them first.”
She heaved a sigh. “Which is why you haven’t had enough funds to reinvest in the mine.”
He shrugged. “I have made these people destitute, Violet. It is what I can do. What I need to do.”
“I understand, I think.” Her frown deepened. “Yet why is this your responsibility, Theo? Thousands died in the war. All of those men knew the risks.”
“Did they? Or were they looking to escape poverty? To support their families? Men are invincible when they are young and idealistic and there is nothing more noble than dying for crown and country. It is a nice sentiment. But I have sent too many men to be slaughtered to be able to hold tight to that idea of nobility. It is a hard thing to accomplish after hearing young men beg for life with their last breaths. Watch the horror in their eyes when they realize death has come for them. Men like Phillip.”
Her lips parted, a slight gasp crossing her lips at his bitter words. Her eyes widening, she took a step toward him, her head angling to the side. “I didn’t understand this before—but you think you’re a monster, don’t you, Theo?”
“I am a monster, Vee.” His answer was immediate, leaving no room for forgiveness or delusion. “I knew time and again when I was sending a soldier into certain death—and I did it anyway. It wasn’t on battlefields, masses of men scraping for life. It was one by one, man by man, my spies—friends, boys, fathers, brothers—into an inn, an alehouse, a stable, a market.”
Of Sin & Sanctuary: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 14