She tapped her finger against the table twice, then replied, “Certainly.”
“Truly?” He’d hoped to convince her that the plan had real merit. He hadn’t expected it to be easy.
“Yes. However, I require payment in advance.” She held out her hand and waggled her fingers. “My rate is double your own.”
Damn it. “I’ll give you twenty pounds.”
“Twenty pounds?” she echoed on a laugh. “That is a fraction of what it would take—”
“Forty.” Half was a fraction.
She shook her head.
“Eighty,” he tried.
“Will this number continue to grow exponentially until I say yes? How fortuitous that I have so much free time on my hands.”
“Five hundred.”
“You’re not serious.” Her mouth dropped open when he said nothing. “Good Lord, you are serious. You would pay me five hundred pounds to follow your orders?”
He’d pay twice that and more if it meant keeping her safe. “Yes. Do we have a deal?”
She wanted to accept the offer. He could see it. A line of concentration appeared across her brow and she was quiet for a long time. She tore off several bites of bread, eating half herself and tossing the other half to the beast in an absent manner.
Esther didn’t need the money, but she wanted it. She had been poor once, and that sort of insecurity had a tendency to linger. The scars of hunger, that’s what Gabriel called it. They couldn’t be seen, but neither were they forgotten.
He felt guilty using that against her, but he’d live with the discomfort for the sake of her safety.
It wasn’t to be, however. After struggling with the decision for a while longer, Esther shook her head. “I’m sorry, Samuel, but I’ll not be under a man’s thumb for any price.”
“Why do you presume I would put you under my thumb?”
“Because it’s what men do,” she replied without heat. “And you do it, I suppose, because you can. You’re allowed.”
“I worked for Renderwell for years. I was never under his thumb.”
“Because you’re a man. You are expected to work, and you expect to be given work. I’ve seen you and Gabriel work with Renderwell. You functioned as a partnership, or a team. Renderwell’s responsibility was to assign tasks and goals according to each man’s strengths, but you fulfilled your duties as you saw fit. You participated. You made your own choices and had the pleasure of seeing your combined labors culminate in the successful completion of a challenge. Is that what you’re offering me?” she asked in a skeptical tone. “Or would you ignore my strengths, my ability to make choices on my own, and simply order me to stay tucked up here out of your way?”
“You can’t deny you’d find the order challenging.”
“No,” she replied with a small laugh. “I can’t.”
“I don’t want you out of my way, Esther. I just want you safe.”
“I know. I want the same for you. Strange, isn’t it? We would each feel better if the other stayed tucked up safe and sound, but that would make the other miserable.” She thought about that for a second as she chewed another bite of bread. “Does that make the desire to see the other safe a selfish one?”
Selfish desires weren’t problematic by themselves. It was acting on them that wreaked havoc. Pity, that. “A compromise, then. We’ll stay in for the morning and visit Rostrime Lane this afternoon for”—he nearly said “three hours” before thinking better of it—“an hour.”
“That’s not nearly enough time. Four hours.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
Perfect. “Three it is.”
“And I’ll not wait in the carriage.”
He shook his head. “We’ve discussed this. The approach works best if I’m alone.”
“You’re presuming you’ll think to ask every question I might think to ask.”
“You’re presuming I won’t think to ask the right questions.”
“Are you implying that I would ask the wrong ones?”
God, it was like having breakfast with a barrister. “It’s beside the point. You can’t risk being recognized.”
“I’ll keep my veil down, as had been my intention when I decided to come knocking on doors in London on my own.”
Her original intention had likely been to knock and simply ask whoever answered if a Mr. George Smith was in residence. That was quite a bit different from being invited inside. She was going to find the curious looks of strangers discomforting and their willingness to confide, limited.
Some lessons, however, could only be learned through experience. Lord knew he’d made his share of missteps in his early days as a police officer and private investigator.
Not that she was embarking on a career in either. It was just a lesson. One lesson. That was all. “We’ll try it your way for one house, then revisit the matter.”
“We have a deal.”
* * *
There was something to be said for a quiet morning in Samuel’s company. They had shared them before, of course, but always in the company of others. It was just the two of them now, settled comfortably in the parlor at the front of the house.
Esther fiddled with the corner of her book while she watched Samuel. He was what she thought of as a planter, like her sister. He took a book, took a seat, and stayed there, still as a statue. She had never been able to do that. She could lose herself in a book or her art for hours, but she couldn’t sit still for all that time. Every ten minutes or so, she had to get up and move about.
Already she had taken several turns about the room. Unlike her sister, however, Samuel didn’t appear to mind the distraction. He simply glanced up once, smiled absently, and went back to his book.
She watched as Samuel’s brows lowered in response to something he read, then lifted a moment later as his lips slowly curved into a smile.
If she were a braver woman, she might set aside her own reading and see for herself what had captured his fancy. It wasn’t but half a room between them. She could meander over and lean down for a closer look at his book. Maybe lean down a little farther. Maybe far enough to catch his scent. Perhaps, if she leaned far enough, he might take it as a hint or a suggestion to reach for her. Or she might need to be a bit more obvious in her intentions.
How bold could she be with Samuel? She could fake that sort of confidence when the occasion called for it. She’d pretended to be a bold woman in the past, but she’d never tried to be that forward as herself. Was she capable of it? Could she saunter over, slide the book from his fingers, and slip herself onto his lap? Could she twine her arms around his neck and kiss him? Just imagining it had her heart beating faster and a pleasant warmth humming through her veins.
Oh, it would be fun. He’d be shocked of course. And pleased, one should hope.
They needn’t worry they’d be bothered unexpectedly. Mrs. Lanchor and two of the maids had gone out. The rest of the staff was either downstairs, upstairs, or outside.
She could do anything she liked. For as long as she liked.
To her own shock, Esther discovered she had already closed her book and set it on a side table without realizing.
She snatched it back.
What on earth was she thinking? For that matter, what on earth was she doing?
Kissing Samuel in carriages and even bedchambers. Imagining she could hop in his lap and kiss him in his own parlor. It was reckless, even for her, and she wasn’t at all sure of her own motivations.
She liked Samuel. God help her, that was the only certainty she could claim. She liked Samuel Brass in a manner she’d never experienced with another man.
Was it love?
She believed in love. Not merely attraction or infatuation, but true romantic love. She’d always believed in it, even before she’d watched her sister hand
her heart to Renderwell.
Believing in the existence of love, however, was quite a bit different than believing one might experience it for oneself.
She’d never hoped to fall in love. In the most fanciful moments of her early youth, she’d entertained a daydream or two of what it might be like to meet her fairy-tale prince, but they’d been only daydreams, like those of faraway lands she’d read about in books. Boston and China and the Himalayas. She knew they were real, just as she’d always known they were out of her reach.
Perhaps that was why it had been so easy for her to set the daydreams of her fairy-tale prince aside. What was the point of a dream without hope?
Or maybe it had been easy to set those dreams aside because she’d never been particularly interested in them.
Perhaps she was incapable of love. She’d long suspected that to be the case with her mother. The woman had been endlessly charming but devoid of all proper feeling, even for her own children. What if she had inherited some sort of moral deficiency…?
Esther acknowledged the fear and set it aside. Of course she was capable. She loved Peter and Lottie, and even their father at times, though he scarcely deserved it.
What if she was capable of love but incapable of recognizing that she was in love? To hear the poets and playwrights tell it, falling in love was like being struck by a thunderbolt, but Lottie had once said that she’d been in love with Renderwell for years without realizing how she felt. It seemed unlikely one could fail to notice being struck by lightning.
Esther certainly didn’t feel as if she’d been struck. Pricked perhaps, or nudged, or sideswiped, but not struck.
Then it probably wasn’t love. And, considering the lies she’d told, that was for the best.
She really wasn’t fairy-tale material.
Twelve
Esther grew increasingly nervous as they made their way down Rostrime Lane. Samuel had offered to take her inside the first houses they visited that afternoon, but she’d declined. There was little point in asking questions to which she already knew the answer. She’d wait until they reached number twenty-three.
Surprise, and even a hint of relief, mingled with her nerves when that one house finally came into view. She pulled up her veil for a better view out the window. It didn’t look nearly as foreboding as she remembered. The result of seeing it in daylight, no doubt. Eleven years ago, she had come at night, and the street lamps had cast long, malevolent shadows over the brick and turned the portico pillars into a set of glowing fangs.
The old brick building looked rather cheerful now. The shutters had been painted a deep blue recently, the walk was swept clean, and there were vibrant pots of flowers on either side of the front door.
Still, when the carriage pulled up in front, her heart began to race, and her stomach rolled.
She hated this house. Cheerful or not, merely looking at it made her feel ashamed and afraid.
Samuel hopped out and held out his hand. “Will you join me?”
Yes. Say yes. Take his hand and go inside. “I’ll wait, thank you.”
“Are you all right? You look a bit pale. Is it your throat? Are you—?”
“I’m perfectly well.” She was a perfect coward. “Go inside. There is nothing amiss with me, I assure you.”
“If you’re certain…” Clearly, he wasn’t certain. His keen eyes searched her face a moment longer before he reached out and carefully pulled down her veil. “We’ll take a rest after this house.”
Might as well, she thought. They likely wouldn’t need to go into the next house after Samuel spoke with the occupants of number twenty-three. “If you like. Go on, Samuel.”
A part of her hoped he would ignore her and hop back into the carriage. Maybe if he stalled a bit she would, in time, gather enough courage to join him.
It was too late. Samuel took one last look at her and closed the door. Moments later, he disappeared inside the house alone. There was nothing left for her to do but wait, and berate herself.
This is why she had come—to confront her past and atone for this mistake. She’d planned this for months. Yet here she was, hiding away in a carriage.
How could she hope to face her father if she couldn’t even face an old house he’d owned years ago?
“Coward,” she whispered into the empty carriage.
It didn’t disagree.
Sick at heart, she turned away from the window and waited for Samuel’s return.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed into the carriage looking rather pleased with himself. She lifted her veil and did her best to paste on an eager expression. Difficult, when she already knew what he was going to say. Mr. George Smith did not live at number twenty-three Rostrime Lane. He’d not lived there in over a decade.
“A Mr. George Smith lived here some ten or eleven years ago,” Samuel informed her, settling into his seat. “He wasn’t a grocer. He was in shipping.”
“Shipping?” She hadn’t expected that. She had a father in shipping. How strange and wonderful. “He must have owned the building in Spitalfields as we thought.”
Samuel signaled to the driver with a quick rap on the roof. “Doesn’t explain why he would address the letter from there.”
“He might have wished to keep his address from my mother.”
“And his child?”
“I said I was going to find my father. I didn’t say I was going to like him.” She shrugged and hoped it came off as careless. “Do they know where he might have gone?”
“The current occupants are a Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill. Mrs. Thornhill was out, but Mr. Thornhill claims they never met Mr. Smith. They learned of him from the previous owner of the property, a Mr. Brumly. He let the house to a number of individuals over the years, including your father. The Thornhills have no idea where that gentleman is to be found at present.”
“My father didn’t own the house?”
“No, in fact, he is remembered for having spent less than three months in residence. It was rumored that Mr. Smith suffered a sudden reversal of fortune.”
Guilt settled heavily in her stomach, making her queasy. What she had done all those years ago would not have caused a reversal of fortune, but it wouldn’t have helped either. “Might we find this Mr. Brumly?”
“We can try.” He frowned at her. “You still look pale.”
“Perhaps I do. Perhaps it is nervous excitement.” She tried to smile at him. “I suspect a cup of tea will set me to rights.”
An ocean of tea wouldn’t be sufficient. She knew it, and from the suspicious look on Samuel’s face, he knew it, too.
He kept his peace on the matter, however, saying nothing as they returned to his home and the chairs in the parlor.
For the space of an hour, Esther sipped hot tea liberally doused with milk and willed away the chill of old guilt. After the third cup, she was forced to accept that the tea was not going to help. Because it wasn’t old guilt that made her fingers want to shake every time she caught Samuel looking at her from across the room.
It was new guilt.
After all her pretty talk of changing, of becoming a better version of herself, she’d both taken the coward’s way out of a difficult situation and lied about it to the one person whose trust she desperately wanted to earn. She’d lied to the one man who deserved the truth.
She was failing. Failing Samuel, and failing herself.
She set her teacup down on its saucer so hard it was a wonder the fine china didn’t crack.
“I lied to you before,” she blurted out before she lost her small claim to courage. “I lied about how I learned Mr. Smith was my father, and why I want to find him.”
Samuel looked up from his paper, his expression unreadable. “I beg your pardon?”
“I lied to you. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry for it.”
His expression didn’t
change as he carefully folded his paper and set it aside. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“I…um…” Her hands trembled as she set her cup and saucer on a small side table. “I don’t know where to start, really.”
“Try the beginning.”
Her nerves jumped at the first hint of anger in his voice.
This was a mistake. She should have kept her mouth shut. He was already angry with her. What if he stayed angry with her? What if he didn’t accept her apology? What if—?
“Esther.”
“Just a moment,” she snapped back. “This isn’t easy for me. Not with you looking at me like…” She wasn’t sure how to describe his current expression, so she just gestured toward his face and added, “That.”
“How am I meant to look at you? You tell me you’ve been lying to me since you came to London—”
“Not the entire time. Not about everything. Honestly.” Honestly. What a ridiculous word to use at the moment. “I’ve not been… That is… I don’t want you to think that I’ve been lying to you about anything other than this. I’ve not done anything or planned to do anything you might find objectionable.” She made a face at her choice of words. “Well, that’s not entirely true, is it? You object to most everything I want to do. What I’m trying to say is that I… I’ve not…”
Oh, why was this so hard?
“Tell me this,” Samuel said calmly. “Did you make the trip to London for any unlawful or immoral purpose?”
She wasn’t surprised that he asked, but it still hurt to hear the question. It hurt that he should have to ask. “No. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” he replied, so quickly and easily that she knew he hadn’t really considered it a possibility.
“If you didn’t think I had, why did you ask?”
“Do you feel better for having denied it?”
“I suppose.” Quite a bit, in fact. It was essentially the point she’d been trying to express in her inarticulate ramble. Please don’t mistake my current dishonesty with the sort of dishonesty I displayed in the past. It was an absurd request but one she felt compelled to make. “Thank you.”
A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers) Page 16