Chapter 20
Business was increasing. Without Sylvia’s drug-addled laxity, paying gentlemen returned more often and brought their connections.
“You run a tight ship, Mrs Murray,” Sir Edwin offered.
“Catherine, sir.” She placed her hand lightly on his sleeve. He did not pull away. “We are friends, are we not?”
“Indeed, we are.” He leant in, his lips almost touching her ear. “When shall you freshen your stable?”
She extended her hand; he kissed it and inclined his head.
“Your counsel is much appreciated, sir.”
She had Jonas and Derek out each night prowling for fillies. Within a se’nnight, she had taken in two: one pulled from a soot-black alley behind Drury Lane, the other coaxed from a tin-roofed factory on the Thames.
Catherine gave them clean shifts, trimmed their hair, dabbed rosewater behind their ears. Told them when to speak, how to smile, when to flinch. Sylvia had once done the same for her.
It was business. Routine.
She made the arrangements quietly—paid the right men, sent the right notes, marked the ledgers in her private code. When it was done, she stepped out into the fog, boots tapping smartly over wet cobbles. She had almost reached the waiting carriage when a figure stepped from the alley’s edge.
A man. Older, sharp-eyed, smelling faintly of soot and gin.
“You didn’t leave a sack,” he said, voice low.
Catherine raised a brow. “Pardon?”
“A sack,” he repeated. “For the Anvil.”
The name caught like a pin in her chest—one you heard once and remembered in the bones.
She’d heard it whispered—low, wary. Always in warning.
Roark, the Anvil, who sat upon the business of the Dials, to whom all paid tribute to run without interference.
And Reeves—the Hammer—his enforcer. Roark was the brains; Reeves settled scores with fire and silence: clean, merciless, deliberate.
Men respected Roark, but they feared Reeves.
But neither had ever encroached upon Sylvia or her. Not directly.
She offered a cool smile. “He can send a bill.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll want to fix it. Sooner’s better.”
She brushed past him without answering.
Within a fortnight, the bleed began to show.
Clients vanished. Coin dried up. Notes came in—apologies without dates, promises without payment.
Vendors failed to deliver on credit. One of the new girls slipped away before the week was out.
By the tenth day, she was forced back to entertaining—a thing she had not done in months. The man was clean enough, gentle enough—but the act felt like betrayal. She endured it, counting each breath until it ended.
When he left, she hurled the tray into the hearth. Glass, silver, and wine exploded together.
Her chest still heaved with fury when a timid knock followed.
A timid knock followed.
“What?” she snapped.
Dolly crept in first—her dresser. Pale, hunched, hands twisted in her apron as though she meant to wring it to threads. Her hair, a colourless brown, clung limp to her temples, and her eyes darted like a mouse cornered by a cat. She spoke in fits, each word pushed out against her own reluctance.
“I think…” She swallowed, voice thin as a reed. “I think it’s Mr Roark, ma’am. The reason.”
Catherine stilled.
The room fell silent but for the ticking mantle clock and the faint crackle of coal.
“Get out,” she said.
Dolly flinched as if struck. She bobbed a curtsey so shallow it was almost a stumble and fled, skirts whispering like frightened wings.
Catherine stood for a long while, fingers twitching at her side. Then she crossed to the bell pull and yanked it hard.
Minutes later, the door filled. Cragg entered.
He was all bulk and stone, a man carved rather than born, shoulders straining against a coat too small for him.
His jaw was square and thick, pocked from old scars, and his brow rode low as if shielding the narrow intelligence behind his eyes.
He smelt faintly of iron and sweat, and when he bowed, it was more a drop of the head than a grace. Loyal as blood, brutal as any cudgel.
“You rang, ma’am?” His voice rumbled like boots on boards.
“Find him,” she said. “Find Roark. Tell him I wish to speak with him.”
Cragg paled. “Madame…” He shifted. “You got it wrong. He don’t—he don’t get summoned.”
“Do what I tell you.” She crossed to the desk, picked up the whip she kept for show, and cracked it across the leather inlay. “Or get out.”
He ran.
She didn’t pace. She didn’t drink. She stood at the window until her breath left pale marks on the glass.
It was nearly midnight when he came.
No knock. No warning.
The door opened with a soft click, and a gust of cold air followed him in.
The tang of oil and iron came with it, faint and metallic, curling at the back of her throat like an old memory.
Catherine turned from the fire, one hand still on the mantle.
Her bodice half-laced, hair pinned but curling loose.
A fresh glass of brandy sat untouched. The room was redolent with rose oil, tobacco, and control.
He closed the door. Not tall. Not broad. Fit, contained, unremarkable. The sort of man you could pass in a crowd and never recall—until you met his eyes. A vertical white scar marked one cheekbone like chalk.
Catherine began to taste what fear was. She knew who the Hammer was. She did not know where he was.
Roark studied the room—the gilt trim, the decanter, the whip. Then her. Not like a man admiring a woman. Like a man weighing value. Cost. Waste.
He crossed to the chair before the fire and sat. Legs spread, arms loose. As if it were his suite. As if it always had been.
Catherine lifted her chin. “You took your time.”
His eye—grey, unreadable—didn’t flicker.
“You summoned me,” he said. “That was your first mistake.”
She swallowed. “I meant to offer apology. A share, if you like.”
“You forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“Whose ground you walk.”
She folded her arms. “This house is mine.”
“No. This house is leased. Its silence—its safety—is mine.”
The words fell like iron.
“You bled me out.”
One side of his mouth lifted slightly. He didn’t deny it.
The fire hissed.
“I’ll pay,” she said. “Ongoing. Tribute.”
He leant forward. “I don’t want your coin.”
She hesitated. “Then what?”
“I want to see what you are.”
A chill ran down her spine.
“I’ve seen what you do,” he said. “Now I want to see what’s beneath it.”
“I am not for sale.”
He didn’t speak.
She stepped back. Again. Until the wall kissed her spine. Chin high. Defiant.
His little grin turned to a sneer. He nodded.
She reached for the stiletto at her thigh—
A tang of oil and iron filled her senses.
Her head slammed against the plaster. The blade clattered. Pressure closed her throat; her heels scraped the wall.
Roark sat unmoved. Watching.
The grip held.
“Enough,” Roark said.
It vanished. She fell to her knees, air tearing back into her lungs.
“Why are you here?” Roark asked.
She coughed, dragged breath in shallow pulls. “My fa—father,” she rasped. “Sold me.”
He regarded her a moment longer, then reached for the decanter.
He poured and raised a glass. “Join me.”
She rose—slowly. Crossed to her mirror, adjusted her powder and pins. Then turned and walked back.
She curtseyed.
He handed her the glass.
“Thank you,” she said, and sat.
He studied her. “Upper gentry. Not Mayfair. Grosvenor, perhaps?”
She did not respond.
“I asked you a question.”
“Portland Place.”
Roark’s eyes widened—for a moment. Then his smile widened. “Only one in a thousand could pull off what you have.”
She drank. Steady now.
“I have a proposition,” he said. “Take it, and you’ll have what you need.”
She did not answer at once. She took in a breath and released it.
“I accept.”
“Smart girl.” He stood. She rose as well.
“I admire a bit o’ sass in my girls,” he said. His gaze cut briefly towards that darker corner near the door. “But make no mistake—I am not Reeves.”
She massaged her throat and looked around. “Where is Mr Reeves?”
Roark opened the door. “You just met him.”
And then he was gone.
For a moment, Catherine stayed very still, staring at the empty threshold.
The air still carried it—oil, iron, leather. Smoke that clung, bitter in her throat. Her body urged her to flee. Instead, she set down the glass and pulled the bell cord.
Business would not wait.
* * *
Fanny Murray’s, July 1818
Over the past few weeks, she thought not of her near death, but of the business Roark had offered.
She would wait. Roark did not need to make promises; if he named a thing, it happened—whether by his own hand or by the quiet hands of others who feared to disappoint him.
In the Dials, his word was less an assurance than a sentence.
She sat at her desk and opened a journal.
She wrote without ornament.
Trust no one.
Rotate the servants who had contact with her person.
Food and drink must be tasted by others.
She closed the book, locked it in the drawer, and stepped out to assess her renewed business
.