Chapter One #2
“Apologies, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.” If it took playing the woman’s game to learn what had become of her brother, she’d do it with all the mock contrition the other woman could stomach.
“You are correct. Worry over my brother’s safety has left me quite out of sorts and willing to go to drastic lengths, even seeing conspiracy where there surely is none.
” Lengths to which she’d go again without a second thought.
“I beg your forgiveness and beseech you for any assistance you can provide regarding his whereabouts. If there is anything, perchance, you remembered since the Runners questioned you?”
A single gloved finger tapped against the chair arm. Once. Twice. “Seems you can be civil if you try.” There was a smile in the woman’s voice alongside the insult. “All those tutors your brother hired to raise your speech and comportment weren’t a total waste.”
Anna crushed the bit of laced linen in her hands. How did she know?
A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach said Mrs. Dove-Lyon and her brother had shared more than a passing game of Hazard.
“I did withhold something from Bow Street,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon admitted.
Anna stepped forward, her heart a drum playing to a new beat. If Will was in danger, she’d stop at nothing to see him home safe. God willing, before her uncle and cousin got wind of his disappearance. “Tell me.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon tapped her finger on the armchair again, the action relaxed, calculating. “I run a business, Miss Greene. Valuable information is as much a commodity as a roll of the dice.”
Anna scowled. “What do you want?”
“That depends. What are you willing to give?”
Anna wasn’t some silly lady without a clue. She’d been raised at the knee of her father, a worldly man with his locksmith’s shop in the heart of London. A shop she’d visited frequently with her brother when her elderly chaperone had permitted.
Men from all walks of life would hire Henry Greene—the man who’d patented many of the locks used around the city—lords, clerks, and less savory characters. Criminals with persuasive smiles.
“The information first,” Anna said.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon was well within her rights to refuse, but they both knew Anna had no chance of leaving this office without the woman’s explicit approval. “Your brother owes a large debt to the house.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed. “My brother would never.” Not after what their papa had put them through as children.
“I have his signed vowels,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, the voice behind the veil smug. “You, of course, are welcome to check his signature.”
Impossible.
Anna walked to the edge of the desk and stared down at the papers Mrs. Dove-Lyon fanned across the oak.
Four IOUs. The number of pounds on them dizzying.
They must be forgeries—but, no, that was Will’s scrawl. William Lancer Greene, Viscount Brixby. The B in her brother’s title written with a wobbly, apprehensive hand even eight months after its bestowment from the Prince Regent.
It was Will’s signature.
She knew the estate and tenants—a grand addition to the title from Prinny for the man who’d taken a bullet for Wellington—was prosperous, but Anna couldn’t imagine a lifetime of good harvests and rents making up for the staggering debt.
Was it possible her brother was hiding because he could not repay what he owed?
Instant guilt had Anna shaking her head.
No. Will would never have intentionally disappeared without telling her.
Secret gambling aside, there wasn’t a world in which William would leave Anna without a word.
Not after losing their father and suffering the cruelties of their extended family together.
“My brother is missing,” Anna reiterated, still not convinced of the proprietor’s innocence. “He can hardly pay.”
“What luck, then, that I have a perfectly acceptable familial party here. One that is more than capable of taking on her brother’s debt.”
Anna stared.
With the veil covering the woman’s face, it was impossible to read her expression, but Anna swore Mrs. Dove-Lyon was smiling, a feline baring of teeth.
“The way I see it, you have two options, Miss Greene.” She held up one finger.
“We can forget your little criminal breaking and entering, and you will take on your brother’s debt to be paid out to me immediately.
My payment for the information I’ve provided as well.
” A second finger joined the first. “Or . . .” Her voice took on a steely edge.
“You can be dragged from the premises in a most unsavory fashion to the amusement of every man, woman, and urchin along Cleveland Row.”
Whereafter the last shred of dignity attached to her brother’s name would be forfeit, and any hope she had of discovering her brother’s whereabouts would be impossible.
“I cannot repay you,” Anna said honestly, her skin cold. There were few options for her now. She could only hope Bow Street wouldn’t close their investigation while she rotted away in debtors’ prison.
“Your lack of imagination surprises me, Miss Greene,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said.
Anna’s head snapped up, but she didn’t dare hope. Not when there were worse ways to pay than through hard labor. “What do you want?”
“A favor.”
Nothing else was forthcoming.
Anna gritted her teeth. “One favor and my brother’s debts are cleared?”
The widow nodded. “Simple, no?”
Nothing with the Lyoness would be simple.
Anna straightened her spine and squared her shoulders, unwilling to accept whatever cruel fate the woman devised with less than a warrior’s stance. “What kind of favor?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat forward, a new sense of triumph in the woman’s petite frame. “You aren’t the only one sticking your nose where it does not belong.”
More games. Anna put both hands on the desktop and stared the woman down. Those tutors of hers would be appalled. “That isn’t an answer.”
“You’re right.” There was a tilt of the head and veil. “Tell me, Miss Greene, are you attached, promised, affianced in any way?”
Anna startled at the swift change in topic. “No—”
“Excellent,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, her tone pleased. The veil shifted, and Anna caught a flash of teeth. “Then you will be perfect to help me with my little pest problem.”
Anna’s insides twisted, but she didn’t back down. “What kind of pest?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood and walked to the silk rope in the corner meant to call a servant and pulled. “The gentlemanly kind—oh, you need not look so disgusted. I mean nothing untoward.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.” That was exactly what Anna had thought. If not placing her in the role of some desperate lightskirt, then what?
“Marriage.”
Anna choked on her quick inhale. “‘Marriage’?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon nodded. “Yes, marriage. One quick ceremony of vows and all debts are paid in full.”
The twisting in Anna’s gut turned viselike. She pressed the heels of her hands against the desktop to keep her balance. “There has to be another way.”
“No, Miss Greene,” said the widow with the authority of a queen. “There is not.”
Oh, to rail, to scream. To rage until tears burned her eyes.
Tears never solved anything and in fact merely attracted the predators faster. They certainly wouldn’t see her brother home.
Anna stared down at the dark grain of the desktop, the swirls chaotic and far too similar to her situation to be called beautiful. She’d come here looking for answers . . . and she’d found herself face to face with her own limitations.
With matrimony to a stranger her only way out.
A flash of a man’s face—a boy, really. Young, raven haired with eyes like the sea. And her, equally young, fresh-faced, and ruined by what she’d thought had been the tapestry of love.
Anna gritted her teeth and picked at the silly fantasy until the edges frayed and the image was nothing but a knotted mess of color. There would be no more holding out hope. No more idiotic wishing for the past.
Nothing but a single thread pulling her toward her future.
Elise had been right. Anna had been soundly caught by the Black Widow of Whitehall, the spider, and there was no other option but to take her deal.
Anna’s future happiness in exchange for the freedom to continue the search for William.
So be it.
Anna dropped her handkerchief to the desktop, the white flag of her surrender, and demanded, “Which gentleman?”