Chapter Eighteen
“The counterfeiter’s boss goes by The Printer?” Roberts snorted from his leaned position against the window, his gaze on the bustling street outside. “Not very original.”
Jackson threw back his glass of whiskey and winced at the burn down his throat. Now that he was back in London, now that he had the name—a place—he was itching to move. But only idiots made rash decisions when emotions ran high.
“These monsters don’t need originality when they have children doing their dirty work for them,” Jackson said.
The other unsettling tidbit Hobbs had admitted before he’d been carted off by the magistrate, with direct orders to see the man brought before Home Secretary Sidmouth.
“Aside from the inner ring, day-to-day exchanges are done by couriers and street urchins for a coin with little-to-no direct connection to the actual business.” Except when the gang needed someone’s carriage axle broken.
“The barkeep at the Hog’s Huff will be expecting a young man.
” They shared a pointed look between them. “Neither of us fits the bill.”
Roberts sniffed. “I’ve been told I’m quite youthful looking for my age.”
“We need someone younger.” Jackson racked his brain. “Any new recruits from the Home Office we could utilize for a quick bait and trap?”
“None with the steel to make contact without giving everything away.”
“Then we need a fresh face,” Jackson said. “Someone who won’t turn yellow at the first sign of trouble. Someone as reckless as you.”
Roberts threw him a raised brow. “I’d like to meet this young and fearless hero.” He winked. “And scare him straight.”
Jackson ran a hand over his face, knowing the grocer’s list of qualities for another agent was grasping at best.
“I’ll do it,” a voice said.
Both men twisted toward the open door. Even Roberts, the man with nothing but ice and mockery in his veins, looked taken by surprise.
Anna’s expression was hard. “This is what you use your empty library for: clandestine meetings.”
It wasn’t a question.
Jackson’s neck went hot. “Anna.” He swallowed. “We didn’t hear you come in.”
How much did she overhear?
“Seems you need someone to impersonate a young man to order a drink at a pub,” she said.
Everything, it seemed.
“It isn’t what you think,” Jackson tried.
“You mean you are not assisting the Home Office with an investigation into a counterfeiting ring and have been lying to me this entire time? Placing guards at my door that are so laughably gullible, they left their post to fetch me water.” Her tone was mocking. “I’m ever so relieved.”
Jackson wasn’t assisting. He was the leader of the largest team—a collection of some of the most clever and dangerous men in England—and had been for the past four years.
He didn’t correct her.
“I happened to have connections that were useful to the investigation,” he said.
“And I happen to fit your description as a fresh face.”
Jackson’s stomach dropped out. He rearranged his expression into a bored smile. “It was but a passing thought I had.”
“You made it sound quite imperative and time-pressing.”
“What an ear you have,” Jackson grumbled. “And through such a solid door too.”
She didn’t relent. “At least it wasn’t a window this time.”
Roberts passed his tongue over his front teeth, the look in his eye assessing and far too damn familiar.
Jackson curled his fingers into fists to keep from plucking the man’s eyes from his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, Roberts. Don’t.”
The other man shrugged. “A young, fearless woman looks a lot like a young man in dim light.”
“No, Roberts.”
With clear dismissal, Anna turned her body away from Jackson and toward the other man and said, “Your name is Roberts?”
Roberts bowed his head. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“You are an agent for the Home Office.”
Not a question this time.
Roberts answered all the same. “The handsomest one of the bunch.”
“And one of the most skilled.” At his wide eyes, she said, “Your shoulders and arms are well built—a man accustomed to fisticuffs. A lack of facial scars says you take down your opponents quickly, and you hold yourself very still. That requires practice and or training.”
Roberts turned to give Jackson a look: eyes wide, mouth curling up in a reptilian smile.
Bloody hell.
Jackson repeated a third time, “No.”
Roberts pouted. “She’s got an eye.”
“And a mouth,” Jackson said.
“Ears too, Duke,” Anna said, her tone chilly.
“No,” Jackson said for the last time.
Their trio stood outside the Hog’s Huff pub three hours later.
The first hour had been nothing short of a shouting match of arguing. The second had been much of the same. And the third, more of the same while Anna had been transformed from a lovely duchess with creamy, apricot skin into a rumpled street urchin with dirt on her cheeks and under her nails.
“Don’t rush when you walk,” Jackson said from the alley down from the pub, sure he’d gone insane to let himself be talked into this.
But the longer the counterfeiters had to wait for word that the Duke of Grandfellow had been properly silenced, the more likely the gang would send another assassin, with possibly fatal results the next time.
Anna wouldn’t be safe until he dealt with these bastards.
“When you enter, go straight to the bar,” Jackson went on. “Take a seat near the end. Give the barkeep your order, but make sure to keep your hat pulled low. If anyone suspects you are a woman, everything will go wrong.”
Anna made a face. “You don’t want me to make a grand show of introducing my real self to a criminal with enunciated, clear, round vowels? If only the last hour of putting on these uncomfortable clothes and ridiculous prosthetic hair pieces had given me any clue I am to operate covertly.”
Roberts chuckled where he stood off to the side but seemed quite taken with the roof architecture when Jackson threw a glare his way.
Anna would be fine. She was quick on her feet. And the brownish hair pieces Jackson had chosen—to more resemble Hobbs’s non-descript coloring—placed at her temples and over her top lip were convincing for a young man coming into his first facial hair.
But Jackson’s insides wouldn’t untwist. Having her walk into the pub without him right by her side seemed like folly.
She wasn’t trained as an agent. Didn’t know all the risks.
Yes, he and Roberts would enter the pub after and remain close by .
. . but there were so many ways this exchange could go wrong.
“If I pass inspection?” Anna waved a hand over her front, the action entirely that of an annoyed woman instead of the gangly adolescent in worsted wool and a ratty cap she was meant to play.
“Don’t try to lower the pitch of your voice,” Roberts said, giving a rare piece of advice. “Or attempt to hide your nerves. Even young lads know when a job isn’t bang-up to the mark. If the barkeep asks questions, be firm that you only are there for your payment.”
Because greed speaks for itself.
Anna nodded. “Got it.”
Jackson’s insides gave another painful twist as she turned to cross the dark street. “It’s okay to be nervous.”
She made a sound in her throat and walked onto the sidewalk, her gait nothing short of swaggered, exactly like a young man on his way to get paid.
Roberts came to his side and voiced Jackson’s own appreciation for her steel nerves. “That is one hell of a woman. Not a trace of yellow in her liver.” He rubbed his chin. “I might even be a little in love with her by the end of the night.”
Jackson’s own nerves took a temporary backseat as he clasped his friend by the shoulder and said, “I have absolute amnesty for crimes committed by the Crown, Roberts.”
Even the murder of a second, idiot son. Something he was truly considering, given that the idiot had encouraged Anna’s participation up until Jackson had relented.
Roberts’s smile looked genuine. “Don’t get me all excited before the mission, Your Grace. I may lose my edge.”
“What a collection the Devil will have when he finally takes your soul: your edge, your morality, your way.” Jackson released the other man and rolled his eyes—his gaze snapping back to check Anna’s progress. She was nearly to the pub.
Speaking of losing one’s way.
Jackson held Roberts back when the man went to follow Anna across the street. “I need you to do something for me first.”
Roberts didn’t hesitate. “I charge by the body count.”
Good to know where the man drew the line.
“No bloodshed this time,” Jackson said. Though red might be the perfect color choice. He grinned. “I need the task done before you head inside.”
In case something went wrong—No! He would see to her safety.
But it never hurt to be prepared. Especially because the one thing he could count on where Anna was concerned was she’d never settle for half measures.
Given the chance, she’d work this entire mission through to the end, wherever its dangerous paths led.
Jackson would have to see their mission over and done with as quickly as possible.
Clearly intrigued by Jackson’s request, Roberts forwent his usual snide remark and waited.
Jackson told him what he needed done.
Roberts raised a brow but said, “I’ll send word to my men. They’ll have it done by the time the bullets start flying.”
Jackson rolled his eyes again and stepped out into the street. “The only guns involved tonight will be mine if you say something asinine about falling for my wife again.”
Roberts chuckled and called from the alley, “Promise?”