Chapter Two #2
Those two words spoke volumes. She could see much. He was far from being pleased by the prospect of her being his tenant. And she hadn’t thought to question Mr. Fitz about the arrangement after they’d discussed her options. She’d trusted him, forever grateful for being her ally.
Well, she wasn’t pleased either! Who would want a criminal for a landlord? It might, as much as she was loathe to admit, be best to find another place. “If you wish to nullify our arrangement, all you have to do is return my rent.”
“I don’t.” His expression didn’t change, but something flickered in the depths of those fathomless eyes. Reluctance? Suspicion? She couldn’t tell. But it made her stomach twist in a strange way.
Her brows snapped together. “Didn’t you say your brother rented us this space without your permission?”
“I don’t return blunt.”
How . . . blunt.
But of course, he wouldn’t just be an ordinary villain. He’d have to be a greedy one, too. Urgh! She didn’t want to live in apprehension for the next six months.
You can do this, Calliope.
It was just six months.
She’d been through worse for longer.
“Very well.”
A curt nod. “I’ll stomach your perfumes till your contract ends. Then I want you gone.”
Rude beast. “It’s candles, and you don’t have to stomach anything if you don’t visit my shop.”
His black eyes stared at her steadily. “I am your neighbor.”
“You live next door?” The question snapped from her tongue before she could swallow it back.
He inclined his head, the first spark of real amusement glinting in his gaze. “Yes. I do.”
What on earth was happening? What world had she stepped into?
She did not want to live next door to a Beast of Brighton!
And why show her the slipper at all if he did not suspect her?
But would he be speaking with such ease if he were certain?
Wouldn’t he have dragged her off to a dungeon already?
In all likelihood, he would probably visit all the shops in this neighborhood today to find the owner of that slipper.
“Well, I appreciate you introducing yourself.” That might have been her only luck. Now she could put a face to the local villain. Her gaze swept over his scar again. A dangerous villain. Yet another she would have to escape at some point.
Prince cocked his head at the man, whose lips twitched. “Quite the guardian you have there. Should I feel honored that he’s deemed me worthy of his boredom?”
His mocking tone felt like earth wrapping around the soles of her feet. She ground her teeth, glaring at the man. “He saves canines for the night.”
His gaze seared a path over her body then met her eyes again.
The contempt rolling off him was palpable.
“The worst monsters walk in daylight, too, Miss Turner.” A shiver traveled down her spine, the faintest hint of menace flaring in his gaze as he assessed her.
“I imagine you don’t know much about me, Miss Turner, but I don’t like trouble in my territory.
If you keep to your own affairs, I’ll keep to mine. ”
“Well, I certainly don’t plan to cross into yours.” Ever. Again.
In fact, she wanted to stay very, very far away.
*
This woman couldn’t hold a convincing face if her life depended on it. And she had the kind of face that didn’t belong in Brighton.
Or at least not in his Brighton.
She was too damn delicate.
And yet, she hadn’t trembled when he loomed, and he had done so deliberately. She hadn’t stuttered when he pushed. She hadn’t folded under his gaze. That unsettled Maxen more than her perfumes ever could. Or candles. Ridiculous.
Even more damn ridiculous, he’d stood in bloodier rooms, faced men who’d slit throats for two coins, sharp blades as smiles. But when her eyes had locked on his, he’d felt unnerved. Peeled back. As though she might glimpse something he’d never dared show another soul, should his guard slip.
The tips of his fingers twitched.
His new tenant was small, slight in frame and graceful in posture.
She wore a simple day dress of a pink, though not the bold shade.
The softer one. Whatever it was called. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But something still struck him as off. She felt wrong for the Lanes.
Her golden hair was too golden. Like the sun.
Even her voice sounded spun from sunlight.
She was running a candle shop for Christ’s sake—sunshine turned to business.
She looked like sunlight turned flesh. And for one cursed second, every damn rule he lived by deserted him.
Her green eyes, bright enough to blind. Behind them?
Storms.
Secrets.
She hadn’t so much as flinched when he’d pulled the slipper from his coat.
However, he had caught a slight hesitation.
Not overt. But enough to set his every instinct on high alert.
As a man trained to spot a blade in a glance and a lie in a heartbeat, his senses had detected something but also not a bloody thing.
A first.
And it could mean just about anything under the damn sun.
She might be lying. Might be she didn’t trust him searching for a woman with nothing but a slipper. Might be a possibility he hadn’t considered. Despite that, she met his gaze with chin held high.
His hand flexed. A flicker of instinct. To reach. To touch. To feel. He curled his fingers into a fist against the absurd urge instead. To feel he’d have to remove his gloves, and he never removed them in front of anyone.
“I will hold you to that, Miss Turner. Let’s not meet again, then.”
Her eyes blazed at him. “Agreed.”
He strode from the shop, pausing with his hand on the door, casting her one last glance at her before stepping out completely.
He didn’t go far, however, leaning against the cool stone wall of a nearby building across the street, his eyes trained on the woman’s shop.
Every nerve in his body felt pulled tight, sharpening his senses as he turned over what he had learned from their brief encounter.
Calliope Turner.
A vision of sunlight.
Could she truly be the same woman who had slipped through his grasp last night? Had he chased her through the dark alleys, her shadow just a whisper against the cobblestones as she evaded him with skill?
Bloody troublesome.
He didn’t do loose ends. Didn’t do sweet scents.
Didn’t do women like her. Polished edges.
She practically gleamed with them. A finish the Lanes could never scuff away.
That spine. That poise. She was not from his world, hadn’t scraped her way from the gutters.
And he hadn’t crawled his way to his position now to end back there because he lost focus.
For that reason, he needed to determine his new tenant’s true intentions in Brighton.
Young women didn’t just open candle shops and run them by themselves without a guardian.
Ones with secrets might.
He should never have left Brighton. Should have sent one of his brothers. Perhaps then he wouldn’t have a merchant bleeding in the bloody dungeon beneath his tavern. And her.
Drake, his right-hand brother and second oldest of the Fury brood, appeared beside him, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Is it her?” he asked in a murmur so low it barely rose above the clatter of the growing streetway. “Your little spy?”
Maxen didn’t respond immediately, his gaze remaining fixed on the shop’s window where Miss Turner once more arranged her candles. Was she? He wasn’t entirely certain. And he wanted to be certain. If it was her, she might just be an expert at hiding.
Or she might just be a normal, polished young woman.
Still, a nagging suspicion burrowed into him.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said. She was hiding something. But he didn’t know what. Yet.
“You have a suspicion.”
“Of course. Why else would I be keeping an eye here?”
“Lurking.”
Maxen merely shrugged. “Call it what you will.”
Drake crossed his arms over his chest. “We can’t afford any wild loose ends running around Brighton.”
The slipper burned against his chest. It was not a decision he wanted to make, but for now, “We do nothing.”
“That’s not like you.”
Maxen shrugged. If it was indeed her, which he was about ten percent unsure about, this innocent-looking Miss Turner with her golden spun hair and bright, piercing eyes would have to be watched closely. Something Maxen wanted to do even less than he wanted to deal with her in the first place.
“If you want me to handle the chit—”
“No.” He turned to his brother, gaze hardening. “She’s on my territory. I will handle her.”
His brother’s brows furrowed. “She seems to have caught your interest.”
“Interest?” Maxen turned the word over in his mind. That couldn’t be. He’d only just met her. And she was everything he avoided. Everything delicate and soft and light. She barely reached his damn shoulders, for Christ’s sake.
“Is she pretty?” Drake asked, his voice laced with amusement.
“No.”
Pretty could not begin to describe her. Her golden halo framed a face that held a unique beauty. A few freckles danced across her nose, her lips pink and fiery. Her eyes, however, were what claimed and held his attention.
They sparkled with a life force all their own.
Even so, whatever interest might gather died with the stench of uncertainty that clung to her. Aye, she smelled of entanglements he didn’t need or want. A puzzle he had no desire to solve.
He wanted her gone. Right after he turned any uncertainty to certainty. If she was a spy . . . Which reminded him. “What happened with Rollings?”
“Still not talking much.”
Damn it. “What’s your judgment on his involvement with the shipment loss?”
“Not involved.”
“This isn’t good.” Maxen didn’t question his brother. Drake had his ways to pull the truth from people. All his brothers had. Drake, however, had never failed before. Frustration slashed at him.
Another bloody mystery.
Nothing ever slipped passed him, yet in the span of twenty-four-hours, two mysteries had landed on his doorstep. “Who else would know about our shipment? Our routes? Our damn timelines?”
“No one.” Drake rubbed his temples. “Except perhaps the ring of women dabbling on our margins that the Duke of Mortimer took down. But unlikely.”
And yet nothing ever stayed down forever. Just look at the Furys themselves. No matter what life dealt them, they always rose back up. “He cut off the head, but we both know another one will soon appear. Perhaps it already has.”
“We’ve filled the vacancy thoroughly,” Drake reminded him.
“That doesn’t mean someone else won’t try.
” In the gutters, survival favored the strong.
And he’d spend his whole life strengthening his family, their connections, and their place in the world.
There was little that could topple them, but that didn’t mean there was nothing.
And it was his job as the head of the brood to eliminate those things. “And there is the duke himself.”
“You believe Mortimer and his men could be behind this?”
“We have history.”
Drake snorted. “We were never his aim.”
“Doesn’t mean we won’t become it.”
“And we’ll know the moment we do, but this isn’t his style.”
“True.” He supposed.
“And her?” Drake motioned to the candle shop. “It could just be a coincidence she appeared here.”
“Maybe.” He hoped for Miss Turner’s sake that was all it was, or he would have to dispose of her the only way he knew how. He’d rather not tread that path, not unless he was left no choice.
“Wait—over yonder. Isn’t that . . .?”
Maxen’s brows furrowed as his gaze fell on a tall man striding up the street and entering her shop. An egotistical posture he knew all too well.
Well, well, well.
Promises were only as good as the people who made them.
As were their words.
And every single one of hers just became more suspicious.