Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
War raged within Greer’s chest as he stood guard outside the door to Penny and his sister’s room at Mrs. Hunt’s boarding house.
“This ain’t right,” Mrs. Hunt protested, trying to move around Greer to shout at Penny as he packed his and Helen’s few belongings into two large cases. “You lot cannot leave like this without paying me a farthing for the trouble. It ain’t right.”
Greer shifted in mirror to Mrs. Hunt’s attempts to get into the room, glowering at the woman.
“You’ve been threatening to toss us on the street for ages now,” Penny said, coming to the door and standing by Greer’s side. “I would have thought you’d be happy to see the backs of us.”
Greer humphed. He could guess what Mrs. Hunt was thinking.
The old biddy was thinking she’d just lost her golden goose.
Whether her threats in the past had been serious or not, she likely saw just how much she’d been able to capitalize on Penny’s affection for his sister to extort exorbitant sums from him. She was losing all that now.
“I’ll send the police after you, I will,” the old woman blustered. “They’d like to know a thing or two about what I know.”
Again, Greer huffed a laugh. Mrs. Hunt would cause herself far more trouble than Penny if she whispered a word to anyone.
While Greer might not have had unimpeachable faith in The Zagreus Den in every way, he trusted the power Brutus and Titus had, especially the power to keep things quiet.
He knew they were essentially men of their word, too.
Kind was perhaps too much of an overstatement, but now that they’d pledged to protect Helen, they would do it with their lives.
“Are we going to the palace?” Helen asked with a look of childlike wonder, stepping up to join Penny and Greer in the doorway.
“Yes, love,” Penny said, a compassionate smile for his sister. “We’re leaving here forever.”
“Good,” Helen said, hugging the armful of dolls she carried tightly. “I don’t like it here.”
Greer smiled. It was not precisely out of the mouth of babes, but the innocent could often see the truth better than anyone else.
Penny dodged back into the room to collect the two cases that contained all of his and Helen’s worldly possessions. Greer immediately took one of them once Penny came back to the doorway. He and Penny flanked Helen’s sides and escorted her out of the room as if she were a princess.
“Good day to you, Mrs. Hunt,” Greer nodded to the irate woman once they reached the front hall. “I dare say our paths will never cross again.”
“You cannot do this,” Mrs. Hunt called after them as they left, shrill and peevish. “I’ll turn the law against you.”
Brutus and Titus had offered one of The Zagreus Den’s carriages for the current mission.
It waited just down the street in front of the boarding house.
With very little effort at all, Greer was able to whisk Penny and Helen into the carriage.
The driver shut the door behind them, and without delay, they were on their way.
“This carriage is pretty,” Helen observed in wonder, still hugging her dolls as Penny slipped an arm around her shoulder, watching her intently. “It smells nice.”
Greer smiled. He couldn’t explain why he liked such a different woman so much.
Every bit of his past experience with those who nature had not blessed with full faculties had made him feel bristly and awkward.
Perhaps it was the similarities to her brother that inclined Greer toward her.
She had the same red hair and green eyes.
She had the same sense of underlying goodness, too.
Greer’s gaze subtly shifted to Penny. The physical and emotional sensations that washed through him as he looked at the man were a thousand times more uncomfortable than those he felt for his sister. Penny was where the war within him raged.
He should have felt a sense of honor among thieves or professional admiration for the man.
He might also have been willing to let his lusts run riot thinking about the man’s slim but fit body.
He wouldn’t have thought anything of casually enjoying the sound of his laughter or the intelligence of his conversation, which was astounding, considering the man had been raised in the street.
What threw Greer’s insides into turmoil was that he felt all of those things bundled into a whole that pulsed and spread through all parts of him.
It wasn’t simple admiration. It wasn’t lust and a need to fuck Penny again as thoroughly as he could.
It wasn’t the warmth of conversing with an equal in understanding and scope.
It was all of those things taken together.
Greer had never dared to entertain the idea of loving anyone before, but love refused to be stuffed into a bottle and corked where Penny was concerned. Greer was very much afraid the strong, kind, caring ginger sitting across from him as they rattled through London was his match in every way.
“You’re awfully quiet for a man who has a captive audience to complain to,” Penny told them when they were more than halfway to Tyburnia.
Greer played along, pretending his thoughts and emotions had not been tying him in knots and that he had not been remembering the taste of Penny’s skin and the sound of his pleasure moans. “Why should I complain when I am in such fine company?” he asked, smiling at Helen.
Helen grinned back at him, hiding her face against her dolls. “You’re lovely,” she mumbled quietly.
The sentiment turned Greer’s smile genuine and squeezed his heart.
That same heart throbbed in time with a lower pulse when he caught Penny smiling back at him with overflowing gratitude.
Greer made an effort to converse with Helen the rest of the way to The Zagreus Den, though the conversation was mostly one-sided, with occasional nods and giggles from Helen.
Once they reached the Den, where they were greeted in the front hall by Brutus and Titus, Valentine, and Jonathan Moorgate with his boy, Charlie, Helen went completely silent.
She clung to Penny in a way that necessitated Greer carrying both cases as they were welcomed.
“This is Valentine and this is Charlie,” Brutus introduced the two comely lads to Helen in the softest voice Greer had ever heard from the man as Jonathan and Titus took their cases. “They will happily show you to your new rooms and find refreshment for you.”
“Tea party?” Helen perked up a bit.
“I would love a tea party,” Valentine said, shifting to Helen’s side and placing a gentle hand on her arm. “Would you like to choose your teacup?”
It was clear at once that Penny had made a wise decision by insisting his sister be cared for by the Den while he accomplished the feat they’d asked of him. Though he barely knew the woman, Greer felt his concerns for her melt away as Valentine and Charlie led her off.
“She’ll be well looked after and treated like a queen by those two,” Brutus said reassuringly.
Penny watched his sister go until she and her new companions turned a corner and disappeared. Then he rubbed the back of his neck, glanced momentarily to Greer, then let out a sigh and faced Brutus and Titus. “She is my everything.”
“We understand,” Titus said, nodding. He was less tender and emotional than his brother, but the warmth he showed now proved he, too, had a heart.
“And now, we should discuss final arrangements for the two of you so that you might make your way to Cornwall with all due haste,” Brutus said, turning and gesturing for them to follow him.
There were a great deal of arrangements to make and plans to lay.
The rest of the morning was spent discussing which trains would be available for them to make the journey to Cornwall and when they departed, what sort of accommodations they could expect or not expect once they arrived, and how much ready money they would be given to take with them to pay for whatever needs they might have.
In addition to all that, the brothers were in possession of plans of the castle.
“They were not drawn up by any architect or expert,” Titus explained, “but rather an agent of ours who served as a maid in the castle until last year.”
Greer’s brow flew up. The brothers never ceased to surprise him. Few men he knew would rely on a woman, no less a maid, for information as important as what was spread on the table between them.
“As you can see,” Titus went on, “the castle is formidable. It was designed hundreds of years ago for defense and retains most of its original strength.”
“The moat has been dry for a century,” Brutus picked up the explanation, “and the wall is crumbling in places, so it is not impossible to climb over. You’re likely to face more of a problem entering the premises rather than leaving it.”
“Where are the doors?” Penny asked, frowning at the plans.
“There are only two,” Titus said. “The front door and the kitchen door.” He pointed to the two locations on the plans.
“No others?” Greer asked, frowning and rubbing his chin.
“Not as such,” Brutus said, “though there are several windows that could provide egress. The maid informed us they are all locked from the inside most of the time, which is why they will not work to enter the castle.”
“But it’s summer now,” Penny pointed out. “Would they not keep the windows of a home near the sea open in the summer?”
Brutus and Titus exchanged a look. “They might,” Titus said, “but I would not count on it.”
Greer nodded. “I assume we can take these plans with us?”
“Yes,” Titus said. “We’ve made a duplicate.”
That was easy enough. Having any sort of diagram of the house he was about to break into was a luxury Greer was rarely afforded. He might not need plans in the end, but it was good to know they were available.
Less convenient was the undeniable change to Greer’s usual modus operandi.
“I’ve been thinking about the castle,” Penny said several hours later, as the two of them were jostled along in a first-class train compartment on their way to Newquay.