Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Although Mr Hawke had reluctantly agreed to her proposal, Daphne refused to answer him until they were seated in his carriage, rattling along the road to London.
Perhaps he thought the new bed and armoire his men had assembled in her chamber would serve as a fitting bribe. Or that having the gardener clear the pebbles and weeds might win her favour.
But a week had passed since she’d made her pact with Lady Soanes, and playing enquiry agent meant the rest would pass just as quickly.
He sat across from her on the black leather seat, filling the space with his indomitable presence, his eyes locked on her. His prey.
While he appeared immaculate in a charcoal grey frock coat and matching trousers that hugged his solid thighs, she wore the only clean dress she owned. Her dark blue pelisse was fastened to the throat, but her clothing did not escape his scrutiny.
Twice, he’d glanced at the hem brushing her leather half-boots. Now she caught him studying the buttons on her coat. His attention shifted to the curl that had slipped from her bonnet, grazing her jaw.
“Do you have an interest in ladies’ fashions, Mr Hawke? Have I torn a seam or left a button undone?”
He stared down his nose, his gaze never faltering. “I was deciding whether a shirt and breeches might suit you better. As for fashion, I suspect you’ve owned that coat since your first season.”
She smoothed her hand over the fine wool. “I only removed old clothes from the armoire when I packed.” She’d not wanted her father to think she’d left town. Shadowmere would have been the first place he looked. “And since you’re so used to seeing ladies naked, I didn’t think it mattered.”
His gaze drifted over her again, slower this time.
She hoped to heaven he wasn’t picturing her naked.
Silence settled between them.
She’d counted ten cows, a dozen sheep, and four horse-chestnut trees before he finally spoke. “We should turn back. They’ll be looking to pin your father’s murder on someone, and we both had motive.”
“Then we’ll move through London like wraiths in the night.”
“It’s almost noon.” From his tone, his patience was a band stretched thin. “We’ll be in London in two hours. We don’t have a plan, mostly because you still haven’t told me what you know.”
She stalled. If he deemed the snippets useless, he might dump her on the side of the road. “Did you bring the coroner’s report as agreed?” Her gaze slid to the leather portfolio on the seat.
“Must we barter for everything, Miss Harland?” His expression was carved from stone, but his voice carried a whisky-rich edge.
He enjoyed this game. If he didn’t, she’d be sweeping the cottage path, not sitting close enough to catch the scent of his bergamot shaving soap.
Her mother’s warning had never felt more apt:
Trust a man’s actions more than his words.
“Bartering makes things more interesting.” As he placed a large hand on the portfolio, she gave him a crumb. “What my father said won’t please you. But I’m only repeating his words.”
“Just tell me, woman.”
“Call me angel and ask nicely.”
He gritted his teeth. “Tell me what you know, angel.”
The warm flutter in her belly confirmed what she already suspected. She’d barter with blood just to hear him utter the endearment. Seeing him on his knees might work just as well, too.
She took a fortifying breath. “My father said he wasn’t the only man courting your mother.”
As predicted, he looked feral when he growled, “The bastard wasn’t courting her. He used her for his own gain.”
She held up her hands in surrender. “I’m merely the messenger. The one person you can trust to dig until the truth is uncovered. May I see the report now?”
“That’s not all he said?”
“No. He said he wasn’t the only villain, and if he’d known you bore a grudge, he would have dealt with it years ago.”
What had her father done?
It amounted to more than a love affair. If only Mr Hawke would tell her. But he guarded the truth as fiercely as he did his own heart.
Mr Hawke cursed at the window. “A grudge? Is that what you think this is? Some schoolboy resentment? That I’d have those degenerates in my home because I’m aggrieved?”
“I don’t know what it is. You won’t tell me.”
He barely looked at her as he handed over the portfolio. The anger had drained from him, replaced by a sadness so heavy she feared she might drown in it too.
She opened the folder, bracing for gruesome details, her fingers brushing over the crisp parchment as though the paper itself might flinch.
One line had been underlined twice in the coroner’s hand.
No water in the lungs.
Daphne stilled.
He hadn’t drowned.
Her father had been dead before he hit the water.
She lifted her gaze to meet Mr Hawke’s. His expression had changed, the hard mask softened by sorrow. Something in his eyes reminded her of the warmth of his embrace.
For a moment, the burden didn’t feel like hers alone.
She read on.
Another line caught her attention.
“A blow from behind. Object smooth and cylindrical. Possibly metal.” A shiver rippled across her shoulders. She looked up again. “It wasn’t a fight. He never saw it coming.”
Mr Hawke leaned forward, eyes narrowing on the page. “A cosh. Or a length of pipe. Something quick. Quiet.”
“Used by someone who knew where to strike. Someone close enough to approach him without raising suspicion.”
She pictured the scene. Her father. The tyrant who haunted her days and ruined her sleep. The man she’d prayed might wake one morning and be kind.
Tears welled. Not for him, but for the opportunity lost.
“Have you ever wished you could change someone?” She sniffed, dabbing her nose. “That you could mould them into the perfect parent? That life would be better then?”
He surprised her by answering.
“I wish my father hadn’t been a complete wastrel. His reckless behaviour was the catalyst for every tragedy that followed.”
She swallowed down her misfortune. “Where is he now?”
“In a grave at All Saints Church. The plot suits the life he led. Neglect for himself, and for everyone who depended on him.”
There was no bitterness in his tone, only a tired kind of truth. A man taking stock of the wreckage.
She wondered if he saw that life was a mirror. That necessity had shaped him into someone just as neglectful. Neglectful of his morals, his happiness, his peace.
“When it comes to rotten fathers, we have that in common.”
She turned back to the report and read the line about faint ligature marks found on his wrists, though his hands weren’t bound when they pulled him from the Thames.
“My father’s signet ring was missing. He owed money to the Moseley brothers. They might have taken it in payment.”
“No.” His reply came too quickly. “They would have tortured him first. Ransacked your house in the dead of night and taken everything of value.” He paused. Something dark passed over his features. “Including you. You’re not safe until the debt is paid. We need to know how much he owed them.”
She froze on the carriage seat. Suddenly, going to London felt like a dreadful mistake. “I can’t pay them. I haven’t a penny to my name.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“That’s not how bartering works. I’ll find a way—”
“No. We’ll barter for everything but this.”
“But—”
“Miss Harland.” His voice gentled. “Please. My mother found herself in a similar predicament. Let me do this for her, if not for you.”
She fell a little in love with Mr Hawke—just for a moment. The urge to slide onto his lap and smooth the frown from his brow was nearly unbearable.
Do you like that, Hawke?
You know I do, angel.
“What?” he said. “You’re looking at me like I’ve just been canonised a saint. It’s a practical decision. We can’t move freely around London with the Moseley brothers on our backs.”
Strange how practical felt like protection.
“Still, I shall find a way to repay you.”
Or a way to settle the debt herself.
Neither spoke again for a mile.
While she scoured her mind, imagining all the things she might do for him, he seemed oddly preoccupied with the upper buttons on her coat.
Perhaps he was assessing how warm she was because he intended leaving her on Lady Soanes’ doorstep, without so much as a backward glance.
Was the trip a ruse? A way to force her out of Shadowmere and avoid the kicking and screaming?
She stilled.
No. His actions said otherwise.
He’d brought her new fire tools last night, and a thicker wrapper to guard against the cold. Why go to such trouble if he meant to evict her?
“Who will we visit first? The witness? Mr Beattie’s old comrade thinks he lives in Southwark.”
Mr Hawke regarded her in silence, as though measuring her mettle. “We’ll visit the witness before we return to Kingston tonight.”
She sagged in relief.
He planned to take her home with him.
“I need to visit a friend in Seven Dials. She’s the only person who can broker a meeting with the Moseley brothers without them shooting us first.”
He glanced out of the window as they passed a cart laden with barrels, but his gaze lingered at some point in the distance.
“You might charm her into disclosing a secret, Miss Harland. You have a talent for achieving impossible feats.”
If there was a compliment there, she didn’t dwell on it.
Who was this woman? An old lover? A dear friend?
Jealousy twisted in her stomach.
Absurd.
Since when had a flutter of desire overridden all common sense? She was a thorn in his side. She spent the rest of the journey repeating it like a prayer.
It took the better part of an hour to travel from London Bridge to Seven Dials, the streets growing noisier and more chaotic with every turn of the wheels.
The woman Mr Hawke knew had clearly fallen on hard times. Daphne’s fate might not be so different. Once the house was sold and the creditors paid, she’d be lucky to have threepence in her purse.
“There but for the grace of God.” Mr Hawke watched a barefoot child cling to her mother’s skirts as she sold flowers from a broken wicker basket. “Many on these streets won’t survive the winter.”