Chapter 10
Beck was irritated.
It wasn’t enough that it took a great deal of hard, back-breaking, miserable work to work up this much of a sweat in weather so cold that a gust of hot breath could spell your full name on the air.
It wasn’t enough that it was filthy, that the ground was wet and frigid and sucking or that so little of that cursed, collapsed tenement was still salvageable.
They had thought at least some of the bricks could be reused. They had been certain that at least the joists, forged in steel and fire, would be salvageable. If not those things, then certainly the foundation. At least the foundation?!
But no, none of it was good. All of it had been brought low by the miserable common devastation that was simple water.
Water had ruined it all. And now they were tearing it apart, brick by brick, with nothing but pickaxes and wheel carts, praying that maybe one plank in a thousand, one brick in a sea of hundreds, might be worth keeping.
He had known days ago that they would need to buy both someone to come remove all the rubble and the pieces that would be required to build something new. He had put the wheels in motion as soon as he’d realized it.
What he hadn’t counted on was yet another toff with power being an absolutely unforgivably insufferable git.
The note from Ember had been short and to the point, smudged with the sooty fingerprints of one of their linkboys.
He won’t sell to a woman. Come to the club.
He was going to kill him. He was going to rip him in half and stuff his overpriced bricks into whichever half retained his stomach.
He had stormed across London in his shirtsleeves, filthy, sweaty, and enraged, ready to make the angriest purchase in British history.
He hadn’t even bothered to put his coat back on.
It wasn’t worth ruining the lining with how disgusting he was.
He was steaming, literally and figuratively, as he tore across the sidewalks of Clerkenwell toward St. James, scandalizing peasants and nobles alike.
It was still early afternoon. Not even really time for luncheon yet.
And it was actually dry today. This withering ego in a top hat had interrupted one of the few days of autumn that hadn’t been soggy to its bones because the person holding a stack of perfectly good currency had been wearing a skirt.
Yes, Beck was irritated.
Murderously irritated.
There were frost crystals forming in the exposed coils of chest hair at the top of his open collar. He was smeared with dust and mud and clay. His hair was hanging over his eyes in thick ropes. A sane man would be shivering.
He yanked the door to the Flaming Fox open so hard, he wouldn’t have been shocked if it had come off its hinges in his fist.
It startled absolutely everyone inside.
And there were far more people inside than he had expected, which gave him immediate, horrified pause.
Ember and Reed were seated near the hazard table with a slender, blonde woman who was sipping tea from a chipped mug, her green eyes tilted up at the door with polite interest at the intrusion.
At the bar, there was a stocky gentleman with a too-tight cravat and an overstated frown, clutching a stack of paperwork to his chest like it was his ladylove.
And damn all the powers that be, sweet little Hannah Lazarus was poised near the door leading to the back office in a turquoise frock, holding her hands to her pale throat, eyes wide and fixed on him.
“Goodness, Mr. Beck,” she breathed, her eyes traveling over every speck of filth that clung to his form. “Goodness!”
He looked down at himself in brief, startled dismay and quickly snatched two crisp, orange leaves off his bare forearms, where they’d gotten stuck in his rolled-up sleeves. He could already feel the heat of his rage melting into the heat of humiliation.
Christ, but why was she here so early?
And why was Reed here?!
And who was that blonde woman?!
He turned on his heel and jabbed a finger in the direction of the cravat on his barstool. “You!” he snapped. “You are Bramms?”
The man stammered a few vowels and nodded.
“You realize that in failing to sell to the co-owner of the deed, you have violated municipal law?!” Beck demanded, prowling forward, his eyes scanning the bar for a quill. “Do you realize that?”
“I … sir … she …” the man stammered.
“Give it here and make it fast,” he snarled, reaching out to snatch that beloved stack of forms from the man’s chest. “You are lucky that we are short on time, or I would not be giving you a single shiny pence. Do you understand me? If you disrespect my business partner again, I will ensure that you never do business with anyone in my association for the remainder of my living days.”
The man attempted to respond, but did not.
Shortly thereafter, he fled, signed papers in tow, and a date two days earlier than industry standard jotted above the original margin on the contract.
Beck did not even turn to watch him go. He braced his hands on the bar and drew in a deep, ragged breath, aware all at once of the warmth of the air from the fire as it brushed up against the back of his neck.
“Well,” said Ember. “That was efficient.”
Hannah walked forward quietly, sliding around the back of the bar and lifting a glass up and between Beck’s outstretched hands. She ducked her head a little to meet his eye and said, softly, “What would you like, St. Thaddeus?”
He stared at her. He wasn’t quite sure she was really there, truth be told. He blinked twice, but she didn’t vanish.
“How about I make you what my papa likes when he has a hard day?” she said, already turning and moving toward the bottles, like this was a perfectly normal place for a well-bred girl, and a perfectly normal task in service of a lowborn brute. “Let’s see here, no, not the clear gin …”
She bent down, her pert little backside swinging in his view as she fumbled through the bottles.
He still wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming or otherwise hallucinating. He shivered, the ice on his chest melting into his skin, and straightened just enough to push one hand through his dirty hair, trying to get it out of his face.
“Ah, here is the pink!” Hannah exclaimed with pleasure, pulling out a dusty bottle of gin from behind the clear varieties and setting it above her next to the bitters. “And ah! A lime!”
She smiled at him, arranging her tools in front of him and curling the paring knife into the lime as she cut off a clean little wedge, then opened both bottles to begin her pour, seemingly unbothered by his incredulous staring.
“I just find it hard to believe,” the blonde woman was saying behind him, her voice softened and clearly disapproving. “I’ve known her for years as well, Ember.”
“I assure you, madam, it is true,” Reed put in.
Beck wanted to turn around and tell them to be silent, but as soon as the drink was handed to him, those soft, pale fingers brushing his, he forgot everything else in the world.
“Thank you,” he said. “Hannah.”
“Ah,” she replied, blinking those heavy golden lashes. “You’ve said my name. Tell me if it is good.”
“It is good,” he said, and then took a drink.
“Oh, for the love of Christ,” Ember muttered. “Watch this. Hannah!”
Hannah frowned, looking up as though she’d been interrupted right in the middle of something requiring deep concentration. “Yes?”
“Dot and I are having a disagreement,” Ember told her. “Come settle it for us.”
Beck made a little grunt of dismay as the girl complied, leaving him alone as she ducked back outside of the bar and into the open floor of the central gambling room. “All right,” she said. “How can I help?”
“Mr. Reed is on my side, naturally,” Ember said with a sniff. “So settle our debate. I insist to Dorothy Fletcher here that children often play at kissing to learn how to do it. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Hannah answered, sounding a little baffled by the question.
“So did you?” Ember pressed. “When you were a child, did you practice kissing with the boys?”
“Oh,” said Hannah, considering it. “Well, no.”
“No?” Ember repeated, clearly surprised.
“Not with the boys,” Hannah clarified, so earnestly innocent that Beck almost bit into the glass he was sipping from.
Reed immediately started chuckling. “See?” he said. “Poor man’s going to crack a tooth.”
“Gracious,” said the woman whose name was clearly Dot. “Hannah, honestly.”
“I am being honest,” Hannah replied, sweetness clashing with befuddlement in her tone. “Isn’t that why you asked me over here?”
“See? Sometimes a young girl just wants to find out what a tongue tastes like,” Ember added helpfully. “Hannah here just stuck with other girls.”
“Is that unusual?” Hannah pressed, sounding distressed by it. “Do you think a man’s tongue tastes very different?”
Beck slammed his glass down and pushed back from the bar, twisting around to glare at Ember Donnelly, who was grinning at him with extremely self-aware glee.
“Ember,” he growled. “Stop it.”
“Yes, Ember,” said the blonde woman. “Goodness.”
“They taste about the same,” Reed offered as gentle clarification. “But I prefer the women.”
Hannah turned to Reed with a look on her face that made Beck want to toss his old friend so far out the window that he landed in New York. “Is that so?” she said on a warm breath.
“That’s enough!” Beck said, stomping forward to stand in between them, glaring down at the freckled glee in his friend’s face. “What are you even doing here, Reed? You are supposed to be at the Badger!”
“Ember called me,” he said, lifting his tawny brows. “In case you didn’t show fast enough. I was to impersonate you.”
“I like having him around,” Ember added, because she was the devil.
The blonde woman cleared her throat, setting her teacup down with a delicate click and giving him a weak smile. “Hello, Mr. Beck. We have not been introduced. I am Dorothy Cain. I am writing the gossip sheet for your clinic project. I have heard many wonderful things about you.”