Chapter Six #3
It was a ludicrous demand to make—Mavis knew it just as surely as Arden did, but when he fell quiet and turned his attention toward the sea, his brow furrowed and eyes dark, a small spark of hope lit in her chest.
Two million solas would mean freedom from Minstead.
It would mean having enough left over for her, Rafe, and Leif to start over, to forge their own lives however they saw fit.
She could even use that money to buy out the contracts of some of the other urchins.
Oh, she knew that agreeing to help Arden in his quest for Oriana’s hand was a dangerous undertaking, risky in more ways than she could name, but if there was a price she was willing to accept, that was it: freedom—for her, for Rafe, for Leif, and for as many other urchins as she could afford.
After what felt like an eternity, Arden sighed and turned back toward her. “Two million solas.” He inhaled deeply, tilting his head toward the sky. “Gods of Old help me, but I’ll do it.”
He stuck out his hand toward hers, but all Mavis could do was stare.
She’d never thought he would actually agree—only a fool would offer her two million solas, and more than that, only a fool would say no.
Mavis had not gotten where she was by being a fool, but even she had to acknowledge that Arden had come closer than anyone else to making her into a fool, and agreeing to help him was akin to courting danger.
Mavis took a long look at Arden, his golden-brown hair tousled in the ocean air, dark-blue eyes intent on her.
She may have only scratched the surface on how much he’d changed in the last five years, but she knew he was no longer a mark she could twist around her finger, and that made him a threat.
Not only to her, but to Rafe and Leif as well.
Two million solas. She’d taken bigger risks for a whole hell of a lot less, hadn’t she?
“I want to accept, Mr. Ryskamp,” she said finally. “But I can’t—not alone, at least.”
Mavis could practically see the thoughts turning behind his eyes. “Ah. Your brother.”
She grimaced. “Not my brother. My partner. Partners. Though, yes, you’ve met one of them, and he was pretending to be my brother at the time.”
Arden’s expression soured—unsurprising, Mavis supposed, since she remembered how he and Rafe had butted heads even in their brief encounters.
It had been Rafe’s fault—in that first con, he hadn’t yet learned how to hide his distaste for Lusters.
He still hadn’t quite mastered that lesson, but that was why he stayed away from polite society as much as he could get away with.
“I take it his name isn’t Stuart?” Arden asked.
“Here, he’s going by Dagwood.”
“But it isn’t his real name. No more than Arabella or Delphinia is yours.”
Mavis bit her lip. “No.” It was best to leave it at that. “As we are partners, I’m unable to accept your deal without their agreement, and they won’t give it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Not even for two million solas?”
Mavis thought of how the Hartweiller brothers had responded the day before at the very idea of remaining in Garlin with Arden Ryskamp merely in the same vicinity, how difficult it had been to convince them to stay put.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Perhaps if I spoke to them directly?” he asked.
“That would be unwise.”
“I can be very persuasive,” he said, and Mavis could swear he injected a new undercurrent to his words, one that caressed her skin with too much familiarity for comfort.
She was all too aware of how persuasive Arden could be, though she doubted his charms would hit the mark with Rafe and Leif as well as they had with her.
It might be amusing to watch, though, if she didn’t suspect that Rafe would be incandescently cross with her for bringing Arden to meet them—particularly if it meant introducing him to Leif.
Though Leif towered over Rafe in size now, it was difficult to forget that Rafe was the elder of the brothers and every bit as protective of Leif now as he’d been when Leif was a scrawny, gangly limbed boy with soft hands and a quiet voice.
“And yet,” she told Arden, the words crisp, “here I am, unpersuaded. Despite threats and bribes.”
“If you’re certain.” One corner of Arden’s mouth lifted in a smile in a way that sowed seeds of unease in Mavis’s belly.
She decided to ignore it. “I am.” She lifted her empty porcelain cup. “I’m also in dire need of more coffee, so if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave.”
She turned, ready to walk back up the shore to the hotel, when Arden’s voice stopped her.
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name?
” he asked, idly enough that Mavis knew he didn’t expect an answer.
Which was just as well, since telling Arden Ryskamp her true name would be a colossal error.
Oh, it wasn’t as if she believed Arden had the skill or resources to track her based on nothing but a given name—the world had its fair share of Mavises.
Five years later, though, and Mavis could remember exactly how Arden had spoken her alias, murmuring the name Arabella as if it were something precious and delicate.
She knew Mavis lacked the same elegance, but she had still lain awake more nights than she was proud to admit trying to imagine how it might sound in his voice.
Now that the mystery could be answered, Mavis worried she would be sorely disappointed in what was revealed.
More than that, she worried she wouldn’t be disappointed at all.
“Delphinia suits just fine,” she said without turning around.
He laughed. “It doesn’t. And neither does Arabella, I’m realizing.”
She turned over her shoulder, giving him a level look. “Take it from someone who has had just shy of a dozen names, Arden—one fits just as well as any other might. There’s no point in complicating matters by giving you a third option.”
She didn’t give him a chance to argue, instead striding back to the hotel before he could ask her again, worried that she might give it to him.