The Danger of Desire (7 page)

So he’d had the fairy man with him before, at the watchmakers. Stupid of her not to have seen him. This cove was too flash by half.

“Ain’t decided nofink. Yet.” She didn’t like being inside, all caged up with nowhere to run. Though it was nice and warm.

“I see. So you’ve come to negotiate, have you?” He seated himself behind his desk, leaned back in the leather-bound chair, and steepled his fingers across his chest. All to show her he was in charge. “You’re hardly in a position to ask for a pot to piss in. I could see you in jail or transported on the strength of my word alone. I could see you hung.”

He meant to frighten her. Good thing she was already scared shite-less. It saved them both time. “You could see me do what you want, nice ’n easy-like. For the right price.”

He considered that for a long moment. “All right,” he said mildly. “Why don’t you make yourself more comfortable. A drink, or some food perhaps, to help our negotiation. You look like you could use a decent meal.”

He thought to muddy her mind with drink. He couldn’t be half smart if he thought her stupid enough for that gambit. She felt a little flash of hope in her chest but let it die out. She’d have to see, wouldn’t she? Himself reached behind his desk for a bell pull, and in another moment the fairy man was back, suspicion bristling from him like hedgehogs’ spines.

“Make up a plate of dinner for our guest, will you?”

“Right, sir.” Another peat-black look and he slipped back out.

The captain had followed her gaze. “That was Mr. Clarence Jinks who is in charge of the household here. Mr. Jinks is a former prizefighter and navy man, and he takes great pride in the efficient running of the household. He does not care for slackers.”

So there’d be two of them to play the bully back. They were scaring her more by the minute.

“I’m a hard worker.”

“I’m very glad to hear it because then we shall all get on very well.” Himself rose, crossed to the fireplace, and gestured to the two wing-backed leather armchairs flanking the fire. “Shall we?” He sat, leaned back into the warm copper-colored leather, and crossed his ankles out in front of him. “Come, do have a seat while we discuss the particulars of your employment.”

He meant to look all hospitable and gentleman-like, but it was impossible. He was about as civil and harmless as a hanging judge. But he was in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs turned back to expose his forearms, and his collar was unbuttoned and lacking a cravat. Much more navvy than gentleman. Even with that limp, he was all raw, cagey power.

And he was very much a man. A handsome man, if a girl liked that rough-hewn, strong type. Which she didn’t. She didn’t like men at all. Had no use for them, except in providing ready money for her to take. Speaking of which.

“What’d I hafta do, if I was to work for you?”

“Just what you do now—steal things.”

“What kinda things?”

“Any thing I choose. You will conduct yourself, and these thefts in a manner approved by me, under my supervision. We will get the information I am seeking at any cost, by any means possible.”

Any
means? Hadn’t she heard that before. “I told you, I won’t whore.”

“That remains to be seen.”

That was it. She was done here. Even if she had ruined her hand, she wasn’t going to whore. No matter what. There was just some things a body couldn’t do. She had skills, she had standing. She could housebreak, even if she couldn’t dip. Much riskier, but more profitable, even if she had to deal with fences. That was how Nan had got taken—fences ratting her out to thief-takers. But she was letting her mind wander too far down the street. She had to concentrate on the money.

“We got to come to a right agreement about the blunt.”

“You will be adequately remunerated in compensation for your time.”

She supposed she was expected to be impressed by all that taradiddle. Remuneration, indeed. “ ’Ow much?”

“How much time? It depends on you, and how willing you are to work, and how well you do the tasks assigned to you.”

“No. ’Ow much blunt?”

He looked over the top of his steepled fingers. “One hundred pounds.”

“A thousand,” she countered.

He made a dismissive sound and lowered his eyebrows at such an outrageous sum. She forestalled his automatic refusal. “And fer how long, anyways?”

“An unspecified amount of time of my choosing. Until the job is done.”

“How many marks? Or jobs?” she added, to clarify.

He hesitated and eyeballed her, as if he was trying to reckon how much he could tell her. “Initially, seven, but then I assume we’ll have to narrow it down for further ... investigation.”

“Any housebreaking, or just the dipping?”

“Perhaps. Probably. We’ll have to see.”

“Then I’ll need my cut ’o the take.”

“There’s no ‘take.’ The things you’ll steal have no monetary value. No value to anyone but me.”

“Everything’s got monetary value, even paper. To you, an’ to whoever wants to keep it away from you.”

“Don’t think you can play one hand against the other, lass. I’ll make you—”

“Then don’t make me dicker. A thousand,” she repeated firmly.

He shook his head. But there was warmth, perhaps even amusement, in his voice. And his eyes had the barest crinkles at the corners. “Three hundred.”

Now they were getting somewhere. Relief trickled into her and warmed her in a way the fire never could. “I make that working free an’ easy in a few months.” When he looked dubious, raising one eyebrow at her, she smiled blithely back and removed the silver salver, formerly housed on his hall table, from the inside of her coat. It gleamed in the light as she turned it in her hand. “Recon’ize this?”

Clearly he did. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward to retrieve it.

“If you want my expertise, see, you gotta pay fer it.”

“Five hundred.”

“For ‘an unspecified amount of time,’ ” she echoed his words. “I don’t fink so.”

“Seven hundred and fifty, and that’s my final offer.”

“Done.” But she didn’t spit in her hand, nor did she extend her palm to shake on the deal. She kept her ruined hand well hidden in the deep pocket of her coat. And besides, she would never shake on something on which she planned to renege. But she didn’t want him noticing any of that. “ ’Ow do I know you won’t turn me in to the traps, when yer done wiff me?”

“It wouldn’t make sense. But if it makes you feel better, you have my word on it.”

“Don’t know you well e-nuff to take your word. I wanna contract.”

“A contract?” His voice was laced with disbelief.

He doubted she could even read. Let him think what he wanted. “Yeah. All proper and legal-like. I knows a fella what’ll look at it fer me.” Mr. Levy would be counted upon to see to the thing right and proper. He’d see to her interests. “An’ I want ’alf of it up front.”

He made the same dismissive sound.

“In a ’count. Like what you nobs call security. You puts it all int’ a ’count and I gets half now and the rest paid me as I do yer jobs.”

He looked away, into the fire in contemplation, as if he were turning the idea over in his mind trying to come up with the snags.

“Show yer on the up ’n up, it will,” she prodded.

“How do
I
know you won’t take the half and run? Where’s
my
security? I already know you well enough
not
to take your word.”

“I stay.
Habeas corpus
as the traps would have it. ‘You shall have the corpse.’ ”

“The ‘body,’ ” he corrected. “You shall have the body.” But his eyes were smiling.

“Yeah, well, when I gets word the money’s safe where I want it, I’ll do your jobs.” A body could get itself lost working a job. Nothing so easy as to walk away once they’d begun. Providing she was able to work. Or walk for that matter. Her head was still pounding away like a blacksmith’s anvil. “So what’s it to be?”

“Where do you want the money sent?” His dismissive grin told her he had no expectation of an answer.

“Levy and Levy, Threadneedle Street. Number twenty-four. You’ll go now?”

“No.” He recovered his astonishment quickly. “As you so keenly pointed out, I have to stay
with the body
. I’ll send my man with the money.”

She didn’t like the way he said that—stay with the body. “How do you know he won’t pocket the whole and give you the slip?”

That turned his mind away from “the body” and amused him. The little chewed-up smile threatened to warm one side of his face as he took out a ledger of some kind and wrote out the paper. “Three hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid into your account now. And the remaining four hundred to be paid in increments as the jobs, as you call them, are accomplished.”

She watched him limp to the door and call for the fairy man to make away for Threadneedle Street. “Take a wherry downriver,” Himself instructed. “The tide’s right.”

And then the sound of the door closing. Meggs crossed toward the window to watch him go, to make sure the hedgehog fairy man was obeying, but her head swam and made little points of light dance between her eyes.

She held still and closed her eyes until they went away, but by the time she’d made it to the window, there was nothing to see.

With luck, the money was away. She sat weakly in the nearest chair. That was all that mattered. With the three hundred fifty pounds, Timmy would have well over seven hundred to start. That was more than enough. Wasn’t it? And there’d be more, maybe, if she could pull this off.

The captain trolled slowly back into the room. He sent a long glance her way and went over to a tray with bottles of spirits on it. She could see he was pleased with himself. He had relaxed a bit, his shoulders settling down as he poured himself a healthy splash of something brown from a tray near the desk.

“Shall we drink to our bargain?” He came over and handed her an exquisitely delicate, cut-glass snifter with a small amount of liquid amber swirling at the bottom.

French brandy. Maybe even smuggled on Royal Navy ships. The world was full of all sorts of bloody ironies, wasn’t it? But she had her part to play, so she sniffed at the drink and took a tentative sip. It nearly blistered her lips. “Gor! Whacher’ call this stuff?”

“Cognac. Very old. From before the present wars. It was my grandfather’s.”

“He a toff then, your grandfather?”

“No, he was not a toff. He was Scots.”

Which seemed to amuse him to no end, because he smiled full out, and it made him look happy, and harmless and maybe even a little silly, that grin.

Lord, but he was handsome, even with the silly grin. His lethal, wide-set blue eyes had nothing in them to frighten when the corners were all crinkled up like that. And his straight, blunt nose and the stack of granite boulders that were his jaw looked softer in the haze of warm firelight. The severe haircut, cropped so close as to make her think he might have left off his wig, except she had never seen him wearing one, now looked merely tousled, soft and golden in the afternoon light.

When the golden silence stretched between them, he chuckled. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Lot’s wife, that’s me. Gone all pillar o’ salt at the sight of so much gov’amint iniquity.”

“Iniquity, is it? So you don’t want the money? You’ll work for free? For the chance to serve your country?”

It was her turn to laugh. “Not bloody likely. I’m in it strictly for the money.”

“Right.” He nodded, as if in agreement, and took his first sip before he crouched down on his haunches in front of her and reached out a hand to stroke her face. “Now, let’s have a look at you under that disgrace of a cap. I’d like to see what my three hundred fifty pounds have bought me.”

He had forgotten how feral she was. The moment he surrendered to the impulse and touched her, she bolted, wreaking havoc like a cannon blown loose across a deck.

She had the drink out of his hand and dashed into his eyes before he could think to stop her. And when he put his hands up to wipe the stinging alcohol from his streaming eyes, she threw all her weight against him, tipping him over backward and sending him crashing to the floor before she streaked toward the door.

By God, she was fast. Faster than any scrawny, ill-fed guttersnipe like her ought to be, but her speed was undoubtedly what made her successful. Or at least kept her from the noose. Stupid of him to have tossed back the drink like that, but he had been unaccountably elated she had finally agreed to his plan. And he had, in his stupid happiness, simply wanted to touch her. Stupid. She was shyer of personal contact than any wild animal.

Hugh had to launch himself off the floor to keep her from reaching the door. He caught her hard about the waist, sending them both crashing into the back of the panel. He hadn’t even had time to turn his body to take the force of the blow. Christ, he hoped she wasn’t hurt. That was the last thing he needed—to break her scrawny arm before they’d even had a chance to get properly started. He pulled back off her.

“Are you all right?”

He got a vicious elbow in his ribs for his pains, and while his body was registering that sharp insult, her boot connected with his jaw with an unholy thud. Pain cleaved through his skull.

That was it! All bets were bloody, fucking well
off
. He cursed fluently and loudly, just managing to hold on to the squirming bundle of rags while his vision cleared enough to find the salient parts. And just in time, too. He caught her left hand in his, just before her fist was about to connect with his face. He gave it a savage twist that ought to have had her groveling before him in pain, but she held grimly on, turning to sink her sharp teeth into his wrist. Hugh gritted his own jaw and rammed her back hard against the wall, once, to knock the wind out of her, and wrenched his wrist free. Still she came at him, lowering her head to butt him hard in the abdomen.

He made an animal sound in the back of his throat that was distinctly like a roar as they went down hard with her beneath, crashing her head into the floorboards and overturning a chair. She gave up the fight for a moment then, just long enough for him to pin her down with his own body weight and shove her damn pugilistic hands high over her head in an iron grip.