Frances worked with equally beautiful fabric every single day. She did not want to know who had sold it to him. She wanted to know if Max himself had managed to escape his cave long enough to see the sunlight.
“St. James Street.”
Frances nodded. “Of course. That’s where all fine underworld gentlemen do their shopping.”
Max lifted his shoulder. Before he’d opened the Cloven Hoof, he would not have been able to afford such an expenditure. Not without giving up something even more dear, like candles or food.
But those days were done, or nearly so. He had money, he had fame—or at least infamy—and once he owned his property outright, he would achieve a level of success that had once seemed impossibly out of reach.
“St. James Street,” his sister murmured, her gaze far away. “When you’re out there amongst them, does it still feel like looking through a window at another world? As if scant inches separate you, but your nose and fingers can only press against a pane of unbreakable glass?”
It was a rhetorical question. The world had always felt like that for both of them. But he wassoclose. As soon as Max broke free from his chains, he would find a way to do the same for his sister. She deserved it.
Frances wasn’t lesser or unworthy or a poor little dear. She was a fighter. Stubborn. Indefatigable. Her faith in him had never wavered, not even in the darkest times. He would find a way to lift them both into the light.
“You should ask for more money,” he said.
“You already pay far more than the market—”
“Not from me. From your patroness. You are more than a seamstress. You are an artist, and she knows it. She cannot afford to lose you. Your wages should reflect that.”
Frances let out a low breath. “I do earn more than any other.”
Making more than the others was a bittersweet accomplishment when one’s employer would be just as happy to pay her employees in gruel. Frances’ salary was barely enough to live on. Likely by design.
Both their parents had fought that war. Hard workers, dedicated, loyal, clever, punctual, exhausted. He was far too late to save their parents, but he would not allow his sister to follow them into an early grave.
“You shouldn’t be anyone’s assistant,” he told Frances for the hundredth time. “You should be a modiste. You should have your own shop, your own clients.”
“I don’t want my own shop. I would like to sew less, not to be responsible for more.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “If you would just let me—”
“No.” She pushed him away. “I will earn my own freedom just as you have earned yours.”
“Frances,” he began.
She folded up the fabric. “Come to think of it, I sit at peace in my home far more often than you are in yours. Weren’t you going to hire a manager or two? Let someone else wrangle the club from time to time so that you do not have to spend every waking moment within its walls.”
“I will,” he promised. “Just as soon as I have the deed. Then my budget will be mine to do with as I wish. I have everything planned.”
It wasn’t just a matter of Max needing to own the property outright. If the current owner should choose not to sell, Max would be beholden to him forever. Or worse, the owner could decide not to rent the space at all. Tear it down, perhaps.
Max neededthislocation. Everything hinged on it. This street, this exact block, marked the border between the haves and the have-nots. This unassuming section of road and brick was the dividing wall that kept everyone in their place. Once Max had his way, the Cloven Hoof would become the gateway to allow passage between. A physical crossroads where all minds and backgrounds could blend.
But so far, the owner had ignored every single request to meet.
No doubt Max’s livelihood mattered little to whomever owned the deed. Some aristocrat, most likely. A titled lord who couldn’t be bothered to attend to the goings-on of a gaming hell. Perhaps some second or third son, whose idle hours were too filled with fashion and women and spending the bottomless family purse to bother reading the missives and meticulous reports Max compiled every month.
Frances wiped a strand of hair from her forehead. “I wish I could see your club.”
“Women aren’t allowed in gentlemen’s clubs,” Max said automatically. Except, he had just discovered a loophole to that rule, had he not? “That is, I could bring you by some morning before we open, if you like.”
Frances shook her head. “I’ve seen my share of empty tables and silent rooms. I wish I could see it when full to capacity. Do earls truly sit at the same whist table as those who work in trade?”
“Every time.” Max grinned with subversive pride.
He could have opened any kind of establishment, but he’d chosen the sort most likely to bring together people who would not otherwise be in contact with each other.
