“Relief from one’s creditors, power over others, or escape into a bottle. All of which have everything to do with themselves and nothing to do with me.” She smiled. “It will be easier to slip out when capacity is at maximum than when I am the only outlier within.”
Max did not dignify her assertions with a response.
There was no reason to. She was right and she knew it.
He stalked over to the folding screen behind his desk and carried it to where it did not belong on the other side of the room, in order to block any view of the settee from the desk or the door.
“Do not speak again to anyone but me,” he ordered.
“Very well,” she agreed quickly.
Max frowned. Her acquiescence had been too easy. She was after something else.
“Don’t speak to me either unless I ask you a direct question,” he commanded.
“Boring,” she pronounced and propped her arms behind her head to settle more comfortably into the settee. “I am a distraction whether or not we converse, so we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to get to know one another.”
He cut her a flat look. “What makes you think I have any wish to know you better?”
She arched her brows in amusement. “You are Maxwell Gideon. You own an infamous vice den straddling the best and worst parts of London. Both fishermen and dukes have been turned away bodily at your door. If you truly had no wish to get to know me better, I would already be out on my ear.”
He glared back at her. “That doesn’t mean I like you here.”
“You don’t know me well enough to know if you like me or not,” she pointed out reasonably. “Let’s change that.”
“No,” Max said simply. “I am everything you say, and the reason I have achieved what I have is because I do not compromise with anyone. I shall not start with you.”
She thought this over. “You may not compromise your values or principles, but you make business arrangements whenever they are advantageous, do you not?”
He’d walked into that trap. “Not with strange women dressed up as fine gentlemen for reasons I cannot fathom.”
“Can you not? I thought you were clever. Although you’re right, I am strange. I’ve been told it’s my best quality. And my worst, if you ask my mother,” she added under her breath. “In your opinion, what should I have done to improve my costume?”
Max did not answer.
Her costume was not the problem. He had believed her to be a lad at first glance, and anyone who caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye would think the same.
The gruff tone she adopted when she spoke in no way resembled an adult gentleman, but that too aided her verisimilitude. One could be forgiven for believing her to be a lad of an age where one’s changing voice could not be trusted from one moment to the next.
But he knew better. There were curves beneath the boxy jacket, brains beneath the too-big hat.
The truth was, he was very much intrigued by the mystery she posed. What reason had she to take notice of fluctuating wine prices during and after the war? What gave her the impertinence to command a member of his staff, or the cynical practicality to have come up with such a solution in the first place? And why the devil was she here at all?
Before he could demand answers, someone rapped upon the door.
Max darted a glance at the clock beside his desk and held a warning finger toward Bryony. “Not a word.”
She nodded submissively.
Max didn’t buy it for a moment, but he had scheduled several private meetings and could not delay any further. Nor could he give any indication that there was a woman inside the Cloven Hoof.
He adjusted the folding screen one last time for privacy, then turned to open the door.
The next two hours flew past in a blur of worried faces with problems to solve. An investment here, practical advice there, an increase in credit for some, lowered interest for others. Presiding over case after case like a magistrate. Righting wrongs. Changing lives.
At last, one final patron awaited outside Max’s door.
“Lambley,” he said with pleasure. “Come on in.”
