“I won’t have her this way.”
“What way?”
“Indebted to me,” Jamie said. “She now has the choice.”
“Brother, you’re speaking in riddles, and I can’t abide people speaking in riddles.” Nick was clearly exasperated. “What choice?”
“To have the life she wants.”
Hortense had never had that chance, and he wanted it for her.
“She wants you, brother.” Nick snorted, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Perhaps,” said Jamie.
He hoped so. Perhaps in her new reality of creating a life solely of her choosing, she would realize it wasn’t quite complete, and it never would be without him. The same way he felt about her. But she had to reach that conclusion on her own.
She came to him of her own free will.
Or not at all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
May
Hortense and SirBacon had only rounded the corner onto Little Peter Street when a scrappy rat dashed across their path, ruining what had been up to this instant the rare walk without dramatics. The little dog strained forward on his lead and let out a great round of barking. Hortense stopped, exasperated. She would gain no traction by fighting the tide of Sir Bacon’s inborn instinct. Best to let him tire himself out.
Out of long-standing habit, she glanced around, half expecting to find an eel tipping his cap at her, summoning her to Doyle. But there was no one, hadn’t been in a month, not since she’d turned over the signet ring. After the first week of waiting for contact, she’d returned and knocked on Doyle’s door for fifteen minutes, but no answer.
A small voice had come from behind her. “Ye lookin’ fer Doyle?”
Hortense pivoted and found a girl of seven or so years squinting up. “Aye.”
“’E and ’is mam up and scattered.” Her brow creased in thought. “Five days ago?”
“They left?” A strange feeling began to creep through Hortense. “Did they say where they were going?”
“Wouldn’t speak a word to no one.”
Hortense pressed half a crown into the girl’s hand and beat a quick path out of the East End, utterly flummoxed. She could only figure Doyle had come up against someone he couldn’t handle so easily as a bunch of half-starved boys and one blackmailed woman. It had been bound to happen in a town like London.
But with each footstep she took another feeling blossomed and spread through her—relief. If she stopped moving, she would collapse to the ground with it, or grow wings and fly.
It had taken another full week for her to accept this new reality. Of Doyle being gone. Of him being entirely out of her life. Of her being free, truly so.
Sir Bacon tugged on his lead, eager to discover all the new smells just out of his nose’s reach. He’d become a good partner, rarely interfering in her investigative work, which still consisted mostly of infidelities and the occasional theft. It was steady work, if not precisely fulfilling. But it was hers, hers to cultivate and grow. Hers alone. That was the important part.
However, there was another new reality that had come as a shock almost equal to Doyle’s sudden departure. She no longerneededto continue with this work, or any work for that matter. Not with the sum of money that had arrived by special delivery the day after she’d left Asquith Court. It was a sum that could easily keep King George living quite comfortably for a year or two. And the accompanying note… If the money hadn’t been enough to make her jaw drop to the floor, the note certainly had. It had been composed of few words, but not many had been needed.
Every year, on this date, you shall receive thissum.
Do not return the payment, as all such attempts willfail.
—J
And that settled it.
She was the possessor of a small fortune, and she hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with it. So, she ignored it. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to spend it. Yet all those guineas weren’t enough to distract from the lone remaining ax suspended above her head.
