“She thinks she can askhow much, and I’ll just name her a price like that?” he said to the room at large. He snapped his fingers, and his head cocked to the other side. “But I do be wondrin’ why she brought ye along. What’s all this to a big strappin’ man like ye?”
Clare’s hands clenched and released.
“One thing I can tell ye, ye won’t be gettin’ nowhere with yer fists.”
“Your price. Name it,” Clare ground out.
“He speaks,” Doyle exclaimed. “And what an interestin’ way of speakin’ ye got. Ye speaknob, if me ears ain’t deceivin’ me.”
“It’s me you’re dealing with,” Hortense said. She had to right this conversational ship, or it would sink before it was out of the harbor. “Let us parley.”
Lips pursed, Doyle gave her a long, assessing look. “Aw’right, me eels, out wi’ ye.”
The eels didn’t need to be told twice as they slipped from the room. At the top step, Rafe cast a curious glance at Clare over his shoulder. Perhaps the boy, too, had noticed the family resemblance. Then he was gone, and it was only her, Clare, and Doyle.
Doyle’s gaze again landed on Clare. “What do ye know about yerassociatehere, eh?”
“Doyle, let’s get on with it,” Hortense said. No good could come of the conversation going down that road.
He slammed his fist on the table. “Yer on my turf, and it’ll be on my time,” he roared before immediately settling back in his chair, his face now a mask of placidity, as if his outburst hadn’t occurred.
“You will not speak to her that way, do you understand?” Clare stated low and hard. He wasn’t truly asking. It was clear he needed only an excuse to slam a well-aimed fist into the man’s face.
“Well, I’ll tell ye a little about her that I’d wager honest money, if I had any”—Doyle never could resist a good, long laugh at his own jokes—“that ye don’t know. Hortense here, she was me best. Luckiest eel that ever slid through the streets or slipped a hand inside a nob’s pocket. Never nabbed once, were ye?”
“Once.” She glanced at Clare. He had a face like a thunderstorm.Nick, they both knew.
A stillness came over Doyle, and a familiar reptilian look entered his eye. “I will release the boy.”
She knew enough not to let relief worm its way into the moment.
He hadn’t named his price.
“On one condition.”
“Whenever you’re ready to name it.”
“Ye always were a saucy one.”
She held her tongue and told Clare with her eyes to do the same.
“Ye pull a job fer me.”
Here it was, the catch. A job for Doyle.Anotherjob for Doyle. Would there never be a last one?
Her stomach tangled itself into a dozen fluttery knots. How quick one’s return to the gutter, if one wasn’t careful.
A throat cleared at her side. Clare, his eyes fast upon her, gave her a subtle nod. He was telling her to say yes. But, unlike her, he didn’t know the world he was entering of his own free will. No one chose this path. Save this man who would so obviously do anything to get the lad.
The lad who was so obviously his son.
For that is the sort of man he is, entered a small voice.Determined. Implacable. Honorable.
It was a voice she didn’t want to hear.
The seconds having dragged out into a minute, she, at last, nodded. “What’s the job?”
“I won’t tell ye ’til ye’ve agreed to it. Yer agreein’?”
