Before Maggie could untangle the tangle of betrayal and pity she felt, the lock in the door shrieked and the great wooden plank swung inward on its hinges. The sound cut through the small room like a blade. And there, framed in the doorway, stood Victor Bramwell.
He looked as if he had been summoned from some gentleman’s portrait—green velvet cut to perfection, an emerald pin at his cravat that flashed wickedly in the candlelight. He seemed absurdly, unnervingly splendid in such a place; Maggie could not tell whether he had dressed with grotesque care for the scene or whether he wore such finery whenever he pleased.
Emma let out a frightened squeak and clung to Maggie’s skirts like a small animal. Maggie, though her insides trembled, took a breath and rose as much as the ropes and the straw permitted. Pride stiffened her spine; she would not cower.
“My dear Miss Camden,” Victor purred, his voice smooth as oiled silk. “What a pleasure to see you again. You look a little—disordered, shall we say? Do forgive my silence on our journey; I had matters which required my attention.”
Emma, bereft of politeness and fear’s small courages, sprang from Maggie and pointed an indignant finger at him. “You are wicked!” she cried, the words sharp as a whistle. “My Uncle Neil is coming to save us, and when he gets here, you shall be very sorry!”
Victor’s expression took a moment’s interest, then folded into its habitual insolence. He crouched so that he might meetthe child’s eyes, and the candlelight picked out the hollowness in his smile.
“My dear Miss Hartwell,” he crooned. “Your uncle is, in truth, a broken man pretending to menace. They call him a devil, but that is theatre. Real monsters—real men of consequence—do not fear such trifles. They devour pretence for breakfast.”
He bared his teeth in a grin that made Emma flinch, though she did not whimper. Instead, the little girl straightened and whispered, bravely, “That isn’t true. I have a monster under my bed and he will never let you hurt me or Miss Winter.”
Victor’s attention cooled as quickly as it had warmed. He rose, smoothing a cuff with a deliberate, lazy movement, and looked to Maggie with a practised, admiring leer.
“The child knows nothing,” he remarked. “But you—why, you are as beautiful as when we first met. I confess I was quite happy to marry you for your looks in part; a convenient bargain for your father’s debts. Yet it is your particular knowledge that is most useful. Your little head for accounts, my dear—priceless.”
Maggie shuddered, turning her face away. Victor reached out, hooking one cold finger around her chin, and forced her to look at him.
Maggie felt him take her chin with one cold, patronising finger and turn her to face him. “You were upstairs, were you not?” he whispered, pupils flaring. “It seems ridiculous that I did not notice at the time. With your head for figures, it was no surprise that you were going through poor, dear Papa’s accounts, trying to dig him out of the hole he’d gotten himself into.”
“I didn’t know that you used Papa’s shop for your business assignments,” Maggie hissed. “How could I know?”
The scene flashed back behind her eyes, unstoppable. She recalled the horror she’d felt at hearing Victor’s voice in the room below the little Accounts Room, down in the storeroomfor Papa’s fabrics. Their business was floundering and seemed to lose more money by the day. As a ‘lady’, Maggie could not of course be seen to go into her father’s shop, but after night… well, it was easier to avoid being seen. She recalled every detail of what she had seen, as well as the frantic dash back to their lodgings. She had told Papa everything and watched the colour drain from his face. He had been gone the next morning, leaving her a note to flee the city and that he would contact her soon.
“Victor’s voice cut through her vertigo like a blade. “Did you ever discover the name of the man I killed? The man yousawme kill, through the cracks in the floorboards?”
She shook her head. He smiled again—a smile without warmth.
“Samuel Wellbridge,” he said. “Lord Pemberton’s eldest—can you believe it? Lord P. still doesn’t know what became of his son. I attended a card party at his house quite recently, and the poor fellow had no clue. It was almost amusing.”
Maggie curled her fingers into fists. “Only you would think that amusing.”
Victor smiled. “Samuel tried to blackmail me. He was always a clever boy, too clever for his own good.”
“You stabbed him. Then you strangled him.”
He shrugged. “Stabbing is messy, but I had to be sure. The boy was rather strong, and I am not as young as I was. With the floors scrubbed and cloths burned, Samuel would simply have vanished—were it not for one vigilant little witness; you, my darling.”
His eyes, flat and sharklike, fixed on hers. Maggie’s stomach turned.
“You should release the child,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “She is no part of this.”
Victor’s smile took on a dangerous edge. “At first you were an inconvenient loose end—a pretty girl whose marriage mightabate a debt. Then you became troublesome. The word of a woman posing as a lady would not have stood against men like me, had it been any ordinary case. But Lord Pemberton’s son was missing; that complicates matters. And,” he added, the smile sharpening, “when you took to befriending the Duke of Burenwood, circumstances altered most inconveniently for me. The duke… well… let us simply say that he is an enemy of mine; therefore, to make him behave, little Miss Hartwell here must remain, I’m afraid.”
Maggie’s heart beat faster and then froze as she heard the name she feared most misspoken so gently by him.
“Neil will not come,” she said, testing the lie, the defiance.
She knew she’d made a mistake, using his given name. Thomas frowned in the corner, and Victor’s gaze, cold and steely, bored into her.
“Oh, but he will,” Victor said at last, his voice low and menacing. “He will come because despite his protestations that he has no heart, the Gambling Devil doesindeedhave a heart. A live, warm, beating one at that. And that heart will lead him straight to you and Miss Hartwell, Maggie—and straight to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Greenery had once been an inn; time and neglect had gutted it and left an ugly little warehouse in its place. Its position on the very edge of the Thames made it useful for the city’s less reputable commerce—contraband men, illicit cargoes, and, if one had the stomach for it, the smuggling of people.
