“Pour for me.” His voice was hard, mocking, and John remembered something else he’d heard about Sudworth. They were both members of The Black Rose, and Sudworth’s tastes ran towards younger women. If John recalled correctly, Sudworth’s predilection was in humiliating proper misses.
At The Black Rose, it was a game that the doxies played along with.
The maid’s hand shook, and a splash of tea hit the desk.
But perhaps it was a game Sudworth took too far.
The man waved the girl from the room and took a large swallow of tea. When the door clicked shut, he focused back on John.
“I don’t want money,” he said. “I’ll ask again. How badly do you want the deed?”
John gritted his teeth. “Whatdoyou want?”
Sudworth tipped a bit of tea into the saucer and held it out for the cat to lap up. “There’s a job. One I think you are peculiarly qualified to perform.”
John hesitated. “As an earl, you mean?”
“No, as someone who has performed delicate tasks for the Crown.” Sudworth put the cat on the floor and dropped his feet, sitting up straight. “You and your friends have done admirable work. Your career need not be over.”
John dug his nails into the wood of the armrest. “I’m an earl. I have no career.” Perhaps the man was digging. Perhaps he wasn’t certain of John’s past.
Sudworth chuckled. “Come now. There shall be no pretense between us. You were one of the Crown’s top spies. I’m sure you miss the adventure. I know I would.”
John’s eye twitched. “And I’m to work for you now, is it? In exchange for the deed?” Bloody hell, had Sudworth engineered Robert’s loss at hazard in order to get Summerset into this spot? His estimation of the man rose along with his ire.
“Do you know Stamford Raffles?” Sudworth asked.
John nodded. “I know of him. Prinny made him a Knight Bachelor just last year.”
“Correct. He also got away with a bit of embezzlement when he was lieutenant-governor of Java. Managed to shift the blame to a chap in the East India Company.” Sudworth pursed his plump lips and blew a neat circle of smoke. “I’d like to see him get his comeuppance.”
“How?” John tired of the misdirection. As someone who excelled at gaining other people’s confidences under false circumstance, he could recognize the talent in others. So far, Sudworth’s story stank as badly as a pile of shit.
Plugging his mouth with the cigar, the man reached for a leather folio and removed a folded document. He slid it across the desk towards John. “This letter was never entered into evidence. There was no formal trial, of course, but I know the Home Office maintained a file on him, with witness statements and ledgers.”
John picked up the paper. It bore a wax seal, broken, and held the faintest traces of age. He flipped it open and quickly read the letter. “This is his signature?”
Sudworth nodded. “If the Home Office had that letter during the inquiry, he would have faced trial. I want them to see it now.”
John tossed the paper on the desk. “Send it to Liverpool. Hell, a low-level magistrate will do.”
“The letter came into my hands through…unusual methods. I can’t deliver it without exposing myself to scrutiny.”
“Which you’d rather not do.” John folded his hands across his abdomen.
“Which I’d rather not do,” he agreed. “I want you to place this letter in Raffle’s file at the Home Office, with no one the wiser.”
“The case has been closed. No one will see it.”
Sudworth stubbed his cigar out. “It will be reopened. That I can see to. Will you do it?”
John tapped his thumb against his stomach. “I add a letter to a file and you give me my brother’s deed?”
Sudworth chuckled. “Give away a hundred-thousand-pound investment for such a trifling? I hardly think so. That is just the first job. But your next task will be as simple. And you are helping bring a criminal to justice. What say you?”
“The property isn’t worth such a sum of money to you.” Only John’s smelts could use the ore to such a profitable purpose.
“No, but it is to you.”
