“Someone you know?” Rufus asked, casting a puzzled look at the stranger.
Evander hesitated. “I don’t believe so.”
He filed the encounter away as he descended the stairs with the inspector. They emerged into the grey late morning light outside Westminster moments later. Evander’s carriage waited at the kerb, Samuel holding the door open with his usual enthusiastic expression while Graham sat stoically in the box seat.
“Back to the Yard, your Grace?” the coachman asked quietly.
“We’re visiting Whitechapel first.”
Rufus gave Evander a puzzled look as he climbed inside the carriage after him. “Whitechapel?”
“You should come along for this,” Evander murmured evasively.
He glanced up at the imposing façade of Westminster as the carriage lurched into motion. For a moment, Evander thought he glimpsed the tall, thin man he’d seen with Hartwick at one of the windows.
He settled into his seat with a frown, Rufus’s expression equally troubled across from him.
“You look pale,” the inspector grunted.
Evander dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “It’s been a long day.”
“It’s about to get longer.” Rufus’s tone turned bitter. “I heard Winterbourne mention something to his secretary about a Ministry observer tagging along on our European investigation as I was leaving his office.”
Evander’s eyes snapped open. He looked jerkily at the inspector. “What?!”
Rufus’s grim expression told him everything he needed to know.
Evander clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.
It seemed the Parliamentary committee wasn’t content with merely harassing him. They were going to saddle him with a watchdog too.
CHAPTER 3
The stench hitViggo the moment he turned onto Fieldgate Street.
It was the familiar aroma of Whitechapel—rotting vegetables, horse dung, unwashed bodies, and the acrid tang of coal smoke that hung in the air like a pestilent fog. Even the rain that had followed him from Stepney couldn’t wash away the grime that coated everything in this part of London.
Viggo drew a deep breath and savoured the familiar smells despite their foulness. This was his world. Not the marble halls of Belgravia or the polished corridors of Scotland Yard, but the narrow streets and crumbling tenements of the East End.
Solomon kept pace with him as they navigated the crowded pavement, neatly sidestepping a woman hawking wilted cabbages and a group of children playing in a puddle.
“You sure Evander said to meet him here?” Solomon asked warily, eyeing a suspicious-looking character loitering in a doorway.
“That’s what his message said.” Viggo had received the note when he’d returned toNightshade’s headquarters that morning, after a night out casing the docks. It had been delivered by one of Evander’s footmen and contained an address Viggo recognised.
It was Tom Simmons’s home.
They turned down a narrow alley and emerged onto a slightly less derelict street. The building they approached was one of the better-maintained structures in Whitechapel—a testament to the young thrall’s determination to create a decent life for himself and his younger sister despite their circumstances.
Viggo spotted Evander’s distinctive black carriage pulled up at the kerb, Graham in the box seat and young Samuel holding the horses. The coachman gave Viggo a respectful nod when he saw them. Samuel fairly beamed.
A second, far flashier carriage stood behind Evander’s, one Viggo recognised immediately. Painted a deep burgundy with silver accents that caught what little light filtered through the grey sky, Ginny Hartley’s transport was impossible to miss.
“Lady Hartley’s here too,” Solomon observed unnecessarily.
“So I see.” Viggo’s lips quirked at the way his friend’s eyes livened up. “Knowing her, she probably bullied Evander into coming along.”
“Can’t say I blame her,” Solomon murmured a tad defensively. “She cares about Tom.” He sighed at Viggo’s amused expression. “Would you please wipe that smug smile off your face?”
