Time passed in a daze, and before long we turned onto cobblestone streets. My stomach had thoroughly twisted in on itself by the time we stopped in front of an unassuming stone house. Its three stories were oddly arranged, with two sets of three windows to the right of the door and a third row with a single window—unaligned with the rest—above them. A mismatched drainage pipe ran vertically along one side. There were three smaller windows randomly dotted above the blackdoor and a bar of windows in the black-painted attic as well. Nothing of symmetry or style to be found in the facade.
Godfrey opened the door and I stepped out, checking for surprises before planting my feet. Ten steps were all that stood between me and the man who’d seemingly been swindling me for years. I hadn’t considered the possibility that he would not be in residence—I hadn’t the slightest idea of what to do in that event.
I was no stranger to the anxious knot in my chest, but the cause was entirely new. The steps were worn and dipped in the middle with use. At last, I reached the door and knocked before I had a chance to panic first.
It took a moment, perhaps two, just enough for my heart to begin to pound and my fingers to twitch with the urge to fidget.
And then it swung open.
The girl was young, certainly not twenty, with a sturdy, feminine frame—just barely rounded with child. Her eyes and hair were a rich deep brown. And her brow…
There was no mistaking a Hasket brow. Grandfather’s was white and overgrown in bushy bristles. Father’s had been a dark, thick shock before finally streaking with grey a few years before he passed. Davina’s chocolate arch required more manicuring than she would admit to. My own heavy black lines plagued me. And Gabriel—Gabriel’s had been a lighter walnut brown, but still heavy and unforgettable.
This girl—this was Gabriel’s daughter. I would stake my life on it.
“Can I help ye?”
Eighteen
HART AND SUMMERS, SOLICITORS, LONDON - JUNE 30, 1816
TOM
Half of “Hart and Summers, Solicitors”was a charred-out husk. The other half was untouched.
Clearly Kit had been hard at work. I knew Will’s injuries had prevented him from providing much assistance. All the paperwork from Will’s old office was stacked precariously along the far wall of Kit’s.
The walk over had been quiet, punctuated only by a stop at Hudson’s for a tart for me and a “little cake thing” for Kit. Both of which had been consumed in the few steps between the bakery and the law offices.
Kit quietly directed me to sort the paperwork in one stack by client in alphabetical piles. He set about doing something with a stack of ledgers and a pile of paperwork at the desk, leaving me with only the floor as a workspace.
The slight didn’t particularly bother me—it was, after all, more practical for my task—but I was constitutionally incapable of allowing it to pass without comment. “Earls can’t sit on the floor?”
Kit glared at me before returning to the documents before him. “Not an earl.”
“I’m not sure that’s how that works.”
“I’m a solicitor. I’ve worked my entire life to be a solicitor—and a damn good one. People died—people I love—and now everyone thinks I’m an earl. ‘M still just a solicitor.”
It was quite possibly the longest speech I’d ever heard from him—and clearly a sore subject.
I turned back to the paperwork, abandoning my teasing in favor of actually sorting. If I had to be awake, vertical, and tragically sober, I might as well make myself useful. The work was slow. Some of the documents had been burned in the fire, soaked in the efforts to put it out, and then dried in wrinkled clumps. For five minutes, we worked in companionable silence before I could stand it no longer.
“Why, precisely, am I doing this? There is no possible way these documents could still be considered legal.”
“I need an inventory of which accounts were burned. And you agreed to do it because Katie pestered me and I pestered you to make her stop and agreeing was the only way to make me stop.”
“I sincerely doubt this is what Kate meant when she asked you to check on me.”
“She was nonspecific as to how. And she forgets that some of us are employed. Besides, I’ve managed to coerce you into bathing and sitting upright. I’m certain Katie would consider it progress.”
I honestly couldn’t deny the truth of it. No sooner had I turned back to my crumpling, ashen stack than Kit’s grumbly tenor washed over me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“All right then—back to your paperwork. And, if anyone asks, you were never here—confidentiality.”
I bit back a smile and set to work. The next several minutes were spent attempting to separate two pieces of parchment that were so fused together they may as well have been glued.
