“No greeting for your beloved mama?” Lady Jo taunted Xenia in a light, musical voice. “I taught you better manners than that. The Abbess left me no choice, you know. She was blackmailing you, dear heart. Threatening to turn us both in to the bleeding Peelers.”
“There is nous,” Xenia said hoarsely. “I am not a part of your gang. I haven’t been for seven years.”
“Oh, Bernice. Don’t you remember what I told you?”
The steel in her mother’s voice caused Ethan’s muscles to bunch.
“No one leaves Lady Jo.”
Lady Jo had ensured this was true. She had five brutes with her, all armed. Two held him, two were at the door, and one towered over Xenia. Even if Ethan could get free, he couldn’t take all of them…even with Owen’s help. Not that Owen was anywhere to be found.
You can count on me, he’d said.
What a joke. Knowing Owen, he was probably three sheets to the wind by now or tupping some harlot. He was unreliable at best and self-destructive at worst.
With a rush of bitterness, Ethan shelved the hope of any assistance from that corner.
“Fine. You have me.” Xenia balled her hands. “Let Ethan go.”
Lady Jo strolled over, backhanding her daughter with stunning nonchalance. The force of it sent Xenia reeling, and Ethan bellowed through the gag, struggling to get to her, but the ruffians held him back.
Xenia staggered to her feet, her cheek splotchy and lower lip bleeding.
Her eyes remained defiant.
“That was a mere reminder, daughter mine, that you are in no position to make demands. If required, I shall be happy to furnish further correction.” Lady Jo smiled thinly. “Since you were a child, you have responded better to a stick than a carrot…and what a large, fine stick Lord Ethan Harrington possesses.”
To his shock and disgust, Lady Jo ran a lewd gaze over him, her light-brown eyes lingering on his unfastened trousers.
“You leave him alone,” Xenia said in a trembling voice.
“I’m not going to hurt him. Not unless he begs me to.” Lady Jo smirked. “But cocks are ten a penny, and if you haven’t learned that by now, you’re a bigger fool than I thought. I have more important uses for your lover: he is my insurance that you do what you’re told.”
“What do you want?” Xenia asked flatly.
“Listen up, girl.” Lady Jo’s tone turned brisk and businesslike. “If you want to see your lover alive again, you will deliver the treasure to me tomorrow night.”
So I was right. There is something hidden in Bottoms House.
“What treasure?” Xenia asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A little bird told me that a local gang has loot stored in Bottoms House.”
He wondered if Xenia was thinking what he was: that the bird was Dobson Gill.
“I haven’t seen any treasure,” she said.
“That’s because it is well hidden. The twist in the tale is that the Corrigans themselves don’t know where the goods are hidden. They had a regime change, and their old leader, knowing his days were numbered, apparently nabbed the gang’s cache of stolen jewels and stowed them somewhere in the manor. The new bloke in charge, Harlow, made the amateur mistake of killing his predecessor before learning the location of the loot. He and his gang have apparently searched everywhere for the jewels, to no avail. To throw another wrench in their plans, Lord Ethan here suddenly moved in. Harlow planted a spy to scare off his lordship and continue looking for the jewels, but the spy failed at both and got his arse tossed out instead.”
The spy must have been Gill. After his failure, he’d been afraid to return to the Corrigans and gone into hiding instead. Then he realized that he had a commodity to sell: information about the so-called treasure.
“The manor has undergone significant renovation, and no jewels have turned up,” Xenia argued. “Your source must be lying?—”
“Oh, I doubt it. I paid for that information. Although”—Lady Jo’s smile was sly—“not as dearly as my informant. But I couldn’t have him selling that information to others as well, could I?”
That answers the cause of Gill’s death.
“I haven’t found any treasure. I swear it,” Xenia pleaded.
