He would not allow any harm to come to her or to the establishment that she and her family had labored to build. Eoin’s need to protect sliced through the hazy cocoon surrounding his emotions. He would bring down the Purveyor—no matter who was behind the appellation.
“What?” Sophia cried. “How would you know? Why?”
“This brave young man, Peter, told me when I was having coffee at the Black Sheep. Fortunately, I knew you would all be here today,” Lord Percy said theatrically as he swept his arm toward the waif from the Horse and Hen. The boy was clearly frightened. He clawed at his own hands as he stood with his face directed straight at the ground.
Hannah hurried over to the lad, her countenance soft and welcoming. “Are you hurt at all, Peter? Did you escape from the Horse and Hen?”
Peter’s chin jutted out defiantly even as it wobbled. “I can come and go of my own accord. Nobody noticed me.”
Eoin noticed that the youth didn’t answer Hannah’s first question. Given the life he led, Peter was probably always suffering from some bruise or wound.
“You didn’t come to us for aid?” Hannah asked.
Peter shook his head and then jerked his chin in Eoin’s direction. “I owe that big man a favor, and I’ve come to repay it. Mr. Jenks was calling for men and lads to burn down the Black Sheep. We’re supposed to make it seem like a right old riot. I remembered you telling me to head to that coffeehouse if I ever wanted to work for someone other than a kidsman. So I knew it had something to do with the two of you.”
“Thank you,” Eoin said as he walked over to the youth, trying not to step too close and crowd him. “I’ll reward you handsomely, and I can offer you a place to stay too. I won’t make you pick pockets or fight other boys.”
The youth puffed out his chest. “How am I going to learn to defend myself if I stay out of the ring?”
“I’ll teach you,” Eoin’s mother said. “In fact, I’ll make you my student.”
Peter seemed vastly unimpressed. “Who are you?”
“I’m the Duke of Foxglen’s mother and Championess Quick,” she answered.
The boy’s eyes grew huge. “I thought he was a toff! But, cor, he’s your son! Everyone knows about you. You’re famous at the Horse and Hen!”
“Then you know that I can protect you,” Championess Quick said.
“We can,” Lizzie chimed in. “You’ll be safe with us, and we’ll teach you how to fight anyone, even adults.”
Peter glanced at them skeptically. “You want me to tell you about the Purveyor, don’t you?”
“You still have a place with us even if you say nothing more,” Championess Quick promised. “You’ve already put yourself in danger to warn us about the Black Sheep, and we will protect you.”
Eoin’s worry increased. “Your amphitheater! If they are attacking the coffeehouse, your establishment could be next. Even if the Purveyor has no connection to my uncles, he still knows that I was asking about you or at least about the woman who used to work at the Horse and Hen.”
“Although we do not know for certain that the Purveyor knows of our connection, I will increase our guards, and I can send some to the Black Sheep as well.” His mother reached forward—likely to pat his hand—but she stopped midair. Pain washed through Eoin as he wished the strain between them could disappear. But his mother’s misplaced guilt would take time to ebb.
“The Purveyor does realize that you’re Eoin’s mother,” Hannah said definitively. “In fact, the Purveyor knows the secrets of a lot of people, especially high-ranked ones. I suspect that he may even know secrets of the Crown itself.”
“What do you mean?” Lizzie demanded, her hands on her hips as she towered over Hannah. It was clear that she hadn’t forgiven Hannah for misleading Eoin. “Did you really discover something about those notebooks or is this another one of your games?”
Eoin rubbed his thumb against his other fingers and wished that his sister weren’t so dedicated to her role of an avenging Fury. “Hannah would not lie about this. It will do us no good if we attack each other.”
“The Purveyor collects and sells secrets,” Hannah explained. “Those books are his records. It makes sense why they would be in code and why each entry is relatively long.”
“However did you arrive at that conclusion?” Sophia asked.
“When Eoin and I first went to the Horse and Hen, an elderly man stopped us in the street and told us not to chase ‘spirits and secrets.’ I never paid him much heed, especially when we found Championess Quick and Lizzie. But then it struck me. What if the man wasn’t talking about ghosts but about gin? And if that part was true, maybe the first was accurate too.”
Despite everything, a swell of pride burst through Eoin at Hannah’s brilliant deductions. She was a clever one, indeed. And unlike him, she didn’t rely on her logic alone, but her feelings as well.
“But secrets could mean so much,” Sophia pressed, obviously not as completely won over by her cousin’s theory as Eoin was.
“True, but spirits turned out to be what the Horse and Hen initially sold, so what if they were selling secrets too? The right type of information could be used to extort great funds.”
“If the rumors about the Aucourtes engaging in illicit activity are true,” Eoin added slowly as his own mind began toprocess the implications of Hannah’s conjectures, “then perhaps some of that knowledge is treasonous. If the Purveyor knows secrets about the people in power, it makes sense how he could suppress almost all gossip about him.”
