Sims pocketed the note and the money.“I’ll make sure he’s on it, guv’nor.Alive and kicking.”He added with a grin, “Or not kicking an’ tied up good and tight in a sack.”
Marcus gave a brusque nod and strode away.He was wound tight with unexpressed rage.Blaxland had simply grabbed at the money and agreed to Marcus’s conditions—albeit with bad grace.It shouldn’t have surprised him—indeed, he’d expected his plan to work.
But after all that man had done to his sister, marrying her off again and again so he could bleed her elderly husbands dry—and now, not having any idea where she was or in what condition his filthy drug had left her, he would just walk off and leave her high and dry.
He’d just abandoned her without, apparently, a single thought.Saving himself and not giving a moment’s consideration to any consequences his sister might face from his violent debtors.
Again, he wished he’d given the man a good kicking.
Marcus hoped the ship’s captain was not the honorable man he’d thought him when he’d sent Jackson to make those arrangements.It never would have occurred to Marcus that he might toss Blaxland overboard and keep the money.But he supposed that being a dishonorable man himself, Blaxland would expect crooked dealing from others.
Marcus would never have made such a bargain if he hadn’t found the captain to be a decent fellow.
Still, he wouldn’t mind one way or the other if Blaxland were tossed overboard.As long as Tessa’s brother was gone for good from her life, he didn’t care what happened to him.From what Radcliffe had told him, those Greelings were ruthless, brutal men whose eyes were everywhere.The threat of their revenge would keep Blaxland from ever returning.
He walked home, breathing in the cold, crisp air.Getting rid of Blaxland had been easier than he’d expected.Now to wait for Tessa to recover from that drug.And then to get her to rethink her options.
He thought of the list she had spoken of.Even if she did find work as a maidservant or shop-girl, with her looks she would still be the target of unwanted attentions from unscrupulous employers.No, they weren’t to be thought of.
He hoped Blaxland would be gone by the time she woke.
#
“ANY NEWS OF LADY HEWITT?”Marcus asked his butler on returning home.
“I believe the lady is still asleep, m’lord.I have taken the liberty of assigning several of the maids to sit in rotation with her.They keep me informed.”
“Good, good.”He headed toward the stairs to check her for himself, when Peverill coughed, one of his Significant Coughs.Marcus turned back.“Yes?”
“Lady Gosforth asked me to inform you that she has gone out.”
Marcus nodded indifferently.His aunt was always going out.
“In addition,” Peverill added, “there is a Young Person, araggedYoung Person and an Animal heclaimsyou asked him to bring.”
Ah.The boy with the dog.“I did.”
Peverill sniffed disapprovingly.“In that case you will find them awaiting you in the kitchen courtyard.”
Marcus headed for the kitchen courtyard.There he found the urchin and his equally urchin-like dog.No,herurchin-like dog, the boy had told him.He paused in the kitchen doorway and eyed them thoughtfully.
They were playing, the boy tossing a stick, the dog fetching it.Neither of them had noticed him yet.It was doubtful which of them was the scrawniest.The boy was dressed in a hodge-podge of clothing—a shabby pair of too-short trousers that revealed a dirty pair of skinny white legs, a threadbare jacket that was too large for him, its sleeves rolled back several times, and worn over what appeared to be several knitted garments—all of them ragged and none particularly clean.
The dog at least looked relatively clean, but that was as far as it went.It was like no breed he’d ever seen; small, one ear up, one down, and so thin that every rib stood out.Its coat was brown but had been clipped so close it was almost shorn, except for the tail, at the end of which floated a scruffy clump of white, pretending to be a tassel.It wagged non-stop.
Marcus cleared his throat and the game instantly stopped.The boy snatched up the dog and with it under his arm, held out a grubby hand.“A bob, we said.”
“We did.”Marcus took out a shilling and flipped it toward the boy who snatched it deftly out of the air.He examined it carefully, then put the dog down.And waited.
Marcus raised a brow.“Is there something else?”
The boy’s eyes darted toward the kitchen window where Cook had a tray of fresh-baked meat pies cooling.“I ‘ad to give the dog ‘alf a sausage to catch it,” he said, as if in accusation.
“I see.And what happened to the other half?”
“Et it, din’t I?”
“I see, so you are out of pocket by half a sausage.”
