Finley nodded, released Jeremiah who didn’t move, and wandered down the hallway. Greer wasn’t at all sure he would return.
“If you try to run, I will knock you out,” he told Jeremiah, who had started to shift from one foot to the other.
“I won’t leave my brother.”
His brother! Both of them had been drawn into such an appalling deed. It was a shame.
“Will you bear witness against the man who hired you?” Greer demanded.
Jeremiah scowled. “I’m no prattler.”
“If you do, you will assuredly get a lighter sentence than the man who engineered all this.”
“No one got hurt,” Jeremiah protested. “I wouldn’t hurt no one, nor would my brother.”
“True. Although your brother frightened a shopgirl today.”
The man looked remorseful. “We was told to get her purse. That’s all. And then tonight to get a cat collar. I’m starting to think he’s a nutter and all,” he added.
“Your boss thinks I have something very valuable, and he’s willing to let you and your brother go to Newgate for it.”
They still stood in the light of a single lamp that Finley had lit, but even so, Greer could see Jeremiah’s face grow paler.
“Will you speak his name?”
“John Delorey.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rare Confectionerywas bustling as usual on a Saturday mid-morning, filled with customers and smelling heavenly sweet. Amity and Charlotte were both assisting customers, and Beatrice was making toffee.
Her younger sister had already called out when Greer hurried by with a wave of his hand as he headed to Asprey’s. And Beatrice had to cool her heels and wait. She had a new recipe to try and had decided it would be the perfect task to keep her mind occupied. Elsewise, she might go insane.
Thus, after mixing a cup of treacle, a pound of sugar, and a half pint of water, she let them boil and bubble until they were the color of straw. As soon as she removed the pot from the stove, setting it upon the copper counter, already tarnished with marks, she stirred in an ounce of bicarbonate of soda. As the recipe stated, it fizzed and frothed. When it had finished expanding, she turned the toffee out into a buttered pan — her first honeycomb toffee. In a couple hours, after it had cooled, she would break it with her little steel hammer and coat the pieces in Amity’s melted chocolate.
“He’s here,” Charlotte sang out, and Beatrice dashed through the curtain. She could hardly see him through the sizable crowd of customers, but when they locked eyes, she rushed forward, took his hand, and disregarding propriety and any witnesses, dragged him into the workroom.
