She seemed not to hear. She turned to face the fence, gripping it with both hands. She looked ready to rip out an iron slat and stab him with it.
“All this for a ‘mission’ that you now say is more like a personal errand,” she said.
“It is not uncommon,” he said, “for officers of rank to... act of their own volition for the common good. In the field.”
“But you are not in the field. You are in Hammersmith.”
“I am in the world,” he gritted out, “and I am a capable agent, and when I see injustice, I am obliged to set it to rights. I’m not staked behind a bloody desk in Middlesex—at least not yet.”
This came out with more rancor than he intended. It had pained him even to travel to Hammersmith today. The placid, agrarian tediousness of every part ofMiddlesex caused him to twitch and pace and scan the green horizon for a hidden doorout.
Soon, he’d be back here to stay.
Soon, there would be no way out, and he’d twitch and pace and run mad with the stifling sameness of it.
But not today.
Today, he’d come for her and—lovely surprise—it hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. She was resistant to reason and stubborn to a fault but she kept things interesting.
Now she watched him with open curiosity. He pressed the advantage.
“Will you indulge me a moment more? Let me make my offer? Learn what you’ll receive in return?”
“Oh yes. Another fifty pounds.” She stared at the empty storefront behind the gate.
“No, in fact. Not money. Something far more useful, I hope.”
“What is more useful than money?” A bitter laugh.
“Property,” he said.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned her head.
He kept his voice light. “It’s not in London, I’m afraid, but here. In Hammersmith. Not prohibitively far, as your journey in the hackney hopefully demonstrated. It’s another reason I wished you to meet with Aunt Harriet at her beloved Turnip and Tea. My London buildings do not really lend themselves to travel agencies—those are flats and warehouses mostly. But the Northumberland dukedom owns most of Hammersmith, or so I’m told, and that includes this high street.”
He went on. “You could choose this very building, for example.” He nodded to the storefront before them.“If it doesn’t suit, there are others scattered throughout town.”
He watched her. She tore her gaze away and looked at the empty building as if she had not noticed it before.
Jason gave her time to study it.
“If you will help me, Miss Tinker,” he said softly, “if you will travel to Iceland and assist me in recovering my cousin without incident, I will set you up in your own office, and you may have a travel agency on your very own terms. You may employ Samantha and whomever else you like. You may lure away all of your devoted clients, my aunt among them, and be free of Mr. Drummond Hooke.You may do as you please.”
He swung the creaky gate wide and stepped through it. He could feel her watching him as he mounted the steps. His heartbeat began to pound.
This was, of course, the thing he’d wanted to say from the moment she’d appeared in front of the tearoom.
He’d wanted to give her a building, even if she wouldn’t help him.
Surely this was one benefit of being duke? Bestowing his copious properties on whomever he chose.
He reached for the doorknob. It was locked, of course, but he’d had his brother’s steward—hissteward, he reminded himself miserably—furnish him with keys to all the buildings up and down Queen Street. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“What say you?” he asked, gesturing to the dim interior. Anticipation welled like a shaken bottle of champagne. She was on the cusp. Her expression had gone from frustration to disbelief to—dare he say?—hope. He bit back a smile, watching as she looked over the building with wild, searching eyes.
“You would simply give me a building?” she confirmed.She clutched the fence plats as if she might bend them into hooks.
“Well, the leasehold, if that’s amenable. Choose a building with a storefront on the ground floor and a flat above for your dwelling. Or use both floors for your work and take a cottage around the corner. You’d have to say good-bye to city life, I’m afraid. And your clients will be forced to leave London to call on you. But perhaps you can convince them their journey to the Continent begins in Hammersmith.”
