Page 64 of A Deal with the Devil

Chapter Sixteen

The first step to taking down a powerful and corrupt earl was surprisingly akin to a regular day for Kitty.

It had to do with books.

If the note she had found was written by Lady Caroline and sold off as part of her belongings, Kitty was going to have to trace those belongings to various estate sales and buyers. She had already gone through the rest of the items in the box purchased for the shop and found nothing unusual. No more notes, no letters.

Lord Portsmouth had his wife’s life packed into boxes and handed the lot over to an auction house. Tracking the various sales had taken some doing, mostly bribes Kitty could not afford, and then a single suggestion of a visit from Devil and a list had miraculously appeared.

Effective, if vexing. Clearly, there were benefits to people thinking she was the future bride of the Devil.

She herself tried not to think about it too hard. It made her feel odd. Hopeful, hopeless. Unmoored. Too aware of her body and worse, of all of the things she could not let herself want. That part was nothing new but it was sharper, more raw. Devil would never marry her.

Not that it mattered. Because it most certainly did not. Today was for following another lead. Another private library.

And dealing with her father, apparently.

She could count on one hand the number of times he had visited her at the shop. He disdained its very existence, the proof that her mother’s family was in trade when he had only been given a barony as a life peerage because had helped the War Office with some kind of secret invention. Something about a new rifle? Cannonballs? She had never been able to figure it out. But it had made him scads of money. For a very little while. Doing something very much like trade, she felt the need to point out.

Also, it was the only thing keeping him in bread and mutton stew and other necessities.

Her grandmother, his mother-in-law, refused to sell him the store, refused to even talk to him. The day he had lost the majority of his fortune on a single roll of dice, she had sent him raw chicken hearts. Which had sat in the sun for some time before postage.

And now here he was, nose faintly wrinkled as he came through the door in a gray coat with enameled buttons he ought to have sold already. She made a mental note to sneak into his room and remove them. They would buy Galahad enough food for the rest of the year.

“Why does it smell like soup?” he asked, confused.

“Someone hid rotten onions in the back alley two weeks ago.” She shrugged. “We haven’t found the last few yet.” Miss Peridot had been outraged at the waste of it.

“Why would someone do that?”

“I couldn’t say,” she replied, even she could say, and at great length.

“And did you know there is a giant on your doorstep?” her father added. “He’s somewhat off-putting.”

“Yes. He works for Lord Birmingham.”

“Good, good. That’s good.” Her father smiled, and it made her stomach hurt. She knew that smile. It was wheedling, hopeful. “He takes care of you already. He’ll make a fine husband. And a fine son-in-law.”

She rubbed at her breastbone, which had also started to ache. She did not want to hear the rest of what he had to say.

“I need funds, Kitty. Just to get me through the rest of the month. There are several games that I just know would solve my problems.”

She sighed.

He continued, undeterred. “That hell in Covent Garden is going to send that bruiser of theirs after me. You could have Birmingham talk to them.”

By talk to them, he meant have her pretend fiancé pay off his astronomical debts. Devil, who had crafted his reputation on the fact that everyone paid their debts. It was beyond absurd to even contemplate that he would intervene to forgive a wager he was not involved in when he would not forgive those he was involved in.

“Father, no.” She knew he wouldn’t stop. He would hound Devil in the very streets, begging. It made her itchy just to think about it. She rubbed her breastbone again. He wouldn’t listen to her. He never had before. “If you bother him, he’ll ban you from the Sins,” she pointed out.

That, at least, had an effect. His daughter’s pride meant nothing, but being turned away from the most infamous gaming hell when it finally opened? That would drive him mad.

He frowned. “That seems unjust.” He glanced around, more frantically than she liked, then wiped his face, shoulders slumping alarmingly. “I did not have breakfast. You left early again this morning. Do you have any rolls? A muffin?”

He did look pale. Perspiration beaded his upper lip. “Are you ill?” she asked, concerned despite knowing that there was always something behind the simplest of his questions.

“I feel a bit weak, is all. A bit of breakfast will fix me right up.”