“You must not—” A reedy voice said, then devolved into low, furious tones, followed by silence.
A stronger rap than he had anticipated sounded on the solid oak. When he didn’t answer, the person knocked again.
“Good evening? Mr. Merrick?”
The hair on his neck stood straighter. The voice seeped through unknown fissures in the wood to dip and soar through the open air and wrap around him. The ropy silken strands of a noose.
Something hit the floor with a thud. He only barely registered the pain in his elbow and the missing statue of the scales of justice and vengeance—usually upright and immovable on the edge of his desk.
“Is . . . is someone there?”
It was a voice filled with light—showing a spirit that would not be contained. Andreas gripped the desk mechanism, instinctively reacting against the threat of it.
He let the silence hang. The creaking sound of the metal handle being pushed down was loud in the stillness. The woman’s hesitancy and determination were equally obvious in every sound she made.
He should have run and locked the door the moment he heard that voice.
A cloaked head peered around the edge of the wood, lit by the sconces near the door, the light placed exactly to give him an advantage in seeing whoever might enter, momentarily blinding the visitor.
Reflecting off brown eyes too big.
Red lips too full.
A serious, drawn look to her features, but he could picture the overlay of joy easily in his mind’s eye—enjoying the newest farce or spectacle at the Claremont, where she held a damnable subscription.
“Mr. Merrick?” She entered the room fully. Without the oak between them, her voice was clearer though still the slightest bit smoky.
A reedy man to match the reedy voice took a jittery step behind her and into the room, closing the door reluctantly behind him. He looked ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
The cloaked woman walked toward Andreas, small hands pushing the hood back from light brown hair as she drew closer. As she peered into
his
shadows, relief—and something else—graced her features. “Yes. Yes, you
are
Andreas Merrick.” It was said almost under her breath, like a whisper against satin sheets. White satin sheets.
His fingers jerked along the edges of one of the desk’s mechanisms before he ripped his hand away. Half an inch more and he would have accidentally shot her. He looked at his hand for a second, then focused back on her, eyes narrowed in anger, pinning the entire incident where it belonged.
The man took a step back, pressing against the closed door, pure terror in his gaze.
“I . . .” The woman cocked her head, eyes widening at his expression, before she frowned. She looked down, seeming to ponder something. She seemed to find the answer in the toe of a suspiciously dirty but finely crafted slipper. She looked back up, brilliant smile once more in place, eyes meeting his. Just that edge of loss there in the back of her gaze. Loss that had not been present four weeks ago.
“My name is Phoebe Pace, Mr. Merrick.” The smile and eyes stayed bright. It was exceedingly rare that people met his gaze, no less seemed
happy
about meeting it. “I apologize for bothering you this late in the evening.”
Most people would qualify the hour as
morning
at this point, but he didn’t bother to correct her. That would mean speaking.
“I wouldn’t normally do such a thing, you understand.” She looked at him in some sort of universal feminine appeal that had never previously worked on him. But suddenly he felt the need to scrub the lingering brushes of it from his skin. “No, well, that is untrue. I might, you see. Mr. Harris says I’m no end of trouble.”
She gestured toward the other man, obviously Mr. Harris, who looked even more terrified as Andreas turned his gaze his way.
“Still,” she continued, “it is rather a frightful neighborhood you reside in, and I found seeking you out to be quite the adventure indeed, one I might not have taken under normal conditions. But I’m quite at the end of the rabbit’s tail, you see.”
A small hand smoothed her skirt, just the barest tremble visible.
“I discovered . . .” Her mouth hovered open for a moment, unable to form whatever words had been planned to follow. Her fingers slipped into the folds of her cloak, revealing for a brief moment a bright, rose-colored skirt as her hand rippled along it.
He tensed at the action and the unfinished words, forefinger against the trigger, ready. She looked fresh from a ball, not as if she were carrying a weapon, but he couldn’t trust anyone. And
she was here.
He had specific instructions for two men to watch and report this woman’s actions. That she was
here,
in front of him, meant that at least one person would need to be severely punished later.
Her fingers reemerged, empty, clasping together in front of her cloak. He didn’t relax his position even half a fraction.
He stared at her, waiting, and wasn’t disappointed when she rushed on after a few beats of silence. She had too much forward momentum for conversation lulls. “But I jump ahead. May we sit?”
“No.”
He watched the beat at her neck pulse at his tone, her lips part at the single word. “No?”
He didn’t respond, continuing to look at her coldly. He
hoped
that was how he looked. It seemed far safer than any other action he might take. The outward ice a cover for the suddenly frozen inaction of his limbs.
He thought of cold betrayal and let the response rise to his features. Mr. Harris fell over his own feet, sprawling on the floor against the door.
Phoebe Pace turned and blinked at her companion, then hurried to help the man. “Dear me, are you well, Mr. Harris?”
“Yes, fine.” His eyes didn’t leave Andreas.
“Perhaps”—she bit her lip—“you would feel more comfortable in the hall?”
Andreas sure as hell didn’t want to be alone with her. He narrowed his eyes, intending to say just that. The man tripped up before he could, fumbling for the handle, then nodded frantically and scurried out.
Phoebe Pace stared after him, nonplussed. “Well . . . excellent. There are matters on which I need to speak with you in private anyway, Mr. Merrick. Most of the matters, really.”
She turned, bright eyes determined as she started forward again, undoing the clasp at her throat, then clutching the side of the cloak and pulling the fabric in a long, graceful arc to rest over one arm. The vibrant fabric of her dress spilled into the light—even here in his comfortingly dark den the light seemed to track her.
“May I sit?”
It would be easy for her to have hidden a weapon underneath her cloak and be pointing it at him as she moved. If it had been anyone else standing before him, they would no longer be able to stand. “No.”
She stopped, staring at him like a startled owl for long moments. “I . . . I must say I do not have the first wit for how to speak with you, Mr. Merrick.” She sounded truly bemused underneath the socially polite and cautious words. The requisite touch of dread he effortlessly gifted to people laced the edge of her voice, waiting to take hold.
Something dark curled inside him, but he simply pushed it into the pit of equally dark emotions that always swirled.
“Good. The door is behind you.”
She absently smoothed her free hand down the side of her waist, pulling the rose material along hidden curves. “Yes, Mr. Harris just used it.”
He could do nothing but stare at her. Her eyes searched his for a moment, then a warm smile curved her lips, and she relaxed a measure. “It is good to finally meet you, Mr. Merrick. I have business with you that is of vital importance.”
Of course it was, to her at least, or she wouldn’t be standing here, in a room alone with a stranger, in one of the seediest sections of town. He watched one small hand smooth her ball gown again, a light touch against the satin, shoulders pushing back with purpose.
His eyes traveled down to the hem of the gown, stained and dirtied along with her slippers, as if instead of using one of her family’s fine carriages, she’d trudged the long distance from the west of town—Mayfair, the bane of London’s existence—by foot. He pushed the feel of her smile away and sneered. “Doubtful.”
She took another quick look at her slippers, then met his eyes once more dead-on. He had to credit her—she had grit. Roman and Nana would love her.
The ice in his veins grew harder at the thought.
He touched the cord at the wall, then wrapped his fingers around it. He’d pull it and have Roman’s runts bodily evict her, then have them carry the spineless fool in the hall out. Just a normal night. He’d deal with the aftermath, punish some minions, and dismiss her from his mind completely.
Guilt was a useless emotion only fools felt. He had never been accused of being a fool.
She stepped toward him, eyes tracking the motion of his fingers. She opened her berry-stained mouth—her lips were always so
bright,
as if raspberries had been crushed upon them, overly ripe juice dribbling into every crevice—then pressed her lips together, looking at the toes of those damned slippers once more.
He gripped the cord but didn’t pull it.
Why?
He clearly wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say. He should have
sprinted
to lock the door as soon as he’d heard her voice. Should have had someone shuttle her from London weeks ago, as soon as he realized he was going to that damn theater
again.
She looked back up, determination set in every innocent feature. “I have a proposition for you.”
Every tightly controlled instinct screamed at him not to respond, and yet she pulled the dark words from him like some damned Greek siren. “Oh? And what could you possibly have that I might want?”
“Me.”
H
e stared at soft lips, slightly parted. Uttering something that must have been a different language entirely. If he hadn’t learned enough Latin, French, and Greek by the time he was out of his nappies, he might have confirmed such a thought.
“
You.
”
“Yes.” She looked so . . . earnest. He almost recoiled from the sincerity he saw in her gaze.
It was like something out of a dream, a nightmare. Unreality bleeding into conscious thought.
With another person, his continued silence would have long since pulled a twining net over her, tight and uncomfortable. But even in this, she defied expectation.
“That emerged in a rather blurted fashion. I must confess you make me feel somewhat pubescent and awkward, Mr. Merrick. Quite a talent, that.” She looked . . . cheerful. Andreas discreetly pressed the burned flesh of his wrist, and whiteness blurred the edges of his vision. Not dreaming. “I am getting off track though . . . I confess to nerves. May I sit?”
She took a step toward him, and his shoulder automatically dropped so that he was touching the mechanism again. Her head cocked at the action, assuredly not understanding how close she was to certain death.
“May I sit?”
Again he said nothing.
She peered at him through the low candlelight on the desk. “You know, you rather look like a picture I observed once of Mephistopheles. Never quite emerging into full focus, making one guess at the full face just out of view. Arresting and dangerous.”
She stepped around the seat of the chair across from him and promptly lowered herself, arranging her skirts as she might at tea, cloak on the back of the chair. “And I confess that I find that quite intriguing when combined with your reputation and correspondence. My father is James Pace.” She looked at him expectantly. He could do
nothing
but coldly return the gaze.
“My brother is Christian—”
“I know who you are”—his sudden interruption was tight and vicious—“and who your brother was.”
A clenched wave of despair rolled over her face at his use of the past tense, dimming her internal light for a fraction of a moment.
“You requested a face-to-face meeting with my father,” she said quietly. “I would like to negotiate with you in my father’s place. He has given me permission to do so.”
“No. Leave.” With another person, he would expect the command to be followed immediately. That this woman would not do what she ought to was becoming apparent.
She stared at him, gripping the edge of her chair as if the force of it alone would keep her in her seat. “Please. I have much to offer you.”
The words coiled around him, squeezing, and he fisted all but his first finger and threw his hand toward the door. “Get out.”
She didn’t move for long moments, her gaze locked with his. And that awful warmth she exuded slithered toward the darkness in his gut.
She cocked her head suddenly, her body
relaxing,
the echo of his black command hovering awkwardly in the extended pause. Forced tension stole over him at her peculiar reaction to his anger, and his whole body tightened, survival instincts rearing. He suddenly knew he was going to do something he would regret before she left. And he never regretted anything.
“There is something quite familiar about you, Mr. Merrick. Apart from seeing you at the theater, of course. I hadn’t realized it previously, seated so far away from you. Have we been introduced before?”
Ice froze the blood in his veins, both at her admission that she recognized him from the theater and that he resembled someone she might know. “No.”
The Paces might be a few generations removed from the peerage—and too steeped in trade—to be invited to the haughtiest functions, but they were still a part of London society. A social sphere he kept as far from as possible for many reasons.
“You remind me of someone now that I can see you up close.” A single finger rubbed the bottom of her lower lip, and she leaned forward. “Who—”
Unwillingly, he pulled farther into shadow. It had been a long, long time since he had felt any need to retreat. The thought of it blackened his mood further. “What do you want?” His voice was rough. He felt like prey for the first time in fifteen-odd years.
She smiled—completely without fear. A warm, unnerving smile.
Relaxed.
“I have a proposition for you, as I said.”
“I’m not interested,” he said bitingly.
She cocked her head again, and he thought he might be beginning to hate the gesture. “I think you are interested. And that for some reason I frighten you.”
He unexpectedly gave a dark laugh. Unnerving even him. “Your entire species is terrifying. Now get out.”
“I do not desire to terrify you. Though you enjoy promoting fear, do you not? Your reputation precedes you.”
His gut clenched, and some strange feeling collected there. “You should believe every inch of that reputation.”
A normal person would not be behaving as the woman in front of him was. The daughter of a wealthy man—or at least a previously wealthy man—should be out worrying about the state of her clothes and her marital status. Definitely not looking as if she wanted to take tea with the devil—and warmly chat about the lovely weather while she did.
He again eyed the cloak behind her and the set of her hands. But she only seemed to be carrying the weapon of her lips.
She cocked her head. “Yes, of course I should believe it. The longer I watch you, though, the more secure I feel. You remind me of—”
“What do you
want
?”
The response wasn’t terse enough because hope bloomed across her face. Hell, the devil himself could tell her he was taking her straight to hell, and she’d probably smile in idiotic anticipation of a balmy trip to the tropics. She thrust a hand into her bag, and he didn’t even tense. Perhaps she would shoot him and end his misery. She extracted a sheaf of papers.
“My father was taken in by frauds and cheats, as you know.”
“I know nothing of that nature.” There it was. That tingle of guilt that had no business exploding in his brain. “Your brother publicly claimed such a thing. However, the evidence suggests that your father is in fact one of the instigators of the scam.”
“Yes, the perpetrators were quite thorough in casting him in that role.” She nodded. “Before his absence from society, my father began to invest the company’s funds in the New World markets. Brazil and Chile, most notably. People took note and followed suit. My father was . . . encouraged . . . to start a fund. It will be no secret come next month’s report that the fund is defunct. The money gone. And we are now embroiled irreparably.”
The great James Pace had forgotten to separate his own finances and those of his company from those of the fund. It had been a singularly grave mistake on the man’s part that still made Andreas wonder as to his sanity. The man’s brilliance in his letters made the whole question that much more intriguing.
Phoebe Pace leafed through her papers, grabbed a sheet, then leafed through for another. “I tell you this freely as you are assuredly aware of it already, and I do not desire to show doubt in your intelligence or intelligence gathering. You have undoubtedly been keeping an eye on us, as I have been going through our accounts, and it seems we owe you quite a bit of money, Mr. Merrick.”
His gaze sharpened on her as she sifted through the pages in front of her. Her face was concentrated on the task, as if she were getting ready to start at page one, then continue through infinity. He had the most absurd feeling that she would somehow manage to freeze him in his seat until the end of time.
“You owe more than ‘quite a bit,’ Miss Pace.”
“Yes. And it was good of you to buy so many shares of our debt. Helps ‘quite a bit’ in making it easier to pay back.”
He thought of the figure. They’d never be able to pay it back. He had engineered it in just that way. Their accounts were completely tied up at the moment in land, facilities, contracts, and the dirty speculation fund. “You think you can pay it back?”
“Yes. With time. I have a plan that will benefit us mutually.”
“I am only concerned with what I gain.”
“Yes, of course.” She continued flipping and pulling out pages. “And I will guarantee that you will double your investment in five years.”
He opened his mouth to coldly state that they’d never be able to pay back a tenth of the money they owed, much less doubling his money, but something else emerged entirely. “Why are
you
here?”
She stopped her motions and interlaced her fingers on top of the pages, eyes steady on his. “My father was unable to come.”
Her body proclaimed her words true, but a truth that concealed something else.
“And your man of business?”
The derisive slur to the words gave her obvious pause. “Mr. Harris is our current man of business.”
Andreas allowed his thoughts on the matter to show.
“Yes, I think he might have been put off by your manner.” She leaned forward. “But I find you rather intriguing and quite a humanitarian.”
He had experienced this feeling once before. When he’d encountered a strange, colorful insect on the sill. Bright blues and greens mixed with dark veins of rose. It had been the most absurd-looking creature he had ever encountered. That it had survived a day in the colorless world of east London was astounding. Squashing it promptly was the only way to put it out of its misery.
“The Collateral Exchange?” she asked, her voice warming
more
. “Is that what you call it? Making loans to wealthy merchants and nobles on the security of tangible, negotiable collateral—mortgages on real estate, cargoes on ships, pledges on merchandise, precious stones, or livestock. Helping people consolidate their debts in order to more easily repay them. It is quite lovely.”
Dear God. He stared.
It was perhaps the most merciless endeavor they had ever undertaken. Slit throats in the night were merciful when grabbing a man by his pride and twisting one’s fingers to the point of dark pain—social, political, personal safety—and removing all hope for a future not consisting of dirt, grime, and humiliation.
She patted the papers in her lap. “I would like to discuss the terms of paying back our debt. Lord Garrett is becoming quite insistent with us on our need to enter betrothal negotiations.”
Both endeavors which would never occur. Outcomes—due to his direct involvement—of which he was sure. “Perhaps you and your
man of business
missed the turn to
Mayfair.
”
“No.” She smiled. “I am exactly where I need to be. I have no desire to enter negotiations with Lord Garrett and his heir.”
He couldn’t keep down his dark pleasure at that.
“However, I am—I mean my family is—ill equipped at the moment to handle these matters when we are at the end of our credit most places. Quite frankly, I—we—need you.”
The dark offer was on the tip of his tongue. He kept his lips closed, though, swirling it around, thinking. There was something quite . . . unsettling . . . in the air. Making any type of offer, especially one so clearly springing from his own dark needs, would be unwise. The scent of choice and decision hung. He had lived far too long with Roman not to recognize the weaving of a fated web.
“You come highly recommended from multiple sources. Ruthless, but fair. Quite frankly, I have a number of things I would like to hire you for, should our negotiations continue favorably.”
Continue favorably? He stared hard at her, trying to read beyond the obvious and overwhelming naïveté.
Brown hair arranged in some absurd looping style framed the set of her earnest eyes and overgenerous lips, which were determinedly pressed together. Honey-coated steel. Others referred to this woman as “truly nice,” whatever the hell that meant; but she’d never give up. Ejecting her from his office was not going to stop her from seeking him out again. He’d seen that damn insect fluttering stupidly outside of his window a week later, far, far outliving its life span.
“Have your father make an appointment.”
A twofold request, as he wanted to meet and observe James Pace. The question of the man’s complete commercial downfall, then absence from social and political life was one he desired an answer to, especially considering the sharpness of the man’s correspondence.
And he wanted the woman across from him gone. He continued to swallow the other words—words the ever-present darkness filling him wanted to say to her. Dangerous.
“I would like to go over this matter with you myself, Mr. Merrick, if you don’t object.”
“I do.”
Damn tilting head. “Is it because I am a woman?”
He leaned forward past the light of the candles and into the shadows between them. “That you are sitting alone in a room with me? Or that you are trying to negotiate with me?”
“Do you seek to protect my virtue?” Her lips curled, without a trace of guile. It was alarming. “I knew you would prove to be an honorable man.”