Roman had a new life. He was happy—Andreas no longer had to worry about him. And he had provisions in place for Nana. He could just end things now.
He fingered the blade, then a vision of Phoebe Pace walking around, exposed and without guard drifted across his vision.
He gave the steel one last gentle, promising stroke and slipped it into his sleeve. Soon. He had been waiting twenty-three years, four months, and twelve days. Cold certainty washed through him. He could wait a while longer.
Andreas lingered until Garrett made to leave the room, then silently headed in the direction of the Paces’ house. Harris’s going back to give a report to “his employer” would be expected. Then he would see what else she had planned.
T
wo days later he was still following “Mr. Harris.” He had dispatched and discouraged a variety of people who’d followed her over the past fifty hours while she had been out visiting Pace craftsmen and financiers.
She was walking a thin line, but he hadn’t confronted her yet. His curiosity burned. She had been meeting with their craftsmen mostly, but there had been some surprising other destinations, and he was starting to realize that she was involved in far more plotting than he had assumed.
He was going to have a little talk with her later. It was time to get her the hell out of this web. He wasn’t a guard. And he didn’t like surprises. Nor did he like constantly watching the crowd for people who might attempt to harm her. No wonder Roman had gone insane when he had threatened London on Charlotte’s behalf.
Andreas fixed a dark look of promise on a man who had been staring too long at “Mr. Harris” while waiting at a street crossing. A dark stain spread down the man’s trousers, and he stayed in place instead of following the crowd crossing the road. Just a bystander, good.
Andreas followed the white wig bobbing in a sea of brown. Phoebe Pace would give Roman a run for his money in the crazy department. She was driving Andreas nuts.
He wondered why she wasn’t taking a carriage. Concerned about revealing herself if she chose her transportation incorrectly? Or perhaps the heir to the finest carriage company in London liked walking.
He found himself watching her as she moved. She walked with purpose, but sometimes without continual forward progress. She found holes in the crowd and moved into them quickly, sometimes zigzagging, allowing quick movement without either having to stop or being run over by someone else in the crowd.
A man suddenly appeared behind her, but her darting maneuvers forced him farther behind quickly. The man swore as he had to push around a group of women in order to catch up. A poor tail. He was either new, or this was not part of his regular duties.
Andreas had dispatched the more experienced tails in the past two days. Working his way through Cornelius’s men, who were obviously working with Garrett, one by one, two by two. Roman was going to tease him mercilessly for doing drudge work. Andreas usually hated to leave his cave for anything other than exceptional events.
Leaving meant he had to pretend other people existed.
Andreas followed Phoebe Pace and her new shadow though, once more, unhindered, pushing his unfriendliness to the front of his features. The crowd parted when he needed it to.
The man started gaining on her, increasing his speed, his frustration overcoming his movements, his motivation to intercept her instead of continuing to trail her suddenly clear. The crowd parted in front of Andreas more rapidly as he quickly advanced, people rubbing their exposed skin, feeling the sudden need to shrink away, to the sides. He made full use of it, caught up to the man, and gripped the back of his neck. “Let’s have a conversation,” he said in a low voice and thrust him sideways through the crowd and into the alley.
A
ndreas emerged from the alley with a new low-slung cap to hide the top half of his features. He loosened his knuckles and continued to Phoebe Pace’s house. His pace, always quick, was faster than usual.
He rapped the knocker. He should send a courier. He should send an army. There was no reason for him to be standing here as a goddamn messenger.
No one answered the door. He tried again, then just gripped the handle and pushed it open, striding inside, a messenger of death. Phoebe Pace peered around the edge of a doorway to the left, one bushy brow still attached, contrasting sharply with its well-groomed sibling. Both real and fake brows rose in shocked surprise. Her . . . shirt . . . was open two buttons down from the top.
He stared at her for a moment, unable to say anything.
“Mr. Merrick.” She started to emerge farther, then caught herself and pulled back, her hand suddenly gripping her shirt together at her throat. “What can I do for you?”
“We need to speak.”
She blinked. “It’s not a good time. Perhaps I can visit you in an hour?”
“No.” He walked forward, looking around the house. It was a standard layout. He headed for where the study was sure to be.
“Mr. Merrick.” She hurried after him. “Mr. Merrick, what—”
He looked around the interior. It was cluttered and disorganized. He ignored the mess as best as he could, disorganization always made him feel tense. “Pack and leave for the country, Miss Pace.”
“What?”
“Now. Start packing.”
“No, I have two more meet . . . I mean, our man of business has two more meetings with—”
“Miss Pace.” He thought it was said quite pleasantly. He was quite pleased by the widening of her eyes. “You have forgotten to remove your eyebrow.”
Her hand immediately went to her brow, dropping her fisted collar, exposing the skin just enough to see the cleft of a shadowed canyon squished together and bound by tape. “Oh. How . . . how could that have happened?”
It took him a moment to recover from the sight. “How, indeed. Let us just put it down on the register of absurdity that you continue to enact—dressing up in men’s clothes in your own home, hmmm? Perhaps Madame Vestris inspired you?”
She brightened, as if it were the perfect excuse. That was not good.
He rushed on, completely against the natural order of things. “However, that is beside the point. Start packing. You have two hours and not one minute more.”
“I think we are failing to properly communicate, Mr. Merrick.”
“You have one hour and fifty-nine minutes to pack,” he enunciated.
She blinked at him. “No I don’t.”
“Good. You have only fifty-eight minutes then.”
She looked flustered for a moment. Her eyes drifted to something in the corner, and she regained a cheerful mien. “I am unable to leave for the country at this time, unfortunately. In a few weeks—”
“The Watch is coming for your father in the morning.”
The color left her face abruptly. Rosy cheeks bled to parchment.
“But—”
“Your little antics have forced someone’s hand. Your fund’s results will be released early and with . . . modifications.”
He knew whose hand had been forced. It was better if she just went on her merry, flighty way though.
“You came to warn us.” She looked at him through hair mussed and falling over her eyes.
He took a step back. “I was in the neighborhood.”
She took a step toward him. “Thank you.”
He almost took another step back. He was here . . . because he had helped the situation degenerate. Yes. He had given her those debts back. Enabled her stupidity. A society girl with no claim on real-life matters.
“Don’t thank me, just leave.”
Her plump lower lip disappeared between her teeth. “I . . . yes. I will have my parents leave immediately. Of course. They can’t stay. I will get things settled in the meantime.”
He wasn’t sure what that cold feeling was in his gut. “
All
of you will leave.”
“But I need—”
“To what? Stay here and reap the consequences of whatever mob comes to make the arrest?”
“I . . . no, you make sense. I will go elsewhere for tonight and tomorrow. But I need to—”
“You need to leave
permanently.
”
“I can’t, I—”
“If you don’t leave London in one hour and fifty-six minutes with your parents,” he said pleasantly, “I will burn down your house.”
Silence. Then—“I think I’m misunderstanding you.”
“You are understanding me perfectly well.”
“You just threatened to burn down my house. I think that is uncommon enough a response for me to question.”
“What do you know about me, Miss Pace?”
It was actually a question that burned deeply and undesirably.
“I know that you are a fair man. And a kind man, when you want to be.” Where the hell did she get these notions? “And true to your word . . . oh.”
He gave her a thin smile.
Wide eyes stared back. “But I, I mean, I need to coordinate with our man of business. He has all manners of tasks to . . .” She sighed, obviously reading his expressions without trouble. “
I
need to be here for a few more weeks
as
my man of business.”
“You can do your business from elsewhere. You have plenty of correspondence capabilities.” He motioned toward the doorway.
She stared at him. “And if I say no?”
“Do you really want to say no? To continue whatever idiotic game you are playing? What the hell are you
wearing
?”
She stared down at the eyebrow in her hand. “I’m in too far to be embarrassed at this point,” she muttered.
“And why do those trousers fit you?”
My God. He had not just asked that.
She looked down at the article of clothing in question, and he swore for a moment that a smile curved her lips, but when she looked up, that perpetually innocent expression was back in place. A trick of the light . . . maybe. “Took a few goes to get them right. I can give you instructions, though you don’t require tailoring.” She critically examined his
seams—
where they
met.
“You look quite sleek in—”
“If you haven’t moved in two hours, I will guarantee you will.” He swiftly walked toward the exit. He had thought to go through the documents on the desk, but frankly, he had to get out of here. The men on duty would take care of things in case the Watch—or anyone else—came early. He didn’t need to be here. In fact, he would double the retinue, just to make sure nothing happ—
—to make sure she was gone.
“Have a productive day, Mr. Merrick!”
He hadn’t had a productive day since she’d walked through his door.
A
ndreas entered the hell a week later. He had chased Cornelius around northern England for a week, always missing the slippery bastard by a few hours. He should have taken lackeys with him to coordinate a trap, but taking others with him meant relying on other people for long periods of time.
He already had someone to rely on. That someone was just taking forever on his goddamn honeymoon.
But at least there was no Phoebe Pace to worry about. He had received a doubly verified report that indeed the Pace family had moved and were safely installed elsewhere. He had almost asked after their new location but denied the impulse.
What Phoebe Pace was, was
gone.
No more biscuits or trouble or strange pits of thought. Thank God.
He had assigned a set of five men to stay near the Paces, wherever they were. He’d leave the knowledge of where they were to others and just rely on the reports.
People gawked as he walked through the kitchens. He’d been expected back two days from now, not tonight, and he knew he looked like absolute hell. He sneered, and the only boy who had opened his mouth to say something closed it with a snap, backing away.
Useless. He continued up the stairs to the private rooms on the top floor where he and Roman maintained chambers on opposite sides of the hall. No, just his rooms now. The other hall door on the floor was never opened anymore.
He stepped from the landing and walked down the hall. He was going to lock his door and sleep for a week. And anyone who disturbed—
Bark.
He slowed his steps. What the hell—
Yap, yap.
He mentally went through his correspondence. Roman wasn’t due back for another three weeks. And Charlotte
would
get some ridiculously yappy dog, but even if she did, it would be taken to the Grosvenor Square house where they lived.
Yap, yap, yap.
If one of the boys had picked up a stray and thought to hide it in Roman’s rooms, there would be bloodshed.
A deep voice shouted something, followed by a crash.
Yap!
He narrowed his eyes and put his hand upon the handle to Roman’s rooms. It turned beneath his fingers and honey brown hair pushed beneath his nose. He pulled back, nearly stumbling.
“Oh! Mr. Merrick. I didn’t see you there.”
He stared at her. His living nightmare. Hair unbound and curling around her shoulders.
She wedged her body into the crack of the door, blocking his view behind with her simple dress . . . was that a
nightdress
? “Welcome back. I . . . I thought you would be back two days from now. Perhaps I might speak with you later?”
Something wiggled under her thin skirts, and he could only stare as a scraggly mass of brown fur dove forward, furry paws extended. He reacted instinctively, bending and catching the thing by the scruff of the neck as it tried to surge past him.
“Oh! Mr. Wiggles.” She gently extricated the . . . thing trying to bite him . . . from his grip. The ends of her locks brushed his wrist as he rose. He straightened quickly, stepping back, as if bitten after all. “Thank you. He has been into everything. I swear, when we got him we thought he would help with”—she pulled her rosy lips between her teeth—“that is, we thought he’d be better behaved. I must admit I haven’t had time to properly train him.”
“Why is your . . . dog . . . here?” he asked stiffly. It was far from the most pertinent question, but he thought asking the question of why
she
was here might emerge less . . . evenly.
“Oh, well, when you ordered us out of our house, we needed a safe place to stay, you see, and . . .” She cocked her head. “You look awfully tired. Perhaps we should discuss this in the morning?”
“We will discuss this now.”
She shrugged. “I spoke with your men. They said your brother had abandoned his apartments here.”
Abandoned was not the word he would have chosen. He reached down to rub his leg before he realized what he was doing.
“He now resides with his wife,” he said tightly.
She nodded. “I wish to rent his rooms.”
“
What?
”
“It is perfect. It will better allow me to repay my debt to you, and it is far closer to the financial area in order to complete our transactions.”
“No.”
“Well, you see, I must admit, we’ve already moved in.” Brilliant smile. “It would make things much simpler if you just agree.”
“No.”
“It’s the perfect solution really. You said I needed to leave to parts unknown. And what’s more, I figured you wouldn’t burn down your own building.” An even more brilliant smile.
He stared at her, opened his mouth to say something extremely cutting, then closed it again.
He wasn’t going to continue this conversation in the hall where anyone under either landing could eavesdrop. And definitely not with the light shining behind and through that thin . . . thing she was wearing, silhouetting the lines of her body.
He turned on his heel and walked to his door farther down the hall. He could hear her shuffling around in the doorway—probably with that
dog
—then following him. He paused at his outer door. His personal rooms . . . and Phoebe Pace . . . no. He swiftly walked to the steps instead, taking the stairs jarringly—going down the stairs was always the toughest action he undertook, and when he was out of sorts, it was worse. He made it down the steps to his office on the floor beneath without mishap, though, thank God.
He hated having anyone in his rooms, so he’d easily separated the spaces right from the beginning. That way anyone reporting to him during the day stayed out of his personal areas.
And he had never had to worry about someone reporting to him like
this.
He made sure the door was closed behind her and all three locks engaged before moving to his desk.
“Why are you here?” he asked roughly as he sat on the other side, trying not to pay too much attention to her until he realized she had somehow managed to don a dowdy full-length robe. Relief was quickly dashed as he saw the
ledgers
on her lap. How had she managed to grab them so quickly? Perhaps she kept them stuffed under her shift in an invisible pocket. Perfect to extract at any notice.
No. There had been nothing beneath. The image of her silhouette burned into his brain.
“Are you alone?” He didn’t know why he asked.
“No.”
He fell back quickly to safer questions. “Why are you here?”
“The Watch was coming—”
“Why are you
here
?”
She touched the cover of the top ledger. “Well, we owe—”
He thrust out a hand in the universal motion meant to stop someone from continuing. He had never killed anyone with paper. He briefly contemplated the mechanics of it.
No, paper would be too hard to execute. Besides, she was going to be the end of him, not the other way around, of that he was certain. “That also isn’t why you are here.”
She studied him, head tilting to do it. “No.”
He tapped a finger on the desk. Brilliant or daft. “Why are you here?”
Her eyes met his squarely. “Because no one would think we were staying here.”
Not daft.
He narrowed his eyes as his mind connected threads and possibilities. “All of your trips here—your debts to be repaid—you were setting this up. Seeing if the building met whatever criteria and plan you had.”
“That would be Machiavellian.”
“That is not a denial.”
“I am firm in my desire to repay our debts. As to our staying here, we hardly make a ripple. Neither of my parents needs to leave your brother’s rooms.”
He watched her through narrowed eyes. “Do you hold them hostage in the attic?”
Her mouth parted, bottom lip dropping. “Do I . . . what?”
The drapes were always pulled, the father emerging only six times in the last six months. And no one who worked there could be bribed. That wasn’t
normal.
She
wasn’t normal. He thought of her far too often for her to be normal.
“Of course not.” But her expression was off. Way off. “They are just solitary.”
Her eyes were too bright. It was unnerving considering the subject she was avoiding.
“You are lying.”
“Yes. And you are quite fearsome.” She looked quite cheerful again, as if his being fearsome was something of an asset. “I would like to take advantage of that as well.”
Being silent around this woman was better than gawking like an idiot.
“Charlotte Chatsworth, I mean, Charlotte Merrick . . . I’ve seen dangerous-looking men cross the street to the other side when they see her. It is a horribly kept secret that your brother threatened the entirety of London on her behalf.”
“That is Roman.”
“Yes. But I can’t imagine that you do not scare the trousers off London’s population as well. More so even.” This was said cheerfully. Again. “And so we would like to rent your brother’s rooms.”
“No.”
Head tilt. “Why not? He lives elsewhere.”
“Because as much as you would obviously like to think otherwise, it isn’t outside of the realm of possibilities to others that you would be here.”
Cornelius was not an idiot. He would know who had dispatched his men outside the Paces’ home as soon as it was reported. If anyone made it to report.
“Who would think that?” she asked.
But it was an answer he could not, would not, give. For other questions would tumble forth, questions he
also
could not answer. Not without divulging the larger picture. To all the factions that were actually involved in this situation. Who would use her family and her to destroy each other.
People like him.
She cocked her head at him. “Who would think that?” she repeated. “The people you have saved us from each night, and me each day? Those people?”
He stared at her, his heart not beating in his cold, dead chest. “What?”
She stared at him, without answering, her gaze clear, a smile half-lifted upon her lips.
He flattened his hands against the desk instead. “
You
make no sense. Why do you
return
here? What part of ‘assassination attempts’ that first night did you not understand? The part where there was a knife against your throat?”
“You invited that attempt.”
“
What?
”
“You knew it was going to happen,” she said calmly. “You tried to
encourage
me, for lack of a better word, to leave. I must tell you that if you had said, ‘Five armed men will enter the door to this office in the next five minutes,’ I might have been more receptive to your encouragement. You have a problem with communication, did you know?” Head tilt.
“I would be happy to stop communicating altogether,” he gritted out.
“Oh, no, but I wouldn’t like that at all. I think you are growing remarkably well.”
“I would not wager on such a thought. Do you know what I am thinking at the moment, Miss Pace?”
“Something unpleasant concerning my ability to breathe, I’d wager. But I’d also bet you know when most of the attacks on you are going to happen.” Head tilt, head tilt, head tilting his world. “Do
you
wish for death, Mr. Merrick? Or do you require the rush that accompanies such attacks?”
“
What?
”
“I’ve heard of such things, of course. And experienced quite a quickening of the heart myself that night, I must tell you. I’m not sure I would woo a second such event, however.”
His knuckles hurt. “Then you would be foolish to stay here.”
“Oh, does that mean you are receptive to the request then?”
“Are you mad?”
“I believe that is the first time you’ve asked me that, Mr. Merrick.” This was said cheerfully as well. “I’m quite impressed. Most people give in during the first conversation.”
He decided not to respond. He tried to loosen his fingers instead.
“We find ourselves fugitives at the moment, Mr. Merrick.”
“You are not. Your father is.”
“Yes. But that means we all are. We would not let Father go alone,” she said softly.
“You are a fool.” Yet something tightened in him. He believed her. The blackness swirled, gasping.
“I believe we have been over this.”
“Why didn’t you go to the country? Hide somewhere far from London.
This
is where you are in the most danger.”
She tilted her head again, and something in her gaze warmed. He hurriedly pushed the emotion away from him, even as it just kept
coming
from her. “Yes, and then what? Wait for someone to save us? For someone to prove that Father is not the guilty party while he rots in jail?”