by Lynne Barron
Before any one specific question could rise from the mire to the surface, a small, red-haired girl darted around a cart in the street and skipped over to stand before Miss O’Connell. “Miss Harry, Mum said as how I was to find you straightaway, and seeing as today is Friday, I went round to the bookstore, but you wasn’t there, so I come looking for you, and here you are.”
“Well, and a good afternoon to you, too, Peggy Sholes,” Miss O’Connell said with a wisp of laughter. “It is a pleasure to see you. Why yes, we are having unseasonably cool weather this spring. Precious Pincushion was perfectly fine when last I saw him, thank you. And your sainted mother, how is she faring?”
The little girl of perhaps seven or eight blushed all the way to her hairline and shuffled about, one foot circling in the dried mud on the walkway. “How do you do, Miss Harry?”
“Quite well, Peggy. Thank you for asking. And you?”
“Right as rain.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Miss O’Connell answered. “Might I introduce my new friend to you?”
“I thought Cedric was your friend?” Peggy asked, eying Phin suspiciously.
Did he have the blond bullyboy to compete with along with all the others?
“I hope I’m allowed more than one friend,” Miss O’Connell replied. “After all, Cedric is friends with one out every seven women residing on St. Sebastian Place. Now then, Miss Peggy Sholes, this gentleman is his lordship, Viscount Knighton. My lord, Miss Peggy Sholes, of the Wellclose Square Sholes rather than that rag-tag bunch in Bethnal Green.”
If the girl was impressed by his title, or his appearance for that matter, she gave no indication of it, her gaze returning to Miss O’Connell as she offered up a folded square of parchment. “Mum said as how I was to find you straightaway and give this to you.”
Miss O’Connell plucked the paper from the girl’s fingers and tucked it into a pocket hidden in her skirts, the deft movement accompanied by the unmistakable clink of coins.
“Aint you going to sum it up?” Peggy Sholes asked.
“I trust your mother’s arithmetic.”
“There’s coin enough for this week and next, on account of Pop’s taken to the bottle again, and Mum’s afraid he’ll find her hidey-hole and drink it all away.” The words came spewing forth in the ferociously fast fashion only little girls seemed able to manage. “That or he’ll wind up needing to be fished from the river, but Mum says she ain’t so lucky as all that, else her numbers would have come up by now. Me, I think she’s choosing the wrong numbers week after week, but will she listen? I know the perfect combination of numbers—”
“Goodness, Peggy,” Miss O’Connell interrupted. “Stop long enough to draw breath before you faint on the street.”
“Seven, nine, five,” the girl finished on a gust of breath, twirling to skip away, but not before calling back over her shoulder, “I feel it in my bones.”
“Numbers?” Phin asked, looking at the woman beside him to see her watching the girl cross the busy street. “You’re running numbers?”
“Me, running numbers?” she said with a low laugh. “Because an eight-year-old girl mentioned numbers, you think I am working a numbers ring?”
“Working a numbers ring,” Phin repeated as another piece of the puzzle dropped into place. “Holy hell, you saw the way Dooley was listing about last night and sent Marchant to talk to Mr. Prince’s man, Simms.”
“And if I did?” She attempted to pull her hand free, but Phin clamped his arm to his side, effectively imprisoning her beside him.
“There is no if about it.” Phin started off down the street, leaving her no choice but to do the same. “I saw the entire debacle for myself.”
“Last night was hardly a debacle, not when taking into account the quantity of ale sold.”
“If you start in on differentials and doubling the take twice over… What does that even mean, doubling twice over?”
“Squaring the take twice over,” she corrected, yanking her hand free as an elderly gentleman rushed toward them. “Good afternoon, Mr. Farr. How is Mrs. Farr today?”
“The wife’s complaining her gout’s acting up, but it’s all a ruse to get outta traveling to Bristol to visit our youngest girl, Annie.”
“You mustn’t be too hard on Mrs. Farr,” Miss O’Connell replied. “She cannot help the fact she’s a poor traveler.”
“Suffers from motion sickness,” the old man said, looking Phin up and down. “You married, young man?”
“No, sir,” Phin replied, reining in his aggravation at the interruption as best he could.
“His lordship is currently shopping around for a bride,” Miss O’Connell said, just to bedevil him, no doubt.
“His lordship is it? Well, my lord, take my advice and make a long journey with any lady under consideration before you offer for her.”
“Go on with you, Mr. Farr,” Miss O’Connell chided. “You’d have offered for Mrs. Farr even had she taken sick on your best pair of boots.”
The old man chuckled and offered up a couple of pound notes. “We’ll miss taking tea with you Tuesday, but I dare say you’d miss us more if I didn’t give this to you before we leave.”
“I dare say I would,” she agreed, shoving the notes in the same pocket into which Peggy’s mother’s coins had disappeared. “Be sure and tell Annie I send my felicitations.”
When the elderly fellow had rejoined his cronies, Phin started off down the street once more. He took only two steps before realizing he hadn’t any idea their destination. “Where do you reside?”
“Why, right here on Wellclose Square.”
Phin looked up and down the bustling commercial street. “You live above one of the shops?” Why the knowledge surprised him he couldn’t say. But surprise him it did.
Apparently, his expression said as much.
Miss O’Connell erupted into laughter, the sound draining away his irritation. She ought to laugh more as it was a sweet sound, light and airy and totally devoid of artifice or sophistication.
“Goodness gracious,” she finally said when her laughter had subsided. “From the look on your face, one would think I said I lived above a brothel in the rookeries of Seven Dials rather than above a shop on a perfectly respectable street in Wellclose Square.”
“I imagine your chosen profession would go better unnoticed in the rookeries of Seven Dials than here on a respectable street in Wellclose Square.”
“My chosen profession?” she chortled. “Running numbers, you mean?”
“And rigging boxing matches. Damn, is that why you distracted me when I was in the ring with Posey?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied, swiping a hand over her watering eyes as she started off down the street once more. “There’s no money riding on those sparring matches. And even if there had been, Mr. Posey was in no danger of losing to you.”
Phin ignored the words, suspecting they were true. “But there was money riding on last night’s match, and you stepped in to assure Mr. Prince did not lose his shirt.”
“Honestly, how do you get on in life seeing only the small picture?” she asked, amusement still lacing her voice. “Look to the bigger picture, my lord. Odds change. Unexpected losses occur. One can only mitigate the damages, make up for one loss with the next two wins. But there is no making up for an accusation of duplicity. Which is precisely what would have happened had Dooley been allowed to continue pretending to an illness that was pure fabrication.”
“Dooley was faking?”
“He and his sister wagered heavily on Mr. Tyson. But Dooley’s a prideful man. I imagine he couldn’t stomach the idea of taking a fall without an excuse. I merely noticed what ought to have been obvious to Mr. Simms and had Lord Marchant point it out.”
“You are employed by Mr. Prince, aren’t you?” Phin asked, though it was so obvious even a man in the habit of looking at only the small picture could see it. “Running numbers, setting odds, selecting bullyboys, getting a toehold in
merchants’ businesses, and who knows what else. You work for Mr. Prince.”
“I wouldn’t say I work for Mr. Prince so much as our fortunes are aligned at present,” she replied as they passed the bookshop where she’d been reading lurid literature to elderly ladies only an hour previous. Now she was underling to Wellclose Square’s version of a crime lord. “Hmm, I do wish it were Sunday as I’ve a hankering for Mrs. French’s currant scones. Ah, well, I suppose I’ll have to make do with cinnamon. I’m positively famished after haggling with Mrs. Hathaway.”
Phin eyed the little bakery she’d halted before, wondering if it served as some sort of front for the numbers ring she worked for Prince. “You didn’t haggle over the price of the bonnet.”
“We’ll save the haggling for next week. It’ll give Mrs. Hathaway something to look forward to.”
“And you, too, if I were to guess.”
“I do find a good negotiation…” She paused to ponder her words, tapping one finger on her bottom lip, drawing Phin’s attention to the lush curve of her mouth, to the perfect bow in the middle of her upper lip. “Stimulating, I suppose.”
“Christ,” Phin murmured, undone by the images that flashed through his mind of all the ways he’d like to stimulate her. And all the ways he’d like to satisfy the both of them. Each and every one of those ways began with kissing that lovely mouth.
“Would you care for tea?”
“Tea?” he repeated stupidly.
“Yes, you know, a warm beverage customarily served with biscuits or scones.”
“Are you inviting me up to your lodgings?”
“If you think your reputation can withstand a visit to a woman’s lodgings for all of twenty minutes.” The words were just this side of risqué but delivered with enough mocking amusement to have him wondering whether she spoke them as an invitation to seduction or a warning that tea was all that was on offer.
Phin was not accustomed to questioning a woman’s intentions, considering her motives or even pondering her feelings with any degree of genuine curiosity. Yet since having met this one breathtakingly beautiful, frighteningly intelligent and shockingly mercenary woman, he’d done nothing but question, consider and ponder.
It occurred to Phin, suddenly if rather belatedly, that Miss O’Connell might well wreak havoc with all his future plans.
He hadn’t funds to settle her in finer surroundings than the undoubtedly cramped rooms she currently inhabited above one of the shops along St. Sebastian Place. Hell, he hadn’t funds to turn around, march back to Hathaway’s Emporium and purchase that ridiculous blue bonnet.
Miss O’Connell had men from all tiers of Society—from the lowliest bullyboy to the heir to a dukedom—vying for her attention and affections. Perhaps even her virtue, if Teddy Luther’s drunken ramblings the previous night were to be believed.
Phineas Nathaniel Griffith, Viscount Knighton, lord of a dilapidated and nearly decimated estate on the Welsh border, impoverished aristocrat with a mother to care for and two sisters to see well-married, had nothing to offer the woman standing before him waiting quietly and patiently for him to accept her invitation.
It hardly mattered whether the invitation was for a quick dalliance or tea and scones.
He had nothing to offer her beyond his heart, and he suspected she was halfway to owning it already.
The thought terrified him. Utterly and completely.
“What would your neighbors think?” Idiotic words from a man too stupid to see beyond his own over-inflated ego.
“My neighbors are too busy minding their own affairs to mind mine,” she replied. “One of the many perks to living life beyond the ever-watchful eyes of the ton.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t that luxury.” More idiotic still, to speak of luxury to a woman who had bartered an introduction to an heiress for three pounds to purchase a bonnet.
Three bloody pounds.
“My life is rather luxurious,” Miss O’Connell agreed. “I take it you won’t join me for tea, Phineas?”
The use of his given name struck Phin as something of a taunt now that he’d made up his mind not to pursue the woman. The risk was simply too great, never mind he suspected the rewards would be plentiful. Squared, twice over even.
“Suit yourself,” she said, blithely unaware of his tormented thoughts. “As it seems we are to be friends, you may call me Harry.”
“I beg your pardon?” It took Phin a moment to loop back around and capture the thread of their earlier conversation. “I’m not at all certain I can call you Harry with anything approaching a straight face. Perhaps you would permit me to call your Harriet?”
Not that he could manage anything even remotely resembling a smile just then, nor did her name make a difference as he would not be seeing the woman again anytime soon.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give for Jimmy O’Connell to have named me so.” The wobbly little smile she offered up did queer things to his innards, tied them up in a tangle until he felt a hard knot settle in his belly. “Harriett Ann O’Connell has a nice ring to it. Or Harriet Elizabeth O’Connell.”
“Your given name isn’t Harriet?”
“You’ll have to make do with either Harry or Miss O’Connell when next we meet. Which I imagine will be soon, as you seem to have become a bright yellow curricle of late.”
Chapter Nine
Once upon a not too distant time, the third Viscount Knighton had merely been Mr. Phineas Griffith. As grandson to the second viscount, with two healthy men standing between him and the title, Phin had lived the customary life of a wealthy London gentleman. Indolent and careless, he’d spent his time in the same manner similarly situated men had been spending their time for hundreds of years: carousing with his friends, frequenting the many entertainments London had to offer, bedding widows, wenches and dissatisfied wives, paying custom to the finest haberdashers and boot makers, and wagering sums he’d never stopped to consider whether he’d funds enough to settle.
It had taken only a queer chain of events spanning three measly days to upend his entire life and leave him wading through the debris of an estate that had been systematically demolished until all that remained was a stack of parchment shoved into a battered old trunk. Mortgages and notes of credit drawn from various banks at increasingly exorbitant rates. Unpaid bills from the finest haberdashers and boot makers. Ledger pages filled with lists of servants owed months of back wages and household accounts in want of payment. Bills from merchants for goods ranging from farming equipment to artwork, none of which could be found either at Knighton Hall in Wales nor at the townhouse in Mayfair.
And tucked beneath all those mortgages, notes, ledgers and bills was a pile of markers signed by Phin, neatly gathered and tied with a faded blue ribbon. Gambling debts spanning more than a decade and settled at the expense of everything and everyone else.
Thus, at the ripe old age of thirty-four, Phin had said goodbye to gaming in much the same way a gentleman would bid farewell to a mistress for whom he still felt a great deal of affection. With a certain amount of regret but also with a clear conscience and a keen understanding that it was for the best.
When he turned away from Miss Harry O’Connell, leaving her standing before the little bakery tucked between the bookshop and a pawn shop, Phin told himself this situation was no different.
Miss Harry O’Connell was a wager he could not afford to lose, a risk he could not afford to take. No good could come of his fascination with the woman, leastwise not anytime soon.
He hadn’t the luxury of distraction when all his energies were needed elsewhere.
Specifically, in planning for a harvest he now had the wherewithal to bring in from the fields and in searching for a bride to ensure his family and estate never again sat so precariously perched on the brink of ruin.
Still, in the same way Phin oftentimes searched out the cardroom at a ball for the sheer pleasure of watching others play, he now found himself searching out Harry simply to take in her beauty
from a distance.
The rather unlikely alliance he’d entered into with the Marquess of Marchant went a long way toward abetting his desire to see her. To hear her name spoken with the same affection, if not the same yearning, Phin had come to feel for the lady was both a torment and a tincture for what ailed him.
So it was, Phin watched Harry from Marchant’s theatre box only hours after she’d offered what had surely been the best invitation he’d ever had the great misfortune to rebuff. Even if, as he’d come to deduce after endless questioning, considering and pondering, said invitation had only been to partake of tea and conversation sprinkled with animal husbandry innuendos and entendres which were likely only doubled in his own head.
Phin hadn’t any idea whether the play’s leading lady’s voice was soft or strident, nor whether the bit actors mistimed their cues or delivered every line spot on. Of the hero of the piece’s stilted delivery he was entirely unaware. The performance on the stage was but so much noise humming in his ears and movement hovering in his peripheral vision, a backdrop for the performance taking place in the box situated one tier down and just across the crowded pit.
The box belonged to the infamous Alabaster Sinclair, a woman well past the half century mark whose beauty, while faded and softened, was still evident despite the passing of time. An artful tumble of silver curls fell from a loose knot atop her head, jeweled pins glinting in the candlelight. A fine web of lines fanned out from wide-set sapphire eyes. Her features were comprised of classic lines, sharply angled cheekbones and full, rouged lips above a slightly pointed chin. Dressed to the height of fashion in a beaded violet gown, her impressive bosom proudly on display, the woman looked every inch the decadent debauchee who—along with her twin sister—had ruled the demimonde for decades.
Crammed into every inch of the gracefully aging courtesan’s box were a dozen wealthy and titled gentlemen, devoutly dissipated rogues every last one of them.
