John stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking back in the direction of Netta’s room. “Did you find him?” he asked the man lurking in the shadows.
“Yes.” Wilberforce separated from the wall and shuffled towards him.
“Has the message been sent?”
Wil nodded. “Lord Devlin won’t be hurting children any time soon.” His gaze flicked up the stairs. “Or at least what he believes to be children. He’ll be limping as badly as me for the next few months until he recovers.”
“Who did you take with you?” Over his years as a spy, John had developed a network of men who were willing to dirty their hands for the right amount of blunt. Or if the fancy took them. And delivering a punishment to a man who would stab a woman or child would strike many of their fancies.
John tapped the balustrade. He wished he could have joined them. Hearing Devlin squeal like the pig he was would have been gratifying.
“I took no one. I handled him on my own.”
“Wil.” John pressed his lips together. He’d known the man since they were both children. Such foolishness shouldn’t have surprised him.
Wil neatly changed the subject, nodding to the drawing room. “Your brother seems in high dudgeon. Or more so than usual. Go talk with him.”
“And now you give me orders in my own house.” John arched an eyebrow. “We truly need to discuss the finer points of the terms ‘master’ and ‘servant’.”
Wil snorted. “Go on. And don’t be too hard on him. Brothers shouldn’t fight so.”
John flipped his hand at Wil in a dismissive gesture and turned for his drawing room. He wasn’t the brother that needed the lecture.
Robert sat in the seat below the window, his elbows propped on his knees, his face buried in his hands. He lifted his head when John shut the door.
“I’ve bungled it up.” His brother’s eyes were rimmed red. His scars seemed to stand more to attention against the pallor of his skin.
“Of course you have.” John circled behind his desk and dropped in his chair. His brother could never pay him a call to say he’d invented a new method to improve their harvest, or found employment, or even found a woman. No, the only time John saw him was when Robert needed his help. “What have you done this time?”
Robert laced his fingers together, his knuckles going white. “I lost the deed to Crowhaven.”
John’s heart stopped. “Repeat that.”
“Crowhaven. It’s gone.” Robert shot to his feet and paced the room. “I should have won. The dice were going my way all night.”
John pressed his palms flat to his desk, the wood cool beneath his heated skin. Slowly, he pushed himself to standing. “Do you mean to tell me that you gambled your estate away in a game of hazard?” His chest heaved with his rapid breaths. His mouth went bone dry. “Your home that was left to you from our father’s mother? The property that contains England’s only known supply of chromite? That’s what you lost?”
Robert clenched his hands in front of his chest. “I had him, John. He threw a main of nine. The odds were in my favor. He bid twenty thousand pounds, and all I had was—”
“Everything.” John’s legs crumpled and his arse hit the chair hard. “Crowhaven was everything to the Summerset estate. The source of all our wealth.” Dark circles danced in his vision, and he blinked. “We’re ruined.”
“I’ll win it back.” Robert started pacing again. “No man can be that lucky every night. I’ll challenge him to another game.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” John turned his chair to stare out the window. He could fix this. He had vowed the House of Summerset would never be impoverished again, and he would stand by that oath.
A watery reflection stared back at him in the glass. Instead of a man, a small boy. Instead of a silk jacket, a torn and dirty rag clothed the image.
His hand trembled, and he balled it into a fist. “Who holds the deed?”
“Sudworth. Harlow Sudworth.”
John tried to picture the man. They had only met once or twice, but his story was known well in London. Born to a family of little means, Sudworth had sailed for India as a young man. He’d returned wealthy. Wealthy enough that he was allowed entrée into the higher echelons of a society that respected birth above all else.
And now he held everything that John had worked for his entire life.
“I can beat him.” Robert gripped the back of a chair and leaned forwards. “I just need one more game.”
John steepled his fingers and blew out a breath. “You’re a fool, just like father.” He ignored the way his brother blanched. He couldn’t understand it. They had seen the horrors of unchecked gambling, watched as their father bankrupted their estate. How could his brother have fallen into the same trap?
His mind whirled. He wouldn’t accept the loss. He had spent his life figuring his way out of sticky situations. All he needed was a plan.
“Go home,” he told Robert. “Until I recover your deed, I don’t want to see your face.” John stood and went to the brass urn in the corner of the room. He plucked an ebony walking stick from the pile and buffed the round nob against his sleeve. And without sparing another glance at his brother, he strode from the room and out of his townhouse.
His regular driver took him to Sudworth’s home. When John gave the butler his card, it was only a moment before he was shown into the man’s study.
“Lord Summerset.” The smile Sudworth gave him was pleasant, but he remained seated behind his desk, and John recognized the insult. “What a surprise this visit is. How might I be of service?”
Without waiting for an invitation, John took the seat across from the desk. He draped his left leg over the armrest and lounged back. “Let’s not play games, Sudworth. My visit can hardly be a surprise. You know you have something of mine.”
Sudworth pulled a thick cigar from a wooden box on his desk. He drew the cylinder under his nose, inhaling deeply. “Do I? I know I recently acquired a lovely little estate in Shropshire, but I do believe that belonged to your brother.” He pulled a candle from the corner of his desk and lit the cigar, his cheeks hollowing. “You’re not going to try to claim it was part of your entail, are you?”
Wouldn’t that have been lovely. How much more profitable would his metallurgy business be if he’d had control over all the resources? All the times he’d overpaid his brother for the raw ore out of a sense of fraternal duty had been poorly compensated.
“I make no such claims,” John said. “I am here to discuss terms. I’d like to purchase the property.”
A cat, pure white excepting one golden patch over its eye, meowed loudly from the door and trotted into the room, heading for the desk. It jumped onto Sudworth’s lap and butted its head into his hand.
Sudworth scratched the animal’s chin. “I’m certain you would. The mining operation on the property is quite valuable.”
“Only to me.” John pointed his toe, letting the emeralds on his boot catch the light. “I am the only person in England who uses chromite because I hold letters patent on my process of steel manufacture. The mine is useless to you.”
The cat batted at the cigar, and Sudworth teased the animal with it, bringing it into reach then pulling it away from its paw. “You are an interesting man, Summerset. I’ve heard much about you these past months.”
John’s foot paused a moment before continuing its swing. “I personally leave the on dit to women, but to each his own.” He curled his lip as the cat stretched out on Sudworth’s abdomen, and the man cooed softly to it. “I didn’t take you for an animal lover.”
“It takes a cold man not to appreciate the intelligence of cats.” Sudworth kicked his legs up on his desk, making a flatter bed for the animal. “Delilah here has had me wrapped around her paw since I found her hunting mice in a back alley.” He looked up. “You wouldn’t be in the market for a kitten? I have eight I’m trying to find homes for. Good homes, mind you. You don’t have a dog, do you?”
John blinked. He looked over his shoulder. No one stood there laughing at the joke. He swung back around. Sudworth was serious.
“No dog, and I don’t want a cat.” Well, not another one.
Sudworth shrugged. “Your loss.” He smirked. “That seems to be the theme of the day. How badly do you want the deed back?”
“I’ll give you twenty thousand pounds.” It was worth ten times that, but he knew to start low when bidding.
Sudworth chuckled. “That’s sweet.” There was a scratch at the door, and Sudworth bellowed, “Come.”
A girl in a starched and pressed maid’s uniform crept in, holding a tray of tea. “Cook said you’d want this, sir.”
He nodded to his desk, and the girl skittered forwards, depositing her burden.
“Pour for me.” His voice was hard, mocking, and John remembered something else he’d heard about Sudworth. They were both members of The Black Rose, and Sudworth’s tastes ran towards younger women. If John recalled correctly, Sudworth’s predilection was in humiliating proper misses.
At The Black Rose, it was a game that the doxies played along with.
The maid’s hand shook, and a splash of tea hit the desk.
But perhaps it was a game Sudworth took too far.
The man waved the girl from the room and took a large swallow of tea. When the door clicked shut, he focused back on John.
“I don’t want money,” he said. “I’ll ask again. How badly do you want the deed?”
John gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”
Sudworth tipped a bit of tea into the saucer and held it out for the cat to lap up. “There’s a job. One I think you are peculiarly qualified to perform.”
John hesitated. “As an earl, you mean?”
“No, as someone who has performed delicate tasks for the Crown.” Sudworth put the cat on the floor and dropped his feet, sitting up straight. “You and your friends have done admirable work. Your career need not be over.”
John dug his nails into the wood of the armrest. “I’m an earl. I have no career.” Perhaps the man was digging. Perhaps he wasn’t certain of John’s past.
Sudworth chuckled. “Come now. There shall be no pretense between us. You were one of the Crown’s top spies. I’m sure you miss the adventure. I know I would.”
John’s eye twitched. “And I’m to work for you now, is it? In exchange for the deed?” Bloody hell, had Sudworth engineered Robert’s loss at hazard in order to get Summerset into this spot? His estimation of the man rose along with his ire.
“Do you know Stamford Raffles?” Sudworth asked.
John nodded. “I know of him. Prinny made him a Knight Bachelor just last year.”
“Correct. He also got away with a bit of embezzlement when he was lieutenant-governor of Java. Managed to shift the blame to a chap in the East India Company.” Sudworth pursed his plump lips and blew a neat circle of smoke. “I’d like to see him get his comeuppance.”
“How?” John tired of the misdirection. As someone who excelled at gaining other people’s confidences under false circumstance, he could recognize the talent in others. So far, Sudworth’s story stank as badly as a pile of shit.
Plugging his mouth with the cigar, the man reached for a leather folio and removed a folded document. He slid it across the desk towards John. “This letter was never entered into evidence. There was no formal trial, of course, but I know the Home Office maintained a file on him, with witness statements and ledgers.”
John picked up the paper. It bore a wax seal, broken, and held the faintest traces of age. He flipped it open and quickly read the letter. “This is his signature?”
Sudworth nodded. “If the Home Office had that letter during the inquiry, he would have faced trial. I want them to see it now.”
John tossed the paper on the desk. “Send it to Liverpool. Hell, a low-level magistrate will do.”
“The letter came into my hands through…unusual methods. I can’t deliver it without exposing myself to scrutiny.”
“Which you’d rather not do.” John folded his hands across his abdomen.
“Which I’d rather not do,” he agreed. “I want you to place this letter in Raffle’s file at the Home Office, with no one the wiser.”
“The case has been closed. No one will see it.”
Sudworth stubbed his cigar out. “It will be reopened. That I can see to. Will you do it?”
John tapped his thumb against his stomach. “I add a letter to a file and you give me my brother’s deed?”
Sudworth chuckled. “Give away a hundred-thousand-pound investment for such a trifling? I hardly think so. That is just the first job. But your next task will be as simple. And you are helping bring a criminal to justice. What say you?”
“The property isn’t worth such a sum of money to you.” Only John’s smelts could use the ore to such a profitable purpose.
“No, but it is to you.”
And that was the hell of it. Sudworth had him by the ballocks, and the man knew it. He picked up the letter again. “Just add this to the evidence file?”
Sudworth stood, smiling. “As simple as that.” He plucked a walking stick from the wall by the door and tucked it under his arm. The nob was ivory, carved in the shape of an elephant’s head. Large sapphires formed the eyes, and John had to admit to a tug of cane-envy.
“It is past time for my afternoon stroll,” Sudworth said. “Do I have your agreement?”
John rose, sliding the letter into his pocket. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Placing the letter into the file would be child’s play. Finding out what Sudworth was up to would be more of a challenge. But discover it he would.
He rolled to the balls of his feet. Finally, a job worthy of his skills. And when he learned Sudworth’s scheme, he’d have leverage over the man. Enough so to reclaim the deed, he hoped.
And if that didn’t work, he’d resort to less honorable means. He kept the smile from his face as he brushed past Sudworth and out of his house. The first inklings of an idea were forming in his mind.
Sudworth liked to gamble, and for once, John was eager to indulge the vice.