“Hello, Laura.”
Laura’s shriek was the most satisfying sound Hugo had heard in months.
She squirmed in Hugo’s arms, but he held her easily while he shoved a rag into her mouth. He was shocked by how much weight she’d lost; holding her was like clutching an armload of hangers.
Once her cheeks were bulging with cloth Hugo grabbed both her wrists, lifted her arms, and then nodded to Kenny, who was standing nearby with a thick cloak.
They rolled her up like a rug and Hugo carried her into the decrepit old coach he’d hired. He lowered her onto the seat and sat beside her, holding her propped upright.
Kenny shut the door, climbed on back, and the wheels started rolling.
Hugo peeled back the cloak just enough so that he could see Laura’s wide, red-rimmed gaze.
He clucked his tongue and carefully tucked some of her brittle blonde hair behind her ears. “Didn’t expect to see me back here, did you?” Hugo smirked when she tried to speak around the mouthful of rag. “No, no, you don’t need to talk just yet. There will be plenty of time for that shortly.” He chuckled. “Someday—not tonight, of course—I will have to tell you about the lovely journey that I took thanks to you. But for now, just rest assured that I am back and going nowhere. You, however—but I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I’ve been watching you these past days and nights, darling, because I wanted to see the state of things at Solange’s before we had our little chat.”
Laura’s eyes widened and she began making noises.
“What I learned surprised me—and not a pleasant surprise, either. It appears you’ve gambled away not only your half of the business, but also managed to transfer my half to Bev Davies—a man whose hobbies include torturing and killing people. It seems like the only way I’ll ever work at Solange’s again will be on my bloody back.”
Two fat tears slid down her cheeks, which only infuriated Hugo more.
“Fifteen years of hard work gone without a trace. Well done, you sodding bitch.” Hugo shoved her away. He’d never struck a woman before and he’d be damned if he allowed Laura to drag him down any further.
They rode for a while in silence while Hugo glared out the window into the London night and struggled to get himself under control.
When the carriage slid to a halt a quarter of an hour later, he was almost calm. He turned back to Laura, who was quietly sobbing behind her gag.
Hugo experienced a pang of remorse.
And then instantly wanted to punch himself in the face.
How dare you feel sorry for this gin-soaked, card-obsessed, duplicitous slattern? he demanded of himself, giving vent to a muffled growl of fury before he flung open the carriage door.
The air stank of rotting fish and the eye-watering stench of the Thames at low tide.
“Carry her inside,” Hugo told Kenny as he navigated the buckled cobblestone, passing below a tattered wooden sign proclaiming: Drunken Duck Tavern, Est. 1687.
The front door swung open before Hugo reached it, exposing an almost painfully handsome young man named Daniel Charters. Like Kenny, he’d also worked at Solange’s before Laura had sacked him and a dozen other servants in her quest to save money.
“Everything is ready, Mr. Hugo.”
“Thank you, Daniel.”
The inn had been one of the busier hostelries on the water for decades but had closed when the silt made this part of the river inaccessible to big ships. The owner had been pitifully grateful to rent the derelict building to Hugo for a few nights, no questions asked.
Only one of the inn rooms on the second floor was lighted and Hugo went inside, pleased to see that Daniel had covered the window as he’d asked.
Hugo had been tempted to throw Laura into Newgate—naked, as she’d done to him—and let her kick her heels in some true squalor and misery, but the deciding factor had been his aversion to visiting the rancid jail in order to speak to her.
“Put her on the pallet,” he told Kenny.
The moment the giant man put Laura down she began to thrash. Hugo leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and waited for her to free herself from the cloak.
Once she’d done so she pulled the rag out of her mouth and pressed her back against the wall, her blood-shot eyes darting from Hugo to Kenny to Daniel like a cornered animal.
“If not for me you’d be dead,” she said, her voice hoarse from screaming into the gag. “He wanted—”
“Shut up,” he said, more than a little surprised when she obeyed. He jerked his head at Daniel. “Daniel had some very interesting things to tell me.”
She scowled at the gorgeous young footman. Hugo knew for a fact that Daniel didn’t swing toward the ladies so that must have doomed him as far as Laura was concerned.
“You can’t believe him, Hugo. He’s just angry I fired him.”
“Because you sold the bloody place to a bastard too cheap to pay a decent wage, you gin-soaked, worn-out slattern,” Daniel shot back.
Laura opened her mouth to argue.
“Shut up, Laura,” Hugo said again. “You should be grateful that you’re here in this filthy little room and not floating in the Thames, locked in Newgate, or currently headed toward warmer climes” He narrowed his eyes. “Now, tell me how much? How much did it cost for Bev to get his hands on my bloody business?”
Laura caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I don’t know exactly—”
“An estimate.”
Laura named an amount.
“Holy fuck!” Hugo yelled. He felt as if every nightmare he’d experienced in his entire life had returned all at once. “Are you bloody mad? How in the name of hell did you manage to lose so much?”
Tears slid down her ravaged cheeks. “He let me punt on tick, didn’t he? And before I knew it …” Her shoulders sagged. “At first he just said he’d take payments. But there was interest, too. I gave him almost everything and it still wasn’t enough. And … and—”
“And you continued to visit his gaming hells?” Hugo guessed.
She shrugged.
“He wanted you to keep playing, didn’t he?”
She didn’t need to answer.
“So once you were over your head he gave you the option of getting rid of me and then signing over the business?”
She chewed her chapped, peeling lip and cut him a quick, sly glance.
Hugo pointed at her. “Don’t lie to me, Laura. Because if I learn you’ve lied—”
“It was Cowan’s idea to get your half.”
Hugo gave an ugly laugh. “You mean he was faking the grand passion he claimed he felt for you?”
“Yes, he used me!” Her face twisted into a scowl. “Does that make you happy?”
“As a matter of fact, it does a bit. So, the dumb bastard thought you’d be able to sell the place if I wasn’t around, eh? It must have come as quite a shock to him when he learned you were in debt up to your neck.”
“It’s worse than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s one of Bev’s bastards.”
“So what? That’s not exactly rare. I understand Bev’s got more brats running around the rookeries than that bloke from the Bible.”
“It turns out that Bev is makin’ noises about getting’ old,” Laura said. “He’s talking about choosing an heir and he’ll pick the one who impresses him the most.”
“Ah,” Hugo said, comprehension dawning. “Solange’s would be quite a prize for Cowan to bring home to dear old Da.” He studied her miserable face. “But you didn’t know about any of that, did you?”
“No. At least not until—well, not until after it was done.”
“You bloody fool.”
Laura didn’t bother to deny it.
Go on,” he ordered.
“Cowan said that if I could get rid of you, he knew a forger who could help with the deed. He said once it was all mine then I could sell the place, pay off the money to Bev—with some left over—and we could get married. He said that he earned enough from his work with Bev that I never needed to work again.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t Cowan’s plan to have me arrested?”
“No, he wanted you dead.” She locked eyes with him. “I went behind his back and arranged this with a bloke I knew. I couldn’t do it, Hugo. I couldn’t have you killed.”
“I’m touched. Finish the story.”
“Things didn’t go the way Cowan said.”
Hugo gave a bitter laugh.
“The forger didn’t fix all the documents in my name, he used Bev’s.” Her face twitched, her eyes haunted. “When I found out, I tracked Cowan down. He laughed at me—the things he said—” She choked on a sob. “I threatened to tell and—and—” She swallowed convulsively. “He beat me so hard I pissed blood for a week.”
Hugo shook his head in disgust.
“So you were gone, Bev owned your half with nobody to dispute it, and I still owed him all that money. I signed over my half two days later.”
“How could you be so bloody stupid, Laura? Didn’t you think—”
“I thought Cowan loved me!” Her words echoed in the dank room. “I thought maybe I’d finally gotten lucky. Why not—it wasn’t as if Cowan were anything special. Melissa married a bloody lord and got out of the business—both her and Joss married into the aristocracy. Was I asking too much to marry the bastard son of a criminal?” She pinioned Hugo with her ravaged gaze. “Was I?”
Hugo gritted his teeth against the pity that stabbed at him. She deserved nothing from him but scorched earth retribution.
Based on what he’d observed the past few nights as he’d skulked around Solange’s their clients had already begun to scatter. It was physically painful to see the business he had poured his life into—for years—falling apart.
And all because of her.
He sneered. “So now you work for him?”
“I only work two nights a week and he lets me live there, although I had to move into a smaller room. He said he’ll let me stay as long as I pull my weight.”
Which, judging by her sickly pallor, significant tremors, and the bones pressing against her grayish skin, wouldn’t be long.
He shoved his hand into his hair and pulled until his eyes watered. Christ. His head was bloody spinning. What, in the name of God, could he do to salvage any of this?
“Hugo?”
“What?” He had to force himself to look at her.
“If Bev learns you’re back, um, well—”
“Why do you think I haven’t just strolled into Solange’s?” Hugo snorted. “Of course, I didn’t have any idea of the extent to which I was fucked until talking to you, sweetheart.”
Laura’s pale cheeks flushed slightly, making her look like a feverish corpse.
“Do you know the name of the man who forged my name?” he asked.
She swallowed and then nodded again. “But if you put me in front of a judge, I’ll say it was you that signed it, Hugo.” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “I’d not survive the day if I ever tried to drag Bev or one of his men into a courtroom. Even if he didn’t kill me, I’d never survive a journey in the belly of a convict ship.”
She was right on both counts.
Hugo had to clench his hands behind his back to keep from grabbing and shaking her. “In my room there was a—”
“Strongbox under the floorboards,” she finished. “I took it. I’m sorry,” she said, dully.
Hugo closed his eyes and clenched his teeth against the impotent rage threatening to boil over. He’d kept five hundred pounds in banknotes tucked away in that box, not to mention a great deal of jewelry and other valuables—all of which he’d hidden close at hand in case of an emergency. Gone. All of it gone. He laughed weakly and opened his eyes to find Laura staring.
“What are you going to do, Hugo?”
“I have no bloody idea.”