Bevan Davies sat behind the desk that used to be Hugo’s, his big feet propped up on one corner.
He was of middling height, his build whipcord lean, like Hugo’s.
He was not a handsome man, but his craggy face was strangely compelling. He almost always smiled, although it never reached his dark brown eyes. Hugo estimated his age to be somewhere around sixty, although he had lived a hard life and probably looked older.
Bev had spun such a web of lies around his origins that nobody knew when he’d first arrived in London. His accent was still Welsh, but with a big helping of St. Giles thrown in for good measure.
Being Welsh and growing up in St. Giles meant that Hugo had known of Bev Davies from an early age. He even recalled the man coming to the pitiful shack his parents had called home. His father had bowed and scraped whenever Bev visited, but his eyes had glittered with hatred after Bev’s visits.
“Bev Davies is a worse friend than enemy,” Hugo recalled him saying to one of Hugo’s elder brothers.
After Hugo’s father sold him to Mr. Caton—who’d taken him away from St. Giles—Hugo hadn’t seen Bev for several years.
He’d been eighteen when he next ran into him. At the time Hugo had been working in a birching house which Bev had systematically destroyed before purchasing for a greatly reduced sum. He’d asked Hugo to continue working for him after he’d taken over the business.
Finding the right words to decline Bev’s offer—and not end up face down in the muck—had been one of the most nerve-racking experiences of Hugo’s young life.
And here he was, tangled up with Bev all over again, but for far larger stakes.
“Well, well, well. If it ain’t Mr. Hugo Buckingham. I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”
Bev’s lack of surprise greatly displeased him. While Hugo hadn’t hidden his presence in London, he’d not advertised it, either. And he’d not yet released Laura, so Bev’s source of information had been somebody else.
No, he didn’t like that one bit.
“Hello, Bev,” Hugo said. He had to look up since somebody had sawed a good six inches off the chair legs.
“Drink?” Bev gestured to a bottle and two none-too-clean glasses beside it.
It was only eight in the morning.
“Thank you,” Hugo said. No reason to antagonize the man by rejecting his offer of hospitality, no matter how spurious.
Bev poured the liquor and then shoved the glass across the desktop, spilling some and forcing Hugo to stand and fetch the glass.
“Thank you,” he said, feigning a drink, his nostrils burning at the harsh smell of cheap brandy.
“What can I do for you?” Bev grinned, the expression knowing. “If you’re here to talk to your old partner I’m afraid I haven’t seen her in a few days. It seems she took an urgent trip … somewhere.”
So, he’d guessed that Hugo had taken Laura. Well, no surprise, there.
“No, I’m here to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I never signed the papers for the sale of my half of the business.” He had decided on the bold, suicidal approach on his way over this morning.
Bev’s black bushy eyebrows shot up. “I’m confused. Are you saying that Laura forged your signature?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“I don’t think you did,” Hugo prudently lied. “But, if I were to take the matter before a magistrate, I can prove that I was abducted and tried in a false court so that Laura could gain control of my half of the business, not to mention significant personal assets that were seized from my rooms here.”
“Hmm.” Bev rocked back on two legs of his chair, his expression one of exaggerated concern. “That’s quite a tale. And you say you can prove this?”
“Yes.”
Bev let his chair fall with a loud thump, his smile … unfriendly. “Why do I feel like you’re threatening me, Hugo?”
“I’m only telling you that we were both victims of Laura.” And your scheming son, all with your knowledge and encouragement, no doubt.
Hugo wisely left out that part.
“I will pursue this matter through legal means. Or …” Hugo hesitated.
“Or?”
“Or we can make some sort of arrangement.”
Bev stared hard enough to burn holes through his head.
And then he threw his head back and laughed.
And laughed.
Hugo couldn’t help the slight shiver he experienced at the other man’s reaction.
Bev owned a half-dozen brothels—and now Hugo had an idea how he’d accumulated so many—but they were the sort of places where a man would go in with a hard cock and come away with a case of crab lice. At best.
Solange’s was … well, it was so different from the bawd houses that Davies ran as to constitute a different species, entirely.
Was Hugo insane to be here today, confronting Bev head-on, using his suspicions as a bargaining chip?
Probably. But what else did he have left? If he couldn’t regain his stake in this business his options were grim. He could pursue the matter in the courts, but that would take time and Bev would bleed him of money—if he didn’t actually bleed him of blood—and there would be nothing left of Solange’s if he ever did get his hands on it.
Or he could sup with the Devil.
Bev leaned back in his chair after he’d caught his breath and said, “Did I ever tell you I offered to buy you from your pa?”
Hugo could only stare.
Davies smirked. “Aye, yer ma worked for me in my very first house.” He chuckled at Hugo’s shocked look. “Flora was a prime article in her day. Yer pa met her when he came to work for me. And then he stole her away.”
Hugo wasn’t sure he believed the man. His parents had worked in a brothel? His mother had died when he was thirteen and his father had sold him soon after—not that he’d ever exchanged more than a dozen words with his father in all his years. In truth, he knew nothing about his parents. Besides, why would Bev lie?
“Er, what kind of work did my father do for you?”
“He wasn’t a whore, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. No, Evan Dinwiddy were a tough lad but he weren’t a pretty one.” Bev’s eyes crawled over Hugo like insects. “Not like you.”
Hugo thought Bev must be the only man or woman in the entire city who would call him pretty. He somehow doubted the other man’s regard for him would do him any good.
“No, he didn’t look like you, but then Evan weren’t yer da.”
Hugo had always suspected that. “Do you know who was?” he asked, not that he cared.
“Coulda been almost anyone since she was workin’ at McBride’s when she fell pregnant.”
McBride’s was an Irish brothel that was neither the best nor worst of its kind.
“In fact,” Bev said with a sly grin. “You might even be mine. Flora was past it by then, but I plowed her a time or two for old time’s sake.”
Hugo squeezed the arms of his chair rather than fly across the desk and squeeze Bev’s neck.
Bev smirked, as if he knew what Hugo was thinking. “Evan liked to ride his high horse, but he never could put bread on the table. He weren’t above whorin’ out his wife—although she had to go all the way to McBride’s to ply her trade so’s nobody in the old neighborhood would know.” His dark eyes glinted. “He wasn’t above whorin’ a boy he’d raised as his own son, neither. Though he waited until after yer mam died to do that, dint ’ee?”
Hugo hadn’t believed that an old wound could still cause him such pain.
He’d been wrong.
“Why did you want to buy me?”
Bev grinned.
Hugo recoiled. “Christ. Even though I might be your son?”
Bev’s grin just broadened. “You were a right temptin’ morsel back then, Hugo. I was willin’ to risk my immortal soul for a taste.”
Hugo felt like throwing up.
Bev shrugged. “But Evan refused. He claimed it was ’cause he didn’t want that life for any of youse. But I know the real reason was that he hated my guts because I had yer mam first and she always did fancy me more.” He gave a bawdy laugh. “I woulda paid more than that old whip maker for you, but Evan Dinwiddy had a head like a fuckin’ brick.” He cocked his head at Hugo. “What about you, eh? You got a brick for a brain, too, Hugo?”
“I must have to have taken Laura Maitland as a partner.”
Davies found that amusing. “Aye. Never do business with women, that’s one o’ my rules.” He gave Hugo a mocking look. “Another is never do business with anyone who’s got the fever. And that’s Laura.”
“I thought it was only for gin, I didn’t realize the extent of the gambling.”
“That sounds like an oversight on your part, mab.”
Hugo knew he was right; he was no crime lord like Bev. All he knew about was fucking and running whores.
“You used the word were when you mentioned my father. Is he dead?”
“Aye, he went in that spate o’ typhus six or seven years back.” He scratched his head, his expression reflective. “Seems two or three of your brothers went off to war, one got transported,” he chuckled, “for real, that was. Your sister Nell died not long after Evan sold you. Moira and Susan came to work for me.” He shrugged. “But they’ve been gone some years now. I couldn’t say where any of them are.”
That was just as well. The last thing he wanted was a family reunion.
“But you didn’t come here to reminisce, now did ye?”
“No.”
Davies waved a hand around the room. “I’ve wanted this place for decades. Since before you were breeched.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, his expression … bemused. “And now I got it.”
“I can’t help noticing that you don’t look very happy about that.”
Bev pushed out his lower lip. “Naw, I ain’t. You see, I ain’t never lost money before.”
“Solange’s is losing money?” It hadn’t in all the years Hugo had worked there.
“Aye.” Bev’s jaw shifted from side to side as if he were chewing on something tough and gristly. He gave Hugo a look that made all the hairs on his body stand up. “I don’t like losin’ money, mab.”
And Hugo didn’t like Bev calling him mab, the Welsh word for son, but he kept that to himself. “No, I can imagine.”
“I don’t like … failure.”
Hugo waited quietly.
He scowled. “I can’t seem to keep these high steppin’ punters.”
Hugo wanted to suggest that the way to keep wealthy clients was not to extort them, but he doubted that would go over well.
“I can see what you’re thinkin’,” Bev said, smirking. “And you’re right. I was plannin’ on squeezin’ a few of ’em. But only those with stacks o’ vowels in my bloody safe.”
Yet another reason Hugo wanted to strangle Laura, who’d insisted they extend ridiculous credit to several of their customers, amounts the men would never be able to repay. He’d considered extorting those bastards himself.
Bev swung his feet back onto his desk. “I’ve always had a soft spot for ye, Hugo. Why, you might be my own blood, after all.”
Hugo hoped he hid just how disturbing he found that.
Bev grinned, exposing more than one black stump. “And that’s why I’m gonna make you an offer.”
Bloody hell. Here we go.
Hugo forced a smile. “I’m all ears, Bev.”