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“The Patron’s blessings upon you, child.”
She stared at the rosewood screen, waiting for some signal. But a minute passed without any more word. For all she knew, the figure who’d spoken had stolen away in the silence. She couldn’t quite believe that everything had worked out so easily. She had landed that backflip for a second time, and she felt suddenly warm, despite the draft that fluttered the curtain. She stood and patted her dress into place.
And that was when the voice spoke again. “Of course,” came those whispered words, “if you are not bound by any agreement, neither is the Patron.”
Miranda shivered. The straw snapped between her fingers.
“Robbie is…your brother, is he? He is so eager to help. So interested, when his little friend Joseph shows him the treasures that he’s obtained by offering me his scant assistance. He chafes, making a mere pittance as a runner.”
Robbie wasn’t her brother; he was something akin to her ward. They had a long and complicated relationship. But she was responsible for him, and had been for years. She couldn’t walk away from that kind of a threat. Miranda sat back on the stool.
The voice continued in singsong tones. “He would leap at the chance to be included in one of the finer opportunities the Patron offers. There’s a house that needs burgling, and he’s just the fellow to do it.”
“He’s never done anything like that.”
“The Patron is aware of his history.”
“He’ll get caught,” Miranda said miserably.
“Most likely.”
“They’ll hang him for burglary.”
“It seems probable,” the voice agreed carelessly.
“Then why have him do it? There’s no profit in it for you.”
“The Patron has little interest in Robbie’s death. But he takes a great deal of interest in you, Miss Darling.”
If she could just go back to the moment when she’d first struck this bargain… She’d been seventeen and new to Bristol, with a nine-year-old boy in tow. She had thought she had no choice at the time. It had been either the Patron, or…
She’d been raised in a troupe of traveling players. She could sew any costume, take on any disguise. She could change her voice until she hardly recognized it herself. She’d thought herself very clever, offering those services. So sure that the Patron would see her value.
He had. Unfortunately.
“If Lord Justice has me imprisoned, I’ll not be of much use,” she essayed.
“The Patron will take your protest under advisement. For now, it is important to determine what Lord Justice truly wants of you. To that end, tomorrow you will go back to the records room at the Council House, and ask to see the papers on—”
“Tomorrow?” Miranda echoed in shock. “But we had an agreement—I was to owe you a favor no more than once a month, and nothing dangerous or so unsavory as to—”
“Child,” the voice interjected, “you had an agreement with the Patron. You dissolved it. This is the new bargain.”
She stared at the screen, her hands cold. She could protest. She could argue. She wanted to scream and run away. But there was no need to force the Patron to repeat his threat toward Robbie. He could make good on it.
Robbie was twelve, now—headstrong and growing, believing he knew what was best for himself without understanding how vulnerable he was.
Well. She had no choice. There was nothing to do but smile, and hope she could make the landing instead of breaking her back.
“Very well, then,” she said. Her voice didn’t quiver. She refused to show the fear that welled up inside of her. “Tell me what I must do.”
Chapter Four
“WHAT IN BLAZES IS this thing?” The voice, haughty and arrogant, came out of the records room.
Smite paused in the hall of the Council House. Beside him, Ghost skittered to a halt.
He should just walk on. He didn’t need to intervene; in fact, the men who worked here were quite adept at explaining the necessary procedures to difficult fellows.
But he recognized that voice—that spoiled drawl, from a man who’d never worked a day in his life. A regular plague, he was.
Paper rustled in the room beyond the open doors, and the voice of the harried clerk sounded. “My good man, I—”
“My good man?” the voice demanded. “Are visitors to this city always addressed in so cavalier a fashion?”
Some things never changed. The man Smite heard was still as annoyingly determined on receiving his due as ever, no matter that the last years had changed his fortune entirely.
A pause. “Sir,” he heard the clerk continue in a more placating tone of voice, “I should think the summons was perfectly clear. You are to appear on Tuesday next, at one of the clock, before—”
“Yes, but I don’t wish to make a public appearance. What must I do to avoid that?”
Smite sighed, and stepped through the door. The clerk saw him and let out a deep breath in relief. The visitor towered over the other man, and brandished a familiar paper: a printed form, the blank spaces filled in with handwriting. Smite had seen a hundred like it in the course of his work.
“It goes away like most legal paperwork,” Smite heard himself say. “By proper attention to the rule of law. You weren’t trying to browbeat the clerk to escape a summons, were you?”
The man drew himself up and turned. Even knowing beforehand who the fellow was, it still felt like a punch to the gut when Smite looked him in the eyes. Smite knew Richard Dalrymple all too well, although he wished he could forget him.
The feeling, obviously, was mutual. Dalrymple froze. His mouth opened once, and then shut. He drew himself up very carefully.
“Turner,” he said. “I—uh—this was not how I intended us to meet. You see, I just arrived last night, and I’ve been having the most dreadful difficulties.?
??
“I know you used to have problems with Latin,” Smite said with feigned carelessness, “but this is written in English.” He reached out and took the paper from Dalrymple’s fingers.
“I understand perfectly what it says.” Dalrymple pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I don’t understand why I received it.”
“Let me explain.” Smite scanned the paper. “You, the said Richard Dalrymple, et cetera et cetera, did leave a team and carriage stationed in the street for two hours—two hours, Dalrymple, really?”
“I told you I’ve been having difficulties,” the man replied. “The solicitor I used before seems to have disappeared entirely. Besides, I had no idea the team was in the street, my tiger having abandoned them to, um, other entertainments the instant he arrived in the city.”
“You admit it was in the street.”
“Yes, but I’m telling you, it wasn’t my fault.”
“You left your carriage blocking the way, contrary to the statute passed in the third year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, entitled—”
Dalrymple snatched the paper from Smite’s hand. “I can read, damn it.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Must you always be so condescending? I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“Well.” Smite snorted. “That’s new.”
Dalrymple grimaced, but ignored that gibe. “We’ll get to that in just a bit. It says I’m supposed to appear before Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace.”
“Yes.”
“You’re one of them. You know how the public has been these last years—looking for any sign to point to, some signal of my dissolute decay.”
Smite knew it quite well. Dalrymple had been born a duke’s heir, but a few years ago it had come out that his father was a bigamist—and he was a bastard. He’d weathered quite a bit of criticism in the years since—so much that he’d abandoned one attempt to buy himself a title.
But habits of birth never faded. Dalrymple didn’t need to hold a title to act entitled. He raised his eyebrows at Smite significantly. “Is there any way we might settle this quietly?”
