“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I—I’m looking for Lady Rose Timmons.”
“I’m Lady Rose Timmons. Who are you?”
The man glanced at Davis, who remained noncommittal.
“Do not look at him. Your business is with me. Who are you and why should I pay you twenty pounds?”
The man seemed to find his confidence. “Because you told people you would pay that for something I got.”
“Show me.”
He stiffened. “Let me see the money.”
Davis cleared his throat. But Rose made a cutting gesture and pulled the notes from her pocket long enough for the man to see them, then replaced them. “You know what I want. Not just the item.”
The man swallowed hard. “They said you wanted to know where it came from.”
Rose glared at him, one eyebrow raised, and waited.
After a moment the man let one shoulder drop. “Name’s Keales. Hugh Keales. I run a pawn shop in the Garden.”
“And someone brought it in.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I ought not—”
“Who?”
The man squirmed. “I can’t cross these men—”
The knife came up, and Rose pressed the fist she had clenched around the knife against his waistcoat, which put the tip just below his chin. “Them or me. I know you’ve heard the rumors.”
Behind her, Davis made a choking sound.
The man’s eyes bulged as he stared down at the knife. “They say... They say...”
“They say I’m crazy. That I’m a lunatic because of what was done to me.”
He nodded furiously.
“Are you sure they’re just rumors?”
The man froze.
“I need the item, a promise it is real, and the name.” She stepped back and lowered the knife.
Heaving a sigh of relief, the man drew from with his oversized coat a cane topped by a silver wolf’s head. Rose watched his face instead of the cane. “How do I know it’s the right cane?”
“They’s some blood on the head. Man said it came from a horse.”
“Mr. Davis.”
Davis took the cane from the man and stepped back.
