When a few of her friends asked the same of him, he’d found it easier to watch them if they were in the same spot,so he’d let a few rooms. Doing so had the added benefit of keeping them warm in winter so they seldom took ill, which in turn increased their earnings. Eventually, he was leasing an entire building for his girls. Now he owned it.
God always rewards a man for doing good, his mum had often told him. But in his experience, rewards came when a man applied himself—even if what he applied himself to was sometimes frowned upon by those with a higher moral standard.
The woman he now observed would no doubt do quite a bit of frowning. She looked the type. Sounded the type. Her posh, distinct diction indicated nobility born, bred, and raised.
Her clothing, as well. The fabric, cut, and workmanship of her simple gray frock was exquisite, although he’d wager that she’d lost a little weight since it had been purchased. While the other serving maids bared a good bit of their cleavage in hopes the customers would leave a few extra coins, she was done up as tight as a drum, buttoned up to her chin, down to her wrists. Her hair, pale as moonbeams, gathered up in a rather untidy knot that had failed to keep several strands secure, so they now teased her delicate cheekbones, was the only thing about her that appeared inelegant. Her posture was perfect, her stride graceful as she made her way back to his table after asking what she could bring him a few minutes earlier.
Parting her lips slightly, releasing a quick gust of air that sent the rebellious strands of her hair flying, she set the tumbler in front of him. “Here you are, sir. The bartender indicated there’ll be no charge.”
While his sister wasn’t here tonight, seldom worked within these walls any longer after becoming a duchess, Gillie didn’t expect him to pay for food or drink, just as he didn’t expect her to pay him for the transport on his shipsof alcohol she’d purchased from beyond England’s shores. Trewloves didn’t charge Trewloves, nor did they keep an accounting of favors done.
The barmaid started to turn—
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She swung back around, a tiny pleat forming between her delicate dark blond brows that framed the most unusual blue eyes he’d ever seen. A deep blue with the tiniest streaks of gray. “Bringing you your scotch.”
Shaking his head, he waved his hand in an easy manner to encompass their surroundings. “I mean in Whitechapel, working, specifically in this tavern. Every aspect of you screams Mayfair.”
“None o’ yer bleedin’ biz’ness,” she retorted in perfect Cockney. “Is that better?” Perfect Mayfair.
Presenting him with her back, she marched off. Admiring the view as well as her huff of indignation, he took a long, slow swallow of scotch. She had spunk, he’d give her that. She was also correct. She was none of his business. Still, he was intrigued. She was too refined for the coarseness of this place. She’d look more at home in a ballroom, a garden, a stately manor house. She should be waited upon, not be the one doing the serving.
He liked for things to make sense. She didn’t make sense. Until she did, he was going to be tempted to uncover, unravel, and solve the mystery of her.
Althea Stanwick knew he was watching her, could feel the touch of his gaze as though he was walking beside her with his hand pressed against the small of her back.
She’d noticed him the moment he strode into the tavern. It was as though every molecule of air had shifted to accommodate not only his considerable height and the breadth of his shoulders, but his confidence and bearing as well. Theman prowled about as though he feared nothing, possessed the power to topple empires at a whim.
She’d been both enthralled and unsettled. Then he’d taken a chair at a table near the back that was her responsibility, and she’d felt as though someone had given a hard yank on the lacings of her corset, crushing her ribs until she could barely breathe.
Servicing other customers, she’d put off approaching him as long as she could. Finally, she’d made her way to him, knowing he was taking in every aspect of her as she was him. His thick black hair brushed past his collar—lighting upon those broad shoulders as though the strands wished to eternally caress them—and was styled in such a way that a portion of the right side of his face was covered, which made him appear more mysterious, a man who possessed secrets and was extremely skilled at keeping them.
Something about him seemed familiar but she couldn’t quite place how she might have come to know him. Perhaps she’d passed him on these streets that after three long months were finally becoming familiar, or he’d come in another night and not sat at her table. Although she couldn’t imagine forgetting him if she’d ever seen him at the Mermaid. “What may I bring you, good sir?”
A barely perceptible widening of those onyx eyes that had steadfastly been studying her with an appreciation that had caused her to sound a bit breathy. “Scotch.”
His voice had been a deep rumble that had shimmied through the entire length of her, like the warm and comforting sensations she experienced when she came in from the bitter cold and approached a blazing fire. She’d been disappointed that he’d uttered only a single word. But then when she’d returned with his drink, he’d shown an interest in her past, which was a secret she was skilled at keeping because if anyone learned the truth—
It did not bear thinking about.
As she now wended her way among the tables after leaving him, she decidedhedid not bear thinking about.
An arm suddenly whipped out, wrapped around her waist, and rudely jerked her off her feet so she landed hard on a sturdy lap comprised of thick thighs. His other hand going to places on her person it most certainly should not, pinching what she’d given him no permission to pinch, the young man grinned broadly, his eyes filled with mischief. “What ’ave we ’ere? Who ye be, me lovely?”
Reaching back, she grabbed a nearly full tankard resting near the hand of one of his mates and proceeded to dump its contents over his ginger head. With a curse and a yell, he abruptly released her. In all due haste, she scrambled off his lap and beyond his reach. “Pardon my clumsiness. I’ll get you another.”
She’d have rather conked him on the side of the head with the tankard but knew she was going to be in enough trouble as it was. The Mermaid prided itself on how well it treated its patrons, regardless of how many or how few coins lined their pockets. Striding quickly, she made her way to the bar and slammed the pewter tankard down on the polished woodgrain. “Guinness.”
The bartender, who also managed the place, sighed as though she was the bane of his existence, probably because she was. “I’ve told you before, you can’t be dumping beer over heads.”
It was the third time she’d done it since she started working here ten days earlier. She considered defending her actions but had done so twice before already and received no sympathy whatsoever from him, just a stare that hardened with each word spoken, so she merely nodded in acknowledgment of the undeserved scolding. Until recently, an admonishment had never been directed her way.She didn’t much like being treated with so little consideration or having her opinion carry no weight, but then there was a good bit about her new life that she didn’t favor. As a matter of fact, there was nothing at all about it that she did.
“I’ll have to take this pint out of your weekly earnings.”
Striving to reflect contrition so she wouldn’t find herself dismissed, she nodded again. At this rate, she was going to have no weekly earnings.
“Jimmy pinched her bum, Mac,” Polly, another one of the serving girls, said. “I saw it.”
