Page 3

Rosine. Sander’s knuckles went white as he made fists, his back pressing against the paneled door.

He had heard it all his life: they did not say Jew. Respectable men said order, ‘English sport’—fair play—and the public good, and then held up a mirror that found only Jews in the frame. The papers had done it before, making Jewish hands look greedier and Jewish wagers dirtier, as though the game itself changed when certain names touched the board. It did not. But people believed print, and print liked a story it could sell.

He remembered the last scandal the papers worried like a bone: a gentleman’s “debt of honor” from a night’s gamble—unrecoverable at law—and yet the column inches named only the Jewish lender, as if the whole crooked custom had been his invention. When Gentiles lent to gamblers, it was business; when a Jew did, it became a parable of greed. The same rooms, the same wagers; only the name changed, and the stain was made to stick.

What was worse was that of all the people Nagy could have singled out, it had to be Rosine. Not because she was dangerous, but because she was exceptional. And that, to men like Nagy, was always the greatest threat.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon answered without raising her tone. “I hire on skill, Mr. Nagy. And on loyalty. Discipline. You may find those qualities unfamiliar.”

“You mock me,” came the reply, colder now. “But not for long. Discretion is the spine of your establishment. Once word spreads of your hiring practices, it will crack. Your patrons will scatter.”

Sander kept his eyes forward, breath even. The hallway remained quiet save for the soft flicker of a candle in the wall sconces. Whatever letters Nagy flourished, London kept its own house—Bow Street answered to the magistrates and the Home Office, not to Vienna—and Mrs. Dove-Lyon owed the Kaiser nothing. Still, the weight in the air had changed. Men like Nagy did not raid; they rotted. They found a landlord’s nerve, a clerk’s pen, a column that would print the word “indecency” and mean “Jews.” If he had enough support among the English elite, he’d succeed without regard for justice, ethics, and all those euphemistic ideals.

Sander could almost see it like a chessboard before him: Nagy advancing his first piece with bluster, testing the defenses, waiting to see who would retreat. He’d attacked a kitchen girl. Rosine. A pawn’s move. But pawns had a way of opening paths for greater threats.

A pause, then—so quiet he almost missed it: “You’ll regret protecting them.”

The door latch clicked.

Sander stepped back half a pace, making room. The door opened; Nagy’s gaze skimmed him—nose, eyes—like a collector measuring a specimen. Heat spread, not from shame but insult: as if a faith could be read off a face. Let the hunter think he’d marked prey; he’d only sniffed his own prejudice.

Although Sander twitched, he didn’t flinch. He’d lived all of his four-and-twenty years under such scrutiny for being studied like that. Every move calculated, every silence chosen. Survival was its own game, and he’d learned to play it better than most. He would marry only under a chuppah, a Jewish wedding canopy, with Hebrew spoken over their heads; anything else felt like hiding in a different shape.

Nagy passed through with the clipped disdain of a man too polished to spit, too practiced to strike. He offered no words as he walked down the corridor. Downstairs, other wolves would escort him out. And if it were up to Sander, he’d never let him back in again.

Once the man’s footsteps had faded, Sander entered just as Mrs. Dove-Lyon had requested earlier when Nagy had arrived.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood behind her desk, veiled and upright, a silhouette carved from quiet steel. Candlelight caught the edge of her rings and cast a faint halo through the folds of black netting. Her stillness wasn’t frozen—it was chosen like armor.

The silence between them stretched, held tight by the trust they’d built over the three years Sander had worked for her. When the fire behind her snapped softly, its light played over the lion carved into the metal emblem on the crystal decanter resting on the coffee table. Sander had learned early: the Black Widow of Whitehall was not a sentimental woman. But she chose what mattered with a precision that had kept this house standing—and would keep it standing now.

And what mattered, always, was the Lyon’s Den. Its reputation and its people. She made certain her staff were treated fairly, regardless of where they’d come from or which religion they followed. And she did not—would not—tolerate anyone else presuming to tell her how to run her underground kingdom.

“You heard,” she said without preamble.

“I did.” His throat worked around the words. “Do you want me gone?”

Her gaze didn’t falter. “If you left, a third of my staff would follow. I hired each of you for what you are capable of. Not for the prayers you whisper or the names you were given.”

True. At the Lyon’s Den, everyone bore a nickname. All the staff were treated as equals. It might be a gambling den, but it was one of the most accepting places to work in all of London.

He nodded. Looked down at his hands—coarsened by labor, calloused by years of effort meant to make him invisible.

“He’s serious, then? Targeting the Lyon’s Den?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t stop at a single visit,” Sander pressed, waiting for the countermove. There’s always one.

“No. But neither will I begin asking his permission to hire whom I please.”

He hesitated. “Rosine. Why is he going after her?”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s expression didn’t shift, but something in her voice did. “He knows her value.”

Her value for Sander was… well…. The first thought when he woke up and the last when he fell asleep. No words could describe her value exactly, but she brought warmth to his chest, a smile to his face, and sweetened every day—not merely with her buns but just for being there every time Sander had the pleasure to find her in the kitchen or a hallway of the Lyon’s Den. Yes, perhaps he lingered, hoping to see her, but that made it no less spectacular when she greeted him gently and made his heart leap. And yet, what did this have to do with Mrs. Dove-Lyon or Nagy’s motivation to go after Rosine?

“So why her? Because she makes the best raisin buns?” Sander tested the words, but it was so absurd to punish a person for baking the sweetest and most delicious treats. Every patron at the Den knew the large silver platters offering Rosine’s treats. She created the staples to fuel the long gambling nights.