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“Is he with you?” said Oswald.
“Who?” said Spin.
“The duke?” Oswald was visibly upset.
“We’ve reached a critical mass,” said Mathis. “I don’t think his skills can repair this.”
“We can’t call a plumber,” said Lin. “We can’t foot the bill.”
“If we don’t do something, we’ll all be underwater,” said Lin.
Spin looked up at the water falling from the sky as things began to fall into place. She thought back to Zhi’s calloused hands. She thought back to his words from last night. It looked like things were more dire than he’d let on.
“I have money,” said Spin.
All eyes turned to her. The only sound in the hall was the plip-plop of water into quickly filling buckets.
“From my pay from my last job working for Parker.”
Spin heard a groan behind her. But it wasn’t Lark this time. It was the pipes. They sounded as though there were ready to burst.
Oswald’s gaze was wide with worry, but his voice was firm. “We can’t let you do that. The duke would never agree to it.”
The duke had considered seducing a rich woman to fix his problems. Spin wondered if the staff knew of his plan. She doubted it. Just as they seemed certain he wouldn’t take her money, she got the impression that they thought too much of their employer to repeat the mistakes of his father.
“I’m not using the money,” she said. “You need it more than I do. Call the plumber.”
Oswald hesitated. Luckily, his wife didn’t. Lin was on the phone, dialing the number before Oswald even opened his mouth. She handed the phone to Oswald as it began ringing. Oswald grabbed the receiver and began to speak with the person who answered.
As the staff gathered
around the phone and corralled the buckets, the doorbell rang. With everyone else up to their elbows, Spin turned to get the door.
As she walked to the great door, she wondered where Zhi was. Where had he been if he hadn’t come home last night? Was he out searching for her? But all thoughts fled her mind as she pulled the door open and came face to face with the crepe-thin man from the hostel.
He opened his mouth. Then paused as he squinted at her. Before she could think to run or shut the door, recognition dawned in his beady gaze.
“This is fortuitous; two birds in one net,” he said.
Spin swallowed, but the lump in her throat was too big. Her heartbeat raced, and her stomach felt like rocks were dropping into her gut boulder by boulder.
“Lady Eleanor Trent? I’ve been looking for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zhi stared down into the waters off the pier. The small waves of blue lapped at the wooden structure as he stood watching the first ship of the new day sail out to sea. He’d been there when the last one had lifted its anchor. She hadn’t been on that one either.
He'd called the house when he’d left the club, but no she hadn’t come back. Neither Spin nor Lark was there. He’d walked the streets last night searching for her. She had been nowhere to be found.
He'd slid into her DMs, but she hadn't responded. He didn't have her actual phone number to call her, to talk to her. He needed to talk to her. He needed to tell her.
To tell her what exactly?
That he was in love with her? Was he in love with her? He wasn't sure? Was this pounding of his heart, this breathlessness, this yearning need in his fingertips, this thirst in his mouth, was all this love?
He didn't know? All he knew was that it would not abate until he found her. Until he had her in his arms again.
He'd sensed the first time they'd met that Spin was a runner. There were only two ways off the nation island of Cordoba. The next flight to France wasn't for a few hours. But there were boats headed out before that. As a last resort, he'd come to the docks. He'd looked into the face of every passenger that boarded the craft.
