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{ Chapter 1 }
September 1826
Berkshire
Death hung in the air, the tentacles of its wispy black fingers reaching up from deep below ground, seeping throughout the house. Becoming the very air.
Taking a deep breath of that tainted air to steel herself, Juliet shifted the tray of food she’d been balancing along her left arm and peeked her head into Hoppler’s room.
The strong mass of him on the bed, he lay facing his fiancée, Pen. They’d not been but a day engaged when this had happened. Pen shot by Hoppler’s cousin.
Hoppler’s hand splayed flat over Pen’s heart with his elbow awkwardly cricked above the bandages covering the bullet wound on her side, his fingertips measuring the breaths she took, the beat of her heart. His eyes were closed, though Juliet doubted he was truly asleep. How could he be?
Juliet’s chest tightened. She wasn’t one to be moved by a sad scene. But this was Hoppler. Her boss, her confidant, her most cherished friend. And Pen was the woman he loved.
Pen was dying—the surgeon had said so—though that had been days ago. Days where death had hung over this house, patient, and Hoppler had been nowhere but in his room, lying where he was now or sitting at the side of the bed, staring at Pen.
Deep, dark circles had encased his eyes, the whole of his body withering.
Hoppler wasn’t just the man that owned the brothel and gaming hell where she lived, he was the man that had made her life as right as it could be in the last six years. And to see him this shattered sent a spike of fury through her belly.
Love.
Love was the most brilliant joke the devil ever played on man. Love was evil. Love did this to everyone, eventually. Destroyed them.
Hoppler and Pen were merely the latest example.
Juliet’s lips drew inward, her teeth biting the inner skin.Leave him be.She’d try again in another hour to set food in front of him.
Turning her body to the side to keep the balance of the tray of beef and potatoes in her left arm, she pulled the door closed and turned to walk the tray back down to the kitchens.
On the ground level of the Willows, Hoppler’s manor house in Berkshire, Juliet rounded the fat newel post that was taller than her and moved into the main corridor that cut down the center of the expansive home.
“Madame Juliet, there ye are.” Jasper, Hoppler’s second-in-command, popped out of the study two rooms away from her. “Lucy said ye were in the kitchens, but I couldn’t find ye.”
“What are you doing here, Jasper?” She advanced on him. “You’re supposed to be in London at the Den of Diablo taking care of everything. Heaven help me if you have ruined anything there at a time like this. I’ll have your head if there is the slightest marker or pillow out of place.”
His hands flew up, palms to her as he stepped out into the hallway. “No, no.” He moved toward her, taking the tray out of her hands. “I’m just here for an hour at the most and then I’ll be on my way back into London and the Den. All is well there. Mary rode up with us as well.”
She stared up at him. “Mary? Why?”
“She suffered a wild fist last night and has a nasty ringer about her eye, so she’s taking the week off.”
“A customer?” Her mouth pulled to a tight line.
Jasper shook his head. “No, just a fight at abaccarattable she happened to walk past at the wrong moment. It was handled within a minute.”
Juliet looked over her shoulder toward the wing of the house where the women, visiting or retired from the Den of Diablo, slept. “Oh, well, I should check in on her.”
“That can wait.” He turned from her and motioned with his head for her to follow him. “Please, I need ye in here for a few minutes.”
Whatever Jasper needed, it was private. At least Jasper knew enough of the gabbing mouths of the women here at the Willows to bring her into Hoppler’s study.
She followed him into the room, closing the door behind her, only moderately annoyed he was veering her off her schedule of the day. She needed a distraction—any distraction from the worry at what was currently transpiring upstairs in Hoppler’s bedroom.
Jasper moved to the sideboard and set the tray of food down, then picked up the decanter of brandy and lifted it to her. “Drink?”
Looking at him, she shook her head. She’d already had her allotment for the afternoon hours before she went up to Hoppler’s room. The spirits in Hoppler’s study were stronger than usual and she knew her limits.
