Page 13 of King's Man

He hated that Nate Tanner was here, in London. In this room. So close, Sam could have touched him. Or throttled him.

“Sit down, Tanner,” Talmach ordered. “This is Hutchinson, the man Foxe sent.”

Sam kept his gaze fixed on the fire, watching the coals spit, praying that shock had robbed his face of color so that Tanner wouldn’t see his humiliated flush. That Tanner, of all people, should know how low Sam had fallen…. He wanted to climb out of his own skin.

After a lengthy pause, Nate sat down and said, “You’re the… lockpicker?” His voice rose with poorly hidden disbelief.

“The best in London,” Talmach said. “So I’m told.”

Sam closed his eyes. If he fled, Foxe would have his skin. But Hal wasn’t a cruel man, perhaps he’d understand if Sam explained… He almost choked on the notion. Explain that he couldn’t do the job because the man he’d once loved, the man who’d stood silent and watched him assaulted and exiled, was the client? Christ in heaven, he might be down on his luck, but he had more self-respect than that. He’d not go weeping to Hal Foxe and he’d not give Nate Tanner the fucking satisfaction of seeing him broken.

Deliberately, he raised his eyes from the fire and turned around. He let no recognition show, hid his anguish deep. He wasn’t the same greenhorn boy Nate had seduced nine years ago, and he wasn’t the same innocent who’d thought their love eternal. Just like he wasn’t the same fool who’d trusted his friends and neighbors not to turn on him like dogs. He was a man re-forged, hardened by the fire. He let Nate see what had been shaped that terrible night in Rosemont. “At your service, Mr. Tanner.”

A flash of emotion lit Nate’s face, fleeting and swiftly hidden. Difficult to interpret. Nate opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly at a loss for words as he offered a slight nod. Sam permitted himself a sour twist of his lips, barely a smile. Rendering Nate speechless was a rare achievement.

Rigidly, Sam moved his attention back to Talmach. “Tell me about the document you want lifted.”

“It’s kept in a strongbox in MacLeod’s study. I understand locks are your particular skill.”

“They are.” He put his unexpected knack for lockpicking down to the hours he’d spent as a child taking apart his father’s beloved clocks, cleaning and reassembling them. He’d developed an affinity for mechanisms, a feel for how they worked, which apparently extended to the byzantine locks deployed by the manufacturers of strongboxes.

He wondered what his father would have made of that turn of events.

He wondered what had happened to his father’s clocks.

Had Holden kept them when he took Sam’s home? Or had he destroyed them, made a bonfire of all Sam’s precious possessions, and watched them burn? “Tell me about the document,” he said roughly. “How am I to recognize it?”

“You won’t need to. Once you’ve opened the strongbox, Mr. Tanner will retrieve the document.”

The hair on the back of Sam’s neck rose. “I’m not takinghimwith me.”

“That’s not negotiable.” Talmach’s brow furrowed, clearly a man used to obedience. “I told Foxe as much when I commissioned your services. Tanner will go with you.”

Christ, no. A week — two weeks — on the road with Nate Tanner? Unbearable. Just these last two minutes in the same room had been excruciating.

“Perhaps there’s someone else,” Nate said tersely. “Another…lockpicker?”

“Foxe said this man’s the best. We don’t have time to hold a damn audition, Tanner, we sail for Boston in less than three weeks —” He cut himself off and fixed his eyes on Sam. “You’ll do the job you’ve been hired for, sir, or Foxe will know about it.”

And God knew Sam was in no position to refuse work from Hal. He shifted in his chair, painfully aware of Nate’s gaze. It burned like hot pitch. “Very well, but it’s at your risk. I won’t be held responsible if he…betrays my presence.”

Nate tensed at that deliberate choice of word, and Sam felt a vicious stab of pleasure at landing the blow. “I assume you’d like me to leave as soon as possible?”

“I would. Tanner has money for the journey.”

“Seven o’clock tomorrow, then.” As Sam rose, he flicked Nate a quick look and hoped he was still averse to early mornings. “Be at the Swan with Two Necks, on Lad Lane. We can get the stage from there. If you’re late, I’ll leave without you.”

“I won’t be late,” Nate said, sounding as distant and urbane as when Sam had first known him. His fingers, though, were curled into fists so tight his knuckles were white. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of” — a beat — “the country.”

Sam swung around to face him, braced for the impact of those deep, dark eyes, the narrow elegance of his features. His beauty. He wasn’t disappointed; they hit like a punch, leaving him airless. Nevertheless, he found he could still hate the sight of him and didn’t need to force his lip to curl into a sneer. “In that, you’re alone. It’s the last thing I want.”

Without another word, Sam stalked out and let the door slam shut behind him.

It rang with hollow satisfaction.

Chapter Four

“Sam!”

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