Page 5 of Hazard a Guest
She had been planning to shush them so they could all laugh at the lad Jones was training when he realized he needed to track down some nougat for that particular drink, but Dot’s face gave her pause.
“Ember,” she said, her voice a low hush. “We’ve had a concerning sort of visit today, a man who is very cross indeed with you. Silas will decline to represent him, obviously, but he is only going to go elsewhere.”
“Indeed?” said Ember with a little chuckle. “I believe I had a visit from that same man today.”
That gave Dot a moment of pause. “You did?”
“My darling stepson, I presume?” she said. “He came by to threaten and posture and claim a few things, and Jones and I sent him right back out the door. He’s toothless, Dot, don’t fret over it.”
“Stepson?” Millie echoed, looking absolutely ravenous for this story.
But Dot was shaking her head. “It wasn’t anyone from the Withers clan, Ember. It was the owner of the Tod & Vixen.”
“The Tod & Vixen?” Ember repeated, baffled. “I don’t believe I even know the owner of that hell. What’s his concern with me?”
“Oh, I’ve seen that place,” Millie realized, blinking her big brown eyes.
“So?” pressed Ember. “What’s so concerning, then? Do Mr. Fox and Lady Fox have a suit against me? I haven’t wronged him that I know of, but I certainly will consider it if he’s getting feisty.”
“His name is Beck,” Dot provided with a little jut of her jaw. “Thaddeus Beck. Neither Silas nor I had ever heard of him, but apparently he’s affluent enough to have a corner lot in St. James, so I don’t think we ought to—”
“I’ll call him what I please,” said Ember with as much firmness as she could muster. “What is he suing me for?”
“It’s not a suit, exactly,” Dot said with a queasy grimace. “It seems he went about the city during the end of the Season, offering to buy any debt cards he could find from absolutely anyone, under one condition: that they came from the Forge. Ember, he has almost eight thousand pounds’ worth of notes.”
Ember stared at her friend, not quite understanding what was being said. “Eightthousand,” she managed, her mouth a little dry. “He bought eightthousandpounds of debt? Why?”
“Because,” Dot said with a huffing sigh, “he tried to buy you out some years ago and you … well. You told him something very rude. So now he’s going to force you.”
“What did I tell him?” Ember pushed, her heart starting to thump. “I can’t keep track of every toff who comes in here trying to buy me out. I need more than that.”
“You told him to”—Dot flushed, pink dots appearing high on her cheeks—“to go sit on a peg?”
“Ah!” said Ember, immediately placing the incident. “That one.”
The memory was vague but clear enough that she could make out the outlines of the scene. He’d blown in like Father Christmas, offering to take the Forge off her hands, saying a bunch of pretty things about how she’d earned enough for a life of leisure or a business without so many sharp edges.
All things she’d heard before.
But the angry glint in his eye when she’d told him the Forge was hers and hers alone had given her pause. She didn’t know if the kit was a standard-issue woman hater or if she’d done something to personally offend him, but he’d reacted with disproportionate rage at his inability to talk her into selling.
He had, of course, met Jones that day.
“What did he want with Silas?” Ember demanded, tapping her nails on the bar and holding up three fingers to the trainee. “People don’t hire a KC barrister without a strong commitment to outcome.”
She heard him faintly in the background asking Jones “three of what?” and being immediately shushed.
“A letter, to start with,” Dot said, heaving a sigh like her body was relieved to finally be free of this news. “He wanted to do things in a way that wouldn’t make him feel like he was extorting a widow out of her inheritance, which is ironic, since that is exactly what he’s doing.”
“Not her inheritance,” Millie said gently. “Ember only inherited the frame. He wants the whole painting.”
“Thank you, Millie,” said Ember.
“It wasn’t a compliment,” the other woman replied, “just the truth.”
Three glasses of sweet wine arrived on the bartop, and each woman wasted no time taking theirs up. The flash of candlelight against the fruity liquid cast shades of gold and bronze onto their faces, delivering the gift of a moment of sweetness and warmth.
Ember, after having her taste, let herself release a bit of air. “Why hasn’t he done it yet, I wonder? The Season has been dead for almost three months now.”
