Page 42 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘Do you mind!’ she scolded, then smiled and pushed the cake across to him. ‘Perhaps, but we both know that before my arrival, your house was so ordered. And I’ve seen the bank. It’s all so tightly managed. We are completely capricious, and the hotel is far worse. Each day is a flip of the coin, sometimes several. Your world is so different. So predictable.’
Phineas was raising a triangle of sponge to his mouth but halted mid-air. ‘You think I’m boring.’
‘No!’ Rosanna ran a fingernail along a crease in the tablecloth. A pink tinge inched along her neck and cheeks. For weeks, all she had done was unsettle him. How marvellous to have finally madeheruncomfortable. ‘If all of this is too much for you, and you’d like to go home to eat, we can. That’s all I’m saying.’
Phineas chuckled. For all its unfamiliarity, the sound settled against his chest, a familiar tune when it came to Rosanna. ‘I’m just teasing, Hempel. But do you really think finance is like that? Predictable quiet and columns?’
‘Youare all quiet and columns. All blank walls and black waistcoats. Why would I imagine that world any different?’ She pulled her plate back across the table, stole his fork, and deftly snuck a wedge into her mouth. A tight crumb adhered to her lip, and with a quick flick of her tongue, she knocked it free. An ache, a need, a hunger rippled along his spine, and while he chewed the cake he tasted her, that delicious lingering of her essence that had clung to his fingers after she’d come to him on the upper floors and demanded her pleasure.
‘I am not all quiet and columns.’ His voice came out husky and raw, scratching his throat. Rosanna rolled her lips like she was trying not to laugh, a light glimmer in her eyes as she shot him a conciliatory smile. ‘I’m not! And I will show you.’ He studied her dress. Subtle folds gathered to cinch her waist. His breath snagged in his chest. ‘Very pretty, but you cannot wear that.’
‘What’s wrong with my dress?’ she asked, slightly flaring the skirt as she stood.
‘It won’t help where we’re going. Does the hotel have a stash of things guests leave behind?’
He led her by the hand for the first few blocks as they took backstreets and alleys away from the hotel. Her silken skin felt warm against his palm, as smooth as his own, worn to luxury after years of ledgers and pens. As they approached the high street, he released her, but before she stepped into the thoroughfare before Capel Court, he gripped her shoulder and pulled her back.
‘Let me check you. One last time.’
He was a cad, a scoundrel. A damned lusty schoolboy with an infatuation, and as she adjusted herself into a stiff, formal pose, he tried to feel guilt, but appreciation—no, damn himself, nothing so ordered, it was simply lust—smothered it all. Tight trousers which hugged her behind, a tucked-in white shirt, and a waistcoat that skimmed her curves. A too-loose coat concealed her breasts, and with much effort, they’d tucked her hair into a bowler hat. If she could hold her tongue and they stayed in shadows, she might blend in enough.
‘Do I look like a clerk?’
‘You’ll do. Head down. Hat on, preferably low over your face. And if you hear the wordsfourteen hundred, I want you to run for the exit. Don’t wait for me, and don’t look back. The words are code, used when someone has spotted an imposter. It’s one thing to be sprung without a membership, but I’ve never known awomanto be caught in here.’
‘What do they do when they spot an imposter?’ she asked.
‘If it’s a man, they’ll rough him up. Knock his hat, tear his clothes, manhandle him all the way to the doors. Are you ready?’
Rosanna checked the buttons on her coat, then bit her lip to hide a smile. She craved testing boundaries as much as he sought their comfort. Only small tells, like her fidgeting with her coat sleeves or worrying her bottom lip, hinted that her stiff confidence and stomping forthright walk was a lie.
They ascended the short stairs and passed between the tall columns to cross the portico, blood thrumming loud in his ears. As they walked through the heavy wooden doors, Phineas had to tap at the back of Rosanna’s hat in a silent reminder to keep her head down because she craned her neck to look up, taking in everything. Once they had made their way beneath the royal crest of the lion and unicorn with the wordsDieu et mon droitcarved into the stone—God and my right—he ushered her between the strips of shadow and light along the outer corridor. There he found a space where they could stand, inconspicuous and obscured by heavy sandstone blocks and tall columns. Rosanna steadied herself against him as she peered between the arches to take in the cacophony of the trading floor.
The London Stock Exchange. A chaotic, bleating, bleeding morass of fortune, misfortune, and chance. In so many ways, the stock exchange was gambling elevated to the status of respectability, of a profession. In these walls, debt became an asset, interest an opportunity, and fortunes were built and demolished in an instant. Here, men made deals worth thousands of pounds, shook hands like gentlemen, then stole hats and chalked each other’s backs like naughty schoolboys. Shouts of trade and business were coupled with teasing and pranks. A bowler hat tipped and flew across the room, and when it landed, the men in its vicinity kicked it amongst themselves like it was a football—until one man sent it sailing through the air again with an extra energetic kick, pursued by its hapless owner. Rosanna clutched the lip of her own bowler. Phineastapped her hand and shook his head. ‘They’ll spot you if you look nervous. Be confident, like you belong.’
Phineas leant into Rosanna, as close as he dared without looking too intimate. ‘The bank might be all order and quiet, but this is real finance. It’s chaotic. Unpredictable. Ruthless and unforgiving. A man might have a crowd of admirers one day and be abandoned the next. Here, there are no connections, no loyalty. Only money.’
‘Does money matter so much to you?’ She pulled at her coat collar as she searched his face. ‘I hadn’t realised. I thought you only liked numbers.’
‘Everyonelikesmoney, especially those who grew up without it. When I was free of the army, I swore I would take charge of my own life, and that meant not merely earning money, but understanding it. I swore I would never again be dependent on the whims of employers who might be fair or mean, or officers who’d bought their commissions and didn’t understand what a day’s march felt like, but who ordered men to take them, regardless. When I started as a clerk, I learnt fast. When I had enough savings, I made my own investments and built my own stability.’
A loud thump and the cracking whack of a mallet against the wooden wainscot reverberated through the room. Phineas pinched Rosanna’s coat by the elbow and led her to the side, partially for greater obscurity, but also so that she might have a better view of the ritual that was about to unfold. Another thump filled the air. Then the third beat finally cracked the raucousness of the chamber, and the shouts and talk faded away into mutterings. Almost everyone turned towards a liveried man who stood atop a small plinth. He raised a speaking trumpet to his mouth.
‘Mr Reginald Ronald Billings is hereby barred from undertaking business at the London Stock Exchange.’
Across the room, another man scratched out the offending name on a chalk board. Normally after this ceremony, a few men shouted or swore, and the room returned to the hefty noise of trade. But today, a different kind of energy raced through the gathering, and the shouts turned accusatory and bitter, much louder than they had been before.
‘Oh dear. He was not expecting to be called out. Poor fellow, he’s here.’ Phineas pointed at the thickening of the crowd. Rosanna pushed herself onto tiptoes, catching his arm to steady her balance. Instantly, that delicious shiver she created in him rippled through his skin.
‘What has he done?’ she asked.
Phineas swallowed his distraction and clutched at words of explanation. He pressed his nose to her ear. ‘He’s defaulted on his debts. The committee has declared him a lame duck, as is the term. It means he’s bankrupt, unreliable, and no longer welcome in the world of finance. Most men avoid the ceremony if they are aware its coming. He had no idea.’
A group of men swarmed around the unfortunate Mr Billings. An elbow raised, perhaps to deliver a blow, or maybe just to knock the man’s hat from his head—Phineas could not tell. They circled around him, calling and shouting, and the occasional cry or plea for mercy leaked out between the insults. The group of traders shoved and passed Mr Billings, one to the other, and he staggered between them.
‘It’s like being tied in the stocks,’ Rosanna observed the rough shoving and shouts until the group ejected Mr Billings, not hatless but with a torn coat and only one shoe, from the chambers. ‘It’s humiliating.’
‘It’s meant to be. Finance is not pretty. Far from it.’ Phineas glanced up over the tall arches, to where the echoes from the floor swirled and butted against the ceiling before they bounced back down. ‘Although it looks different from a distance.’
