Page 29 of From Duke Till Dawn
Plummeting defeat threatened to drag her to the filthy floor. He wasn’t here. This place was her best lead. Beyond it, she grasped at smoke.
She dropped the coin to the counter, and gripped the bar tightly to keep standing.
“Miss Blunt?”
Cassandra Blunt was one of her many aliases, the one she used when interacting with London’s underworld. She turned with a wary look to behold a portly man with thinning hair coming into the tavern. His clothes were worn but of good quality, and he carried an ebony walking stick topped with a brass figure of a serpent’s head.
“Mr. Lacey,” she answered, forcing a bright smile.
Damn damn damn.
George Lacey leaned on the bar beside her. At once, a full, clean tankard of ale appeared next to his hand. He didn’t waste time thanking the barkeep, but drank down his pint in a few gulps as if it was his due.
“Surprised to see you on this side of Town,” Lacey said after belching softly.
“Business can take me many places,” she answered. “You know how it is.”
He chortled. “I run myself ragged jaunting from one corner of London to the next. Always some shopkeeper refusing to pay for protection, or someone reneging on a loan. Interest rates don’t pay for themselves.” He chuckled again.
Maybe he was too much of a gentleman to mention the whorehouses he owned in Whitechapel and Seven Dials.
“I need to get back to Piccadilly,” Cassandra said.
“You’ve got time for a drink with one of your investors.” It was a command, not a request.
Cassandra smiled thinly. She didn’t want anything from this midden heap of a taproom, and she didn’t want to spend another minute in Lacey’s company. Nobody in London was as well informed. Any and all news came to him almost as quickly as it happened.
“How fares the gaming hell?” he asked, then sipped at another ale. “Got a little over a week left before we shut the doors for good, yes?”
She silently exhaled. He didn’t know about Martin running off with the money. Not yet.
“It’s grand,” she answered. “Can’t keep the toffs out. They line up thick as flies outside, panting to get inside. Martin and me, we’ll have your investment paid back in a trice. With interest.”
“Of course.” Lacey’s smile cracked at the edges.
The barkeep banged a tankard in front of Cassandra, slamming it down so the foam sloshed over the side and onto the wooden surface of the bar. With an insolent look, he slouched away.
She picked up her drink and pretended to sip from it. She’d rather swallow water from the Thames than this bilge.
“How are your daughters?” she asked, straining for something to talk about. Nerves strung her tight. Martin was still somewhere with the money, and time was running out. She’d either have to pay the staff or else go into hiding.
Lacey shook his head. “Slatterns and whores, the lot of ’em.”
“Ah,” was the only response she could come up with.
A thin shadow appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Lacey!”
“Aye,” he answered, turning toward the newcomer. It was a lad of about fourteen, ragged and alert in the way all street children were, as she’d been as a child.
The boy approached but looked warily at Cassandra. A spark of fear glowed at the base of her spine. She eyed the door. Could she make a break for it? How far would she get before someone caught up with her?
“Go ahead and state your business, Jem,” Lacey declared. “I don’t pay you to wipe up the spit from your gaping maw.”
“Yes, sir.” The lad leaned close to Lacey, cupping a hand over his mouth as he whispered in the older man’s ear. Jem kept glancing at her as he spoke.
She could run. Run right now and never look back.
If she was cornered and caught, they’d cut her first. A swipe of a blade across her cheek. They always did that to the pretty girls.
