Page 96 of The Last Chance
Aaron knew someone would answer. They were expecting him. This was a carefully laid plan which made him question his own stupidity. A woman could fire a pistol. Two could throw a dead man into the Thames. A brick tied to the ankle might keep him submerged for days.
A woman did answer the door, but it wasn’t Lucia.
Aaron peered through the darkness, but it was impossible to identify her. Perhaps they had the wrong house. What if the plan was to have him leave Fortune’s Den? To ensure he was the last brother standing?
His heart thundered, the rapid beat pounding in his throat. “I warned Sigmund to keep the doors locked and watch the street in my absence.” He held his head in his hands. “What if coming here is a mistake?”
Joanna tapped his arm. “It’s not a mistake. The women are leaving the house and following the jarvey. I see Lucia. The other person must be her mother.”
Aaron looked up as the jarvey opened the door, and the two women climbed into the vehicle. They fell into the seat opposite, looking like terrified victims, not murderous villains.
“Keep your hands on your laps where I can see them.” Aaron glared at Mrs Lowry, his uncle’s bespectacledhousekeeper. “How the hell do I know you? We’ve met before. Years ago.”
“I beg you not to shout, sir,” Lucia said in her faint Italian accent. “It is not our fault. We had no choice but to follow orders.”
“Stop this charade,” Joanna countered. “You’re not Italian and didn’t come here on a boat from Naples. The earl forced you and your mother to kill a man in cold blood. You could have come to Mr Chance for help instead of plotting his demise.”
Lucia started sobbing so hard she couldn’t speak.
“She’s just a young girl,” Mrs Lowry said, reaching for Lucia’s hand. “Only recently turned sixteen. She wanted no part in this but had no choice.”
Timid Lucia looked sixteen.
Dressed as Venus in a mask, she looked twenty-three.
“A mother is supposed to protect her child,” Joanna said.
“I’m not her mother, miss. I only wish I were.”
Confusion kept Aaron’s temper at bay. “Then how do you know Lucia? How do you know me? What is this about?”
Mrs Lowry removed her misty spectacles and wiped them with a handkerchief. “I was employed at your father’s house in Hill Street. Started as a scullery maid and worked my way up to ladies’ maid. Sadly, the years abroad have taken their toll.”
Abroad?
Aaron stared at her, a bitter taste in his mouth because the past was like poison. “Did you work at Hill Street when my mother was alive?”
A vague memory of his mother slid into his mind, a smiling face, a glimmer of sunlight catching her ebony hair. He had never dared ask his father to describe her in greater detail, partly because Ignatius Chance remarried within months. Aaron remembered Christian and Theo’s mother because he was nine when she died just as mysteriously.
“Yes, sir. There was no one kinder. No one more loving.”
Aaron covered his mouth with his hand. He wished he could remember his mother’s face. Wished his childhood wasn’t tainted by his father’s evil misdeeds.
Tears gathered behind his eyes, but he leant on years of honed arrogance to beat them back. “I recall you were dismissed the week before we were thrown out onto the streets.” His father’s third wife, the witch known as Natasha, had fired most the staff, including her own maid.
“That’s what Mrs Chance wanted everyone to think.”
Mrs Chance!he grumbled silently. It grated that they would forever bear the same surname, like the woman haunted him from beyond the grave.
“I didn’t fill my valise with clothes,” Mrs Lowry continued. “It was crammed with jewels, silver, and anything valuable I could carry. I had to do it, or the mistress said she’d see me hanged for stealing.”
Plagued by thoughts of Natasha’s wickedness, Aaron fell silent.
“What is this all about?” Joanna said. “Why are you working for Lord Berridge? Why risk your lives to assist in his devious scheme?”
Mrs Lowry looked at Aaron and paled. “I’m forced to work for Lord Berridge and play the messenger. It’s part of a bigger plan.”
“What plan?” Aaron snapped.
