The next morning, he undertook the four-mile journey to Aoife’s town house in Shoreditch for their fortnightly appointment. When he entered her reception room, his informant rose from her divan with the lazy grace of a cat, her blue eyes sparkling. The actual cat, a floofy, flat-faced thing, lounged on the divan’s whorled armrest and dismissed him with a swish of its thick tail.
“A Greenfield daughter?” Aoife’s throaty laugh said she was highly amused. Her cropped curls were positively bouncing round her ears. “By what dark sorcery did you accomplish that!”
“The usual,” he said. “Luck meeting preparation.”
“I hadn’t known you were in the market for a wife. Not for a Sassenach, in any case.”
He settled in the Chesterfield armchair across from her divan while she went to the drinks cabinet to pour him a Scotch. She wore skirts today, made of soft blue cotton that moved fluidly with her slender figure as only an exquisitely well-tailored garment would. Her face had the hard features inflicted by life in the gutter, and she spoke a soothing blend of monotone Limerick inflection mixed with Cockney, but her taste was distinctly toff.
She handed him the tumbler. “What’s she look like—is she pretty?”
“I don’t know.”
Her brows rose. “You don’t know? You must’ve seen her—the papers say you were caught in the act.”
Aoife was acting strange, and he didn’t know what to say. He found himself respecting Harriet Greenfield’s quick wit and her grit—that she had tried to negotiate with him, unexpected in a woman so spoiled and young. He liked the generous curve of her hips and that she looked sturdy enough to take him.
He crossed his legs. “Her looks are of no consequence,” he said.
“How boring you are.” Aoife sprawled back down onto the divan. “I’ll just have to find out for myself, then. I did sometimes wonder what sort of woman would suit you, you know, and I couldn’t fathom a good fit—a hard-nosed one who favors coin and doesn’t give a damn about tender feelings would thrive best by your side. But you’d probably prefer someone soft and sweet for your bed—sadly, such a sweetheart will wilt away.”
He shook his head. “What is the news on Rutland?” he said, pretending he hadn’t heard the inanity.
“There’s some news on your sniveling assistant,” she replied.
“Matthews?” He recalled his assistant’s blood-rimmed eyes earlier. “What’s he done?”
“He needs to watch himself,” Aoife said. “I saw him with my own eyes in Ritchie’s den in Covent Garden the other night, losing money he doesn’t have. And Ritchie’s people—you don’t mess with them. They take an ear as a warning, rather than giving a warning before taking an ear.”
That was a nuisance—he wouldn’t tolerate having his staff maimed by gambling kingpins. “I’ll settle his accounts in time,” he said.
“Wish you’d just cut him loose,” Aoife muttered.
“He owes me. Owning people helps them to be loyal.”
She gave him a mean look. “I’m loyal to you and I don’t owe you a bloody thing.”
His glanced at the room, the lush drapes and costly paintings and the cabinet with gilded inlays that had almost certainly been imported from France. “I’m paying for this house,” he said.
Aoife’s smile showed crooked teeth. “Because I give you permission to do so,” she said. “So you don’t feel you owe me—for the intelligence you get off me so cheaply. Or for when I kept you alive and unmolested on the streets.”
“Fair enough,” he allowed. “What news of Rutland?”
Her expression darkened. “I don’t like that my Susan has to bamboozle his chinless wonder of a son. Lord Percy is a spineless brute.” Her gaze lingered on the scar on his lip. “When will you feed the son to the fish? I hear the Thames crying his name lately, Lord Percy, Lord Percy.”
He tasted his drink. Very smoky, a good-vintage Talisker he guessed. “It’s the father I want,” he said. “To the son, I owe a debt of sorts. You know that.”
She grimaced. He didn’t expect her to agree. She didn’t understand vengeance the way he did, for she was quite content and settled now, at leisure to pose for painters and trade in information instead of being in the thick of a smuggling ring to make coin. It was more complicated for him, perhaps because his revenge wasn’t just for him but for other people. He couldn’t just say, Enough is enough now. It wasn’t for him to decide. As for Rutland’s son, Percy, he hadn’t crossed paths with his lordship since he had been thirteen and stupid, creeping around the grounds of Rutland’s vast Norfolk estate. That day, a late, wet afternoon in autumn, was still as fresh in his memory as though it had happened last week. He had learned the address from Master Graham by way of an innocent conversation. He hadn’t meant to murder the earl just yet, but he had been keen on information about the man who had killed his family, had wanted to see how he lived. His sgian dubh had been tucked into the elastic of his right sock, but such a small knife could have been there for any purpose. He had felt breathless upon seeing the manor house rise from the evening mist, hating that he found the sprawling, indomitable splendor both threatening and alluring. The gamekeeper had discovered him near the rose garden and had promptly dragged him to the kitchen by the scruff of his neck. Rutland had been in London for the season—he hadn’t known about seasons then—but his son had been in residence. Young Lord Percy had swiftly been summoned down to the kitchen.