His White Wager: Dark Duke’s Legacy Read online

  She sighed. “Fine. But if that fellow comes asking for favors for his shilling, you’re answering him.”

  Skull cracked his knuckles. “That’s fair, I’d say.”

  She stood then, moving toward the door. Silently, Skull followed.

  The night air was cool and with the lower temperature, the smell diminished. For a moment, she closed her eyes. She liked the night. It was quiet, peaceful.

  Of course, there was always the worry some cutthroat might jump out and slit one’s throat, but then again, her stepfather had trained her how to defend herself. Her reflexes were quick and her blade skills flawless.

  “It’s curious,” Skull said coming to stand next to her.

  “What?” she replied, tensing slightly. No one was happy when Skull started thinking. There were a few boxers who seemed like decent fellows, but most of the men who worked around them were as slippery as they were mean. And Skull was at the top of that list.

  “That Crito is so protective of you. When I was your age, I took care of meself.”

  Her brows rose. How old did he think she was? But it was best not to risk asking a question that might actually give Skull information. “You’re a great deal larger than me. Probably always were.”

  He grunted. “True.” Then he gave her a sidelong glance. “Was your father small?”

  “Don’t know,” she answered. Her mother had told her the truth, of course. She was a bastard. Her mother had been forced to submit to her father and Rebecca had been the result. Her mother lied to most everyone and claimed to be a widow, but Bec and Harold knew the truth.

  “Don’t know?”

  “He died when I was very young,” Bec said, the lie rolling easily off her tongue. “I don’t remember him at all.”

  Skull made a thoughtful sound somewhere deep in the back of his throat. “We’re not the lucky ones, are we?”

  That was an understatement. They were the very bottom of the bottom. “No.”

  Skull looked up at the stars then back down at her. “Hell. You seem like you might have been born under a cursed star.”

  She stopped then, turning to ask him what he meant. She had intelligence and cunning on her side. But the words died on her lips when she caught a movement out of her right eye. A cat? A rat? A man? Who could say, but caution was always the best policy. Slowly, she reached for the knife at her waist, even as she kept talking. “Why’s that? I’m smart at least.”

  He cleared his throat. “True. But you’re damn small and pretty for a boy. If you’d been a girl, with your brains, you could have married out of this shithole.”

  The knife nearly slipped from her fingers.

  A pretty face did not wash clean enough to rise out of the stink of High Garden. And she doubted she’d ever marry. Submitting to a man didn’t seem to win women very much, as far as she could tell. Being a wife seemed equivalent to servitude. She wished to build a life and business of her own.

  Skull’s thoughtful mood also caught her off guard, and she gave him another sideways glance. Usually, they walked in silence, unless he was regaling her with endlessly boring stories of his own fighting days. What had brought on this sudden interest in her?

  But she didn’t ask as she caught another shift in the shadows. Large, slow, and coming closer, it definitely wasn’t a cat.

  Her pulse thrummed as energy moved through her. She rolled the knife in her fingers as she gave Skull a single tap on the arm. It was their silent signal for trouble that they used at the club and he straightened, his fists clenching at his sides. Whoever was coming toward them, Skull would surely make them pay.

  Jacob shifted a bit closer to the boy and his protector, trying to hear every word.

  Because what he’d caught had been informative. He’d never met his father, this Bec fellow. He was a fair bit older than Jacob had guessed. Though, if he really was a White, that would be odd, indeed. The Whites were known for being excessively large.

  But he still wondered if this Bec didn’t have an older brother who might be the man Jacob searched for. Either way, he was learning potentially valuable information.

  He moved even closer, shifting in the shadow that hid him to try and catch whatever came next.

  “What if I like the shithole?” Bec asked, his voice ever soft.

  The other one spun in a circle, looking about him. For a second, Jacob might have sworn that the large thug looked him right in the eye, but then he kept spinning. “Like this place? Name one good thing about it?”

  One of Bec’s narrow shoulders rose and fell. “You’re never alone.”

  Jacob’s eyes scanned down the deserted street, the words making him even more apprehensive. What did that mean?

  Both Bec and the big one, the bodyguard from the club, started walking again, turning down the very next alley.

  Pushing out of the shadow, he followed, wanting to make certain he kept them in his sights.

  But the moment he rounded the corner, a fist landed hard in his face. His eye exploded in pain, and he dropped to the ground, his hands flying to cover his face as his knees crashed to the cobblestone. He let out a half growl, half moan as he realized his mistake. He’d walked right into their trap.

  “What do you know, Bec. It’s him. The guy you were worried about.” The large one leaned down, his battered face pushing right into Jacob’s. Jacob squinted at him with his one good eye even as pain pulsed through his face. Was the thug going to hit him again? “Guess what? You’re not getting your fucking shilling back. Consider it payment for sparing your life.”

  “My shilling?” he gritted out through his clenched teeth as he pushed away from the brute. “You can keep it.”

  “Got any more that might want to join the one in my pocket?”

  “Skull,” Bec said, his voice ringing with a warning. Then he moved closer. “Why are you following us? And be quick. Skull is not a very patient man.”

  He shook his head. What was it about his whispering voice that was…wrong? “I just. I thought I might know you.”

  Bec straightened even as Jacob slowly pulled himself up off the cobblestone.

  “Know me? Where would a man like you have ever become acquainted with me?”

  His eye was already swelling, but Jacob noted the narrow cut of Bec’s shoulders, the thinness of his arms. “I work for a family. The White family.”

  Jacob heard it then. A faint but quick intake of breath. It was the same sound a man standing trial made when Jacob delivered a powerful piece of evidence. It was a tell. The name meant something to the boy.

  “White family?” Skull said with a snort. “Who the hell are they?”

  But he ignored Skull, his one eye focusing on Bec.

  He’d pushed his hat back, and for the first time, Jacob took in his entire face.

  The sweeping line of his jaw, the fullness of his mouth, the stunning tilt of his eyes. Bec wrapped his arms about his middle, hugging himself in a tight grip. “White?”

  Jacob blinked the eye that still worked while his mind pieced together several details. The intelligence that spoke of someone older, the breathy voice, the delicate features. Bec was no male, she was a female. He sucked his breath in at the realization as he scanned his gaze down her features once again.

  Bec was a woman. Jacob would stake his career on it. And she was beautiful. Skull had been right about that. “That’s right. The Whites. Four brothers and one sister.”

  “Why would they send you here? Are they from here?” She cocked her head to the side, assessing him.

  From here? The Whites were the furthest thing from here a family might possibly be. Then again, two of the siblings, Justice and Sayden, had turned to the rookeries to make their living, rather than living with their father. “No. They’re not.”

  Jacob wondered if he should say more. Not only did he not want to say much in front of Skull, but too much information might frighten her away. Anyone who grew up in a place like this was cautious for very good reasons. Not enough
information, however, and she’d dismiss him. He needed to say exactly enough to earn the opportunity to speak with her alone.

  He knew where the shop was, of course. That was public record, but he didn’t know where Mr. and Mrs. Burton lived. He could follow them from the shop or follow Bec tonight. But either way, he’d not learn much until he determined where they lived. Only then could he see the members of the family.

  “Then why would you come here?” she asked, her hands dropping.

  That’s when Jacob noted that in her left hand, she held a knife that glinted softly in the moonlight. She might be a woman, but she spent time around rough men daily and she assuredly knew how to protect herself. “They think someone dear to them is here in High Garden.”

  “Someone dear to a nice family here in High Garden?” Skull laughed, taking a step closer to him. “Anyone who ends up here, has no one dear to him. You’re in the wrong place and you—” Skull pointed his finger, jabbing Jacob in the chest. “Should go back where you came from.”

  “I can’t do that.” Jacob knocked the man’s hand away. “My clients will insist that I complete the job and that’s what I intend to do.”

  “Do you?” Skull answered, his face growing hard. “Then I’ll have to insist a bit harder.”

  And before Jacob cold blink, he’d raised his fist again. The word no rose to his lips, but it hadn’t left his mouth before that same fist landed between his eyes. Darkness filled his vision and then he saw nothing.

  Chapter Three

  Two weeks later, Bec’s gaze swept over her stepfather’s shop, her face drawn into a deep frown as the morning sun shone through the broken windows.

  It had happened again.

  Stands knocked over, curtains pulled down, and broken tables littered the floor along with unraveled spools of thread. The door stood ajar, half broken off its hinges, letting the heat of the day into the shop.

  But the worst was the missing fabric. Bolts and bolts of silk and wool, spools of elaborate lace had been stolen. It would take a small fortune to replace all of it.

  Bec had an exact amount she’d tallied in her head, but she didn’t share it with Harold. It would only add to the droop in his shoulders. As if he heard her thoughts, he shook his head, rubbing at the thin spot. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Her mother softly cried in the corner, seated on a stool, as she rocked back and forth. “Why us?” she keened as she moved.

  Bec didn’t begrudge her lament. Her mother had had many hard years and deserved a quiet, peaceful life at her age.

  During the day, Petticoat Lane was perfectly safe. A sea of expensive carriages littered the streets as ladies came to furnish their wardrobes. And Burton’s Dress Shop was one of their favorites.

  But right on the edge of High Garden, at night…well, that was a different story.

  If those high ladies only knew what happened here at night. Not that they cared. As long as they got their pretty dresses, they weren’t concerned about the safety of the shopkeepers. The elite made certain that the people with less lived far away from the glitter and opulence. Even hard-working people like her mother and stepfather were kept at a distance.

  They’d been robbed before, but this was different. This destruction felt somehow more personal, more thorough, too. They’d left nothing whole. Were they targeting her mother because of her ethnicity? It was a possibility.

  She clenched her hands into the folds of her pale pink gown.

  No one from Crito’s fighting club would recognize her in the light of day. Her hair was artfully twisted back, her gown of the finest quality, thanks to her mother, and her features fully visible. She kept so much of her face hidden in the dark club, she wasn’t even certain most of the men had noticed her different heritage.

  Not that she’d ever seen any of them outside of the club, but if she did, they’d surely not suspect that she was the very Bec who counted their coins each night.

  Harold scrubbed his face. “We’ve got orders to fill. We can’t lose business now. We’ll have to replace the goods.”

  “Do we have enough coin for that?” her mother asked. “It’s only been two months since the last time we were robbed.”

  They didn’t have enough. Bec knew that for certain. Just as she also knew, she’d be using her own funds to replace the fabric.

  They could shut down the business, of course. She didn’t want it when her stepfather retired, she had her own dreams, dreams of an running an accounting firm, but she knew that Harold would never allow his business to end like this. He had his pride too, and besides, the shop brought a decent profit when thieves didn’t target it. Hopefully, when they reopened in a new location, it would turn a nice profit for Bec and her family.

  Which meant she’d be working for Crito that much longer. And her family would have to stay here for another year—more—before they could afford to leave. To not fill those orders would surely mean that her family would be blacklisted and no more patrons would enter their doors.

  She gritted her teeth as she tried to decide who she hated more. The scum who did this, or the elite who ignored it all.

  Her mother detested that Bec worked at night dressed as a man. She’d forbade it in the beginning but Bec had a will of iron and when money had run dry, her mother had finally acquiesced in the hopes of keeping them all safer. But every time Bec got close to moving them out, something like this happened.

  It wasn’t that she minded the work at Crito’s. In fact, where the shop felt like she fed the elite, the club was the place where she thumbed her nose at them. There, the richest were taken the most advantage of, their bets having worse odds. If she were honest, she found that intensely gratifying.

  But she couldn’t stay there forever. It had grown increasingly dangerous. She was the boy who never grew up.

  Hadn’t the event a fortnight prior proved the point?

  That barrister fellow had come looking for her, and he’d found her with ease. And Skull, he’d asked a great many questions on that walk home that made her nervous.

  She wondered how the barrister had faired. When Skull had knocked him out, she had dragged him into an alley where he was far less likely to be discovered and then robbed. But left him she had.

  For all she knew, he could be dead.

  A small niggle of guilt twisted in her stomach. The man certainly hadn’t deserved that. But then again, that was the Garden for you. Enter at your own risk.

  Still, his voice had echoed in her head and he whispered to her while she slept, filling her dreams with the oddest fantasies.

  Moonlit dances and stolen kisses and…

  She forced herself to stop. She’d never allow a man to sweep her off her feet. Ever. Not after what had happened to her mother.

  “I can replace the fabric,” she said. “I’ve money enough.”

  “No,” her parents said at the same time.

  “I’ll not take that sort of help,” Harold said, his lip curling. He always allowed her to help in the end, but she appreciated his attempt to not burden her.

  “Hush,” her mother said to her husband as she rose from her stool. “How short are we?”

  Bec quickly rattled off the numbers. How much they needed to fill the most immediate orders, what the profits would be, and how much fabric that would allow them to buy.

  Harold scrubbed his head. “Not enough.”

  “No,” Bec said. “Not enough.”

  “Excuse me,” a voice called from the open door. Bec instantly recognized the sound. Low, deep, and so pleasing an ache started in her chest. “May I be of service?”

  Her gaze lifted to the man she’d met a fortnight ago. The one who worked for the Whites. Tall, his piercing blue eyes met hers with an even stare as his square jaw clenched. He was both masculine and fine in his impeccably cut trousers and coat. His eye only showed the slightest discoloration where Skull had punched him with his massive fists.

  “Service?” Harold asked. “Are you an inves
tigator?”

  “No, sir,” the stranger answered. “Mr. Jacob Veritas. Barrister.”

  Harold’s eyes lit as he waved the man in. “Harold Burton, good sir. Dressmaker and shop proprietor. Glad you’re here. It’s the third break-in this year. Worst one yet. We’re desperate to learn who’s doing it. Costing us an arm and a leg.”

  But the barrister’s gaze barely swept over her stepfather before it landed on her. With a quick calculating sweep down her body, he seemed to take in every detail of her, from her hair right down to her slippers. Did he recognize her? Know she was the boy he’d met? It certainly wasn’t a coincidence he was here, in their shop, after meeting at the club.

  Not one emotion flickered across his face, and yet, the single glance seemed to steal the breath from her lungs as he looked back at her stepfather and reached out a hand to shake Harold’s. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Papa,” she said to Harold, stepping closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Barristers don’t work for free. You’d have to pay him.” Then she forced herself to look at Mr. Veritas. He unsettled her when most men didn’t, and though she didn’t understand it, she knew to trust her instincts. Likely, the discomfort stemmed from the fact that he could ruin her carefully crafted ruse of identity. Their eyes held, and she felt heat filling her cheeks. “We’ll call the Bow Street Runners.” Again. Not that they were likely to do any good.

  “They don’t care about us,” Harold answered her, pumping Mr. Veritas’s hand.

  She crossed her arms. Veritas didn’t care about them either. He cared about the family who employed him. A family, she knew she was connected to by name at least, but he need not be privy to that information. Though her last name was White, she used Burton now out of respect for Harold and general ease.

  Then again, perhaps she had some bargaining chips to get Harold the help he needed.