If Mira had expected her first conversation with Lysander Pell to yield instant, glittering revelations, she was swiftly disabused.
He was charming. Of course he was. He inquired after her health with such sincere concern that half the room nearly forgave him on the spot for whatever he might or might not have done. He spoke of Thomas with just enough warmth to suggest genuine affection, but not enough sorrow to suggest guilt.
“Your husband was a man of vision,” he said, standing with her beside a marble column while music and conversation swelled around them. “He saw possibilities where others saw only risk.”
“He also saw ledgers,” Mira said. “Very clearly. It is a pity they have become so fuzzy since his death.”
Pell’s lashes flickered. “Business is…complicated, Mrs. Godwin. Especially in these volatile times. Wars, tariffs, storms. One cannot always—”
“Account for missing ships,” she finished. “Yes. I have been told that very often.”
He smiled, a touch tighter. “I am doing all I can to salvage what remains of our ventures. I assure you, I was as shocked as anyone to discover how precarious the situation had become.”
“Were you?” She tilted her head. “Your last letter to my husband was full of assurances. Profits. Opportunities. And then…nothing.”
He spread his hands. “My correspondence was directed to the office, as always. When your husband’s illness worsened, I thought it kinder not to trouble him with daily irritations.”
“Daily irritations such as consignments being diverted and partners making…other arrangements?” she asked softly.
Pell’s gaze sharpened. For a moment, the charm peeled back, revealing the edge beneath.
“You have been talking to someone,” he said.
“Myself,” Mira said. “At great length. Long, lonely evenings in the country are excellent for mathematics. Tell me, Mr. Pell—when you signed the bill of lading for the *Anthea’s* last voyage, did you do so as a partner of Thomas Godwin, or as an independent agent?”
Pell’s jaw flexed. “You are very…well-informed.”
“I read plays,” she said. “And ledgers.”
His smile returned, brittle but intact. “I assure you, Mrs. Godwin, everything I have done has been with an eye to preserving as much of your husband’s legacy as possible. It would be a tragedy for his widow to be left with nothing.”
“There we agree,” Mira said. “It *would* be a tragedy.”
He inclined his head, as if she had praised him. “I am in the process of negotiating with a new investor, in fact. Once the terms are settled, I hope to be able to make you a very generous offer for your late husband’s shares. It would free you from the worry of…tainted accounts.”
“Tainted,” she repeated.
“Burdened with old entanglements,” he clarified smoothly. “You are young. You should not be chained to the remnants of your husband’s ventures. Let me relieve you of them. I can arrange everything. You have only to sign.”
Sign.
The word rang in her ears.
If she did as he suggested, she would be neatly cut out of whatever truth lay buried in those “old entanglements.” She would be given a sum—respectable, perhaps even tempting—and patted gently on the head and sent back to Sussex.
She had not come to London to be soothed.
“An offer,” she said. “How generous.”
“I am a generous man,” he said, his eyes steady.
She smiled. “I shall consider it, of course.”
He relaxed. “I knew you were a woman of sense.”
“And in the meantime,” she went on, her tone light, “perhaps you might show me your new offices? I should like to know where my husband spent so many of his days.”
Pell hesitated. “They are hardly fit for a lady’s eyes.”
“My eyes are quite sturdy,” she said.
“I meant,” he said, “that the docks are…unpleasant.”
“I have seen docks before,” she said. “Thomas used to take me. He said I should understand what it was we were eating at dinner.”
Pell’s smile returned, a touch brittle. “Very well. If you insist, I shall arrange a respectable escort and we shall tour the premises. But not at night, Mrs. Godwin. I insist on that.”
“At night,” she said, making a show of shuddering, “I imagine all sorts of dreadful things happen.”
“Indeed,” he murmured. “Which is why you must promise me you will not go wandering in search of…answers on your own. London is not kind to ladies who stray too far from their parlors.”
“Then it is a good thing I have you to guide me,” she said.
He bowed again, this time with a hint of triumph.
As he drifted away to charm another circle, Mira let out a slow breath.
“He is lying,” she murmured.
“Obviously,” Mrs. Willoughby said at her shoulder, making her jump. “Men only speak that smoothly when they are attempting to tuck something inconvenient under the carpet. What did he offer you?”
“Freedom,” Mira said. “And money. In exchange for my signature.”
“Burn your hand before you let it touch a pen,” Mrs. Willoughby advised. “I do *not* like that man.”
“You like very few men,” Mira pointed out.
“True,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “But I dislike that one particularly. He looks at women as if we were lines on a ledger. Assets. Liabilities.”
“I intend to become a very inconvenient liability,” Mira said.
Mrs. Willoughby chuckled. “I suspect you already have.”
***
Two days later, Mira found herself sitting in Mrs. Willoughby’s morning room, staring at a small scrap of paper as if it were a map to buried treasure.
It was, in a way.
Mr. Ellison, the solicitor, had called that morning. A brisk, balding man with ink-stained fingers and a twitchy eyelid, he had expressed the appropriate condolences and then, fidgeting with his hat, mentioned that he had heard, from a mutual acquaintance, that Mira meant to seek out Mr. Pell.
“I must warn you, Mrs. Godwin,” he had said, “that Mr. Pell’s situation is…tenuous. He has made certain…commitments…that may not be entirely legal. Or safe.”
“Smuggling?” Mira had asked bluntly.
Ellison had flinched. “That is a harsh word. Perhaps…creative accounting of duties.”
“And the men he has made these…commitments…with?” she had pressed.
“Not the kind of men one invites to tea,” Ellison had muttered.
And then, perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of self-preservation, he had provided the scrap of paper now resting on the table: the address of a dockside tavern in Wapping.
*Mariner’s Rest. Ask for Tully. He knows Pell’s movements.*
“Tully?” Mrs. Willoughby said now, peering at the note over Mira’s shoulder. “It sounds like a fish.”
“Ellison says he is a clerk,” Mira said. “The sort who sees everything and says nothing. For a price.”
“And you mean to pay it?” Mrs. Willoughby asked.
“Of course.”
“In a tavern.” Mrs. Willoughby’s lips pursed. “On the docks. At night, if the address is any indication. You have entirely lost your senses.”
“In the afternoon, then,” Mira countered. “I am not completely reckless.”
Mrs. Willoughby tapped the note. “You cannot go alone.”
“I have Sally,” Mira said.
“Who will faint at the first sight of a man with a knife in his boot,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “No. You must have a man. Two, preferably. Large, ugly, and willing to glower.”
“I am fresh out of large, ugly men,” Mira said drily. “All the ones I know are back in Sussex, glowering at pigs.”
Mrs. Willoughby considered this. “What about Mr. Ferris?”
Mira’s heart gave a ridiculous little hop. “Mr. Ferris?”
“Yes. The second son with the nose. He *was* hanging about Pell the other night, looking as if he had swallowed a wasp. And he used to be thick as thieves with your husband. He knows the docks. And the men. And the taverns.”
“I do not know him,” Mira pointed out.
“Then we shall fix that,” Mrs. Willoughby said, already reaching for her pen and paper. “I will invite him to dinner. Tonight. Along with a few others, to keep propriety satisfied. You may observe him across the table, decide if he looks like the sort of man who knows how to use his fists.”
“And if he is not?” Mira asked.
“Then we shall find someone else,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “But my instincts, bad as they are, tell me that Mr. Ferris may be precisely the sort of nuisance you need.”
Mira eyed her. “You collect nuisances, do you?”
“They make life interesting,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Besides, I feel some loyalty to poor Thomas. He was one of the few men who could speak of trade without making me yawn. If this Ferris fellow can help untangle the knot Pell has tied, I shall gladly feed him my best roast.”
“You intend to bribe him with dinner,” Mira said.
“Men like that are always hungry,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “In one way or another.”
Mira’s mind unhelpfully supplied an image of those grey eyes from the other night, glinting beneath tousled red hair. Hungry, perhaps, but not in the way most women meant.
She pushed the thought firmly away.
“Very well,” she said. “Invite him. But do not tell him why.”
Mrs. Willoughby smirked. “Of course not. That would be too easy. We must give him room to feel heroic.”
***
Daniel Ferris had not expected to be fed by rich women this week.
He had expected, with a certain grim inevitability, to be hounded by his landlord, possibly evicted, and eventually forced to swallow his pride and write to his brother for funds. The invitation from Mrs. Willoughby, therefore, came as a delicious reprieve.
“And how did you contrive this?” he asked his friend Reggie Clarke that afternoon at the coffee-house, waving the heavy cream-laid paper.
Reggie, a plump, amiable fellow who had the happy knack of always being invited to places despite having no fortune to speak of, shrugged. “Mrs. Willoughby likes me. I make her laugh. She asked who in town could be relied upon to be amusing and not likely to propose to any of her guests. I gave her your name.”
“I am moved,” Daniel said. “I shall write you into my will.”
“See that you leave me something more valuable than your debts,” Reggie said cheerfully. “Apparently she has some tragic young widow staying with her. Everyone’s talking.”
Daniel’s grip on the invitation tightened. “Oh?”
Reggie nodded. “Yes. Mrs. Mira Godwin. Wife of that merchant fellow who died last year. The one who used to bore everyone to tears about sugar tariffs. Mrs. Willoughby says she’s very *lively.* For a widow.”
Lively. Daniel had seen that, in the tilt of her chin, the flash in her eyes. Not frivolous. Not coquettish. Alive in the way a struck match is alive.
“Do you know her?” Reggie asked.
“No,” Daniel said. “Not yet.”
Reggie waggled his brows. “You mean to.”
“I mean,” Daniel said cautiously, “to satisfy my curiosity.”
“And perhaps some other, less noble appetites?” Reggie suggested.
Daniel’s mind, unbidden, supplied the image of the blue silk clinging to her hips. The rise and fall of her breasts when she had laughed at some remark of Lady Bennett’s. The way her throat had moved when she swallowed.
He took a slow sip of coffee. “She is recently bereaved,” he said. “I am not a complete scoundrel.”
“Half a scoundrel, perhaps,” Reggie said. “Enough to keep a dinner interesting.”
Daniel smiled. “Exactly.”
He did not mention Pell. Or Harcourt. Or the Mariner’s Rest.
He had visited the tavern the night before. The sign out front—painted with a mermaid who possessed, indeed, very little tail and rather too much bosom—had swung in the damp wind like a warning.
Inside, the air had smelled of stale ale, wet wool, and despair.
He had found Tully—a thin man with ink on his cuffs and eyes like a nervous bird—nursing a mug in the corner. They had spoken in low voices. Tully had confirmed what Harcourt had hinted: Pell was entangled with Caine. Deeply. Desperately.
“He’s promised things he can’t give,” Tully had muttered. “He’s signing chits on a future that don’t exist. And Caine—Caine don’t like to be told ‘later.’”
“And Mrs. Godwin?” Daniel had asked. “Have you heard of her?”
Tully had swallowed. “Only that Pell’s fretting. He don’t like anyone asking questions he ain’t already written the answers to. A widow with too much time and too sharp a tongue? He’ll either buy her off or—”
“Or what?” Daniel had pressed.
Tully’s gaze had slid away. “Or find someone to frighten her.”
Daniel had felt something old and hot stir in his chest. “Then we must ensure she has company when she goes where she shouldn’t.”
Tully had studied him. “Why d’you care, Mr. Ferris? She ain’t your kin.”
“She’s Godwin’s widow,” Daniel had said. “That’s enough.”
Now, as he turned the invitation from Mrs. Willoughby over in his fingers, he could not help wondering whether fate had a sense of humor after all.
Dinner with the widow he had been trying to keep out of trouble.
At Mrs. Willoughby’s table, he would be on his best behavior. There would be candles and courses and gossip. No talk of taverns or smugglers. Yet his presence there, he suspected, was no accident.
Mrs. Willoughby liked to stir pots.
He only hoped she knew how hot this one was.
***
Mrs. Willoughby’s dining room gleamed. The table was laid with polished silver and shining glass; the candles made everything glow as if it had been dipped in honey.
Mira, seated midway down on Mrs. Willoughby’s right, felt oddly exposed. The blue gown, worn again, had grown no less revealing with familiarity. If anything, she felt it more keenly tonight, aware of the way men’s gazes drifted, lingered, darted away.
“Stop fidgeting,” Mrs. Willoughby murmured. “You look as if you’ve been trussed up for market.”
“I feel as if I have,” Mira said through her teeth.
“Good,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Let them look. Let them underestimate you. It will make biting them later so much more satisfying.”
Mira huffed. “You are a dreadful influence.”
“Flatterer,” Mrs. Willoughby said.
Guests drifted in. Lady Bennett. A vicar with a perpetually anxious expression. A pair of sisters in unsubtle search of husbands. Reggie Clarke, who greeted everyone with the same cheerful interest and seemed impervious to embarrassment.
And then Daniel Ferris.
He entered without fanfare, his coat brushed within an inch of its life, his boots polished, his cravat only slightly askew. The candlelight caught at the threads on his cuffs, making their fraying edges glimmer faintly. His hair, impossible to tame, curled rebelliously over his collar.
He looked, Mira thought, like a man who had spent an hour making himself presentable and five minutes undoing some of that effort out of sheer contrariness.
Mrs. Willoughby’s lips curved. “Ah. Our stray has arrived.”
“Our stray?” Mira repeated.
“I invited him,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You wanted information. He *is* information, in a rather attractive package.”
“Mrs. Willoughby,” Mira hissed.
“Hush,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Smile. He’s looking.”
Mira did not intend to look back.
She looked back.
Their gazes met across the table. This time, there was no accident about it.
Ferris’s eyes held hers for a moment—steady, assessing, oddly serious. Then his mouth curved in a faint, almost ironic smile, as if acknowledging some private joke at his own expense.
Mrs. Willoughby, seizing the moment with indecent speed, raised her voice just enough. “Mr. Ferris! You are late. Come and be punished by sitting beside Mrs. Godwin.”
Mira’s breath caught. She shot Mrs. Willoughby a look that promised retribution.
Mrs. Willoughby only winked.
Ferris hesitated, just for a heartbeat, then inclined his head. “I can think of worse punishments,” he said.
A ripple of laughter moved around the table. The unsubtle sisters tittered. Lady Bennett sniffed.
Ferris took the chair to Mira’s left.
He smelled faintly of clean linen and something sharper—coffee, perhaps, or ink. Up close, she could see the faint scattering of freckles across his nose and the beginning of stubble on his jaw, as if he had shaved carelessly that morning and not bothered since.
“Mrs. Godwin,” he said quietly, once the general bustle of seating had subsided. “Allow me to offer my condolences on your loss.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ferris,” she said, matching his subdued tone. “I understand you knew my husband.”
His gaze flicked to her, then to his plate, then back. “I did. He was…difficult to avoid, if one moved in certain circles.”
“Such as the circles that haunt docks and counting-houses?” she asked.
His lips quirked. “Such as that. And certain drawing rooms, when Mrs. Willoughby took a fancy to peppering her dinners with men who talked of profit instead of poetry.”
“Poetry rarely puts food on the table,” Mira said.
“Nor does profit, if it vanishes into the river,” he said.
Their eyes met again.
There. In that shared glance. Recognition. Not of each other, but of the shape of the wound they both circled.
“Tell me of him,” Mira said softly, surprising them both.
Ferris hesitated. “I do not think this is the place for such talk,” he said, low. “Unless you wish to spoil Mrs. Willoughby’s pudding.”
“I should very much like to spoil something,” Mira said. “Preferably Mr. Pell’s day. But pudding will do in a pinch.”
He huffed a laugh. “You are not what I expected.”
“You expected a tragic wraith in black,” she said.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Forgive me. London corrupts one’s imagination. We begin to think in types. The grieving widow, consumed by sorrow. The ruthless partner. The foolish second son.”
“And which are you?” she asked. “The foolish second son?”
“According to my brother, yes,” he said. “According to my tailor, an unreliable customer. According to Mrs. Willoughby, apparently, a source of amusement.”
“And according to yourself?” she pressed.
His gaze cooled, just a little. “A man who has made enough mistakes to fill a ledger and not enough amends to balance it.”
“With regard to my husband?” she asked, allowing the question that had been itching at her tongue since she had first learned his name.
He flinched, almost imperceptibly. “Among other things.”
Lady Bennett, seated opposite, eyed them through narrowed lids. “If you two are going to speak in such thrillingly low tones, you must at least share with the rest of us occasionally. It is rude to hoard all the intrigue.”
“Forgive us, Lady Bennett,” Ferris said smoothly. “We were merely commiserating on the deplorable state of trade.”
“Trade is always deplorable,” Lady Bennett said. “That is its nature. The only question is who is deplored most thoroughly when it collapses.”
“Mrs. Godwin intends to find out,” Ferris murmured.
“Does she?” Lady Bennett’s gaze sharpened. “And are you to assist her, Mr. Ferris? Or hinder her?”
“I have not yet decided,” he said.
Mira arched a brow. “Do you always announce your reluctance so plainly?”
“Only when I suspect I am about to be recruited,” he said.
Mrs. Willoughby, catching the drift of their exchange, smiled. “Mr. Ferris, I understand you know the docks better than any gentleman has a right to.”
“I know them as well as any merchant’s clerk,” he said. “Which is to say, not nearly well enough to avoid ruin.”
“I suppose we must be grateful you have so much experience, then,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Mira here has set her heart on visiting Wapping. I confess the very thought gives me palpitations. All that tar. And vulgarity.”
Ferris’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. “Wapping,” he repeated.
“Yes,” Mrs. Willoughby said blithely. “The Mariner’s Rest, specifically. To see an old friend of Mr. Ellison’s. A Tully.”
Ferris set his fork down, very carefully. “Tully.”
“Yes,” Mira said evenly. “Do you know him?”
Ferris looked at her for a long moment, his expression giving away far too much for a cynical man.
“Yes,” he said at last. “I know him.”
“Then perhaps you might accompany us,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” Lady Bennett snapped at the same time Mrs. Willoughby said, “What an excellent idea.”
Ferris exhaled. “Mrs. Godwin, have you ever been to Wapping?”
“Not in recent memory,” she said.
“Have you ever been in a tavern on the docks?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Then you have no idea what you are suggesting,” he said quietly. “Men like Pell frequent such places when they wish to be away from…people like you.”
“People like me?” she repeated, an edge under the softness.
“Women with clean gloves and good names,” he said. “Widows who might still be mistaken for innocents.”
“There is very little innocent about me at present,” she said. “I have read enough account books to be thoroughly depraved.”
His mouth twitched, despite himself. “That is not the kind of depravity I meant.”
“Nevertheless,” she said, “I am going.”
He stared at her. “Why?”
“Because Mr. Pell is entangled with men who meet in such places,” she said simply. “Because he has offered to buy me off. Because there are gaps in the records that can only be filled by someone who sees all the ships that come and go. Someone like Tully.”
“You could simply let Ellison handle it,” he said. “Or Harcourt. Or Gilbert Godwin. Or any of a dozen men who think themselves more suited to such muck.”
“They have had months,” she said. “They have achieved nothing.”
His jaw clenched. “You will be seen. You will be talked about. You will be—”
“In danger?” she finished. “Yes. Possibly. I am in danger now, Mr. Ferris. Of being slowly suffocated by respectable debts. Of being patronized into oblivion. I would rather face danger that at least has the courtesy to look me in the eye.”
He looked at her. Really looked. Past the blue silk, past the black ribbon, past the artfully tamed curls.
Whatever he saw there made something in his face relent.
“When,” he said.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Mrs. Willoughby has promised to feign a headache on my behalf.”
Mrs. Willoughby, unabashed, nodded. “I have so many headaches I hardly know what to do with them all.”
Ferris pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mrs. Godwin—Mira—”
She stiffened. “Mrs. Godwin will do, Mr. Ferris.”
He inclined his head. “Mrs. Godwin. You are asking me to escort you to a place where any gentleman with an ounce of self-preservation would rather not be seen. With a lady. Let alone a widow whose reputation is already balanced on a knife’s edge.”
“I thought you did not particularly value your own reputation,” she said. “You seem to spend a great deal of time shredding it at card tables.”
His mouth curved, humorless. “Touché.”
“Besides,” she said softly, “I am told you feel you owe my husband something. Consider this an opportunity to reduce that debt.”
His gaze darkened. “Who told you that?”
“Mr. Cobb,” she said. “And Mr. Ellison. And the way you look when his name is mentioned.”
He flinched, barely. “Very well,” he said at last, the words ground out. “Tomorrow. The Mariner’s Rest. You will wear something that does not make you look like a jewel in a pickpocket’s hand. No blue silk.”
“Grey,” she said. “And a plain bonnet.”
“And no maid,” he added. “She will only get underfoot. You may bring a footman if you insist, but he must be the sort who knows how to swing a fist without swooning.”
“I have just the man,” Mrs. Willoughby said, entirely too cheerfully. “My cook’s cousin’s boy. He has a scar on his chin and no sense at all.”
Ferris groaned softly. “I am going to regret this.”
“Very likely,” Mira said. “But you would regret it more if you did not.”
He looked at her as if he very much wished to deny it.
He did not.
“Eat your pudding,” he said abruptly, as the footmen began to set small, artfully arranged plates before them. “You will need your strength.”
“And you?” she asked. “Will you be fortified by dessert as well?”
“I will be fortified by the knowledge that if anything happens to you, Gilbert Godwin will have my head on a pike,” he said. “And Mrs. Willoughby will never feed me again.”
“Perish the thought,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “My cook is quite proud of her puddings.”
They ate. They spoke of safer things in front of safer ears: the weather, the latest scandal involving a duke’s daughter and a stable boy, the price of sugar. But beneath the veneer of polite conversation, something else pulsed.
A plan.
A risk.
An alliance, fragile and freshly forged.
***
The next afternoon, the sky hung low over Wapping.
Mira stepped down from the hired coach onto a cobbled street slick with river damp. The air smelled of tar and fish and smoke. Men moved around them with brisk, economical strides, their faces turned against the wind.
She had obeyed Ferris’s instructions. The grey gown she wore was plain and serviceable, her bonnet pulled low over her brow. Her cloak hid the shape of her figure. She might have been a governess, or a shopkeeper’s wife, if not for the quality of the cloth and the way she held herself.
Ferris, waiting by the corner, tipped his hat as she approached. He wore an old coat, his boots less polished than usual, his cravat tied carelessly. He looked less like a gentleman and more like the sort of man who belonged on these streets: a little shabby, a little wary, entirely at home in the murk.
Beside him stood a young man with a scar on his chin and an expression of eager determination. He was, Mira suspected, Mrs. Willoughby’s cook’s cousin’s boy.
“Mrs. Godwin,” Ferris said. “This is Ned. Ned, this is Mrs. Godwin. If she comes to harm, I will kill you. If I come to harm, Mrs. Willoughby will kill you. Choose which fate you prefer.”
Ned swallowed. “Yessir. Ma’am. I mean…I won’t let nothin’ happen.”
Mira suppressed a smile. “I am certain you will be very helpful, Ned.”
They set off toward the river. The houses leaned toward each other, their upper stories nearly touching, as if conspiring. Laundry flapped on lines strung across the alleyways. Somewhere a woman shouted; somewhere else, a baby wailed.
“Stay close,” Ferris murmured. “Do not make eye contact with anyone unless I tell you to. And for the love of all that is holy, do not look as if you’re fascinated.”
“I *am* fascinated,” she whispered back.
“I know,” he said. “Try to look bored instead. It’s safer.”
The Mariner’s Rest loomed ahead, its sign swinging creakily. The painted mermaid’s lack of tail was even more obvious by daylight.
Mira’s stomach tightened. This was folly. Madness. A respectable widow had no business here.
But then, she reflected, she had ceased to be entirely respectable the moment she decided to come to London.
Ferris paused at the threshold. “Last chance,” he said quietly. “You can go back to the coach. I can speak to Tully alone.”
“And then report to me, having filtered everything through your own sense of what I should and should not know,” she said. “No, thank you.”
He sighed. “Very well. Stay behind me.”
He pushed open the door.
The interior was dim, even in the afternoon. Smoke curled in lazy streaks beneath low beams. Men hunched over tables, their hands wrapped around tankards as if anchoring themselves. Conversations faltered as the three of them stepped in, then resumed with deliberate nonchalance.
Mira felt every eye on her.
Ferris moved with the easy insolence of someone who had walked into such places often enough to know he belonged—or at least to convince others he did. He nodded to the barkeep, a broad woman with arms like hams and eyes like knives.
“Afternoon, Bess.”
“Ferris.” Her gaze slid to Mira. “You’ve brought a lady. That’s new. You finally taken leave of your senses?”
“Temporarily,” he said. “Is Tully in?”
“In the back,” Bess said. “Making love to his figures. He’ll be delighted to be interrupted by a pretty face for once, instead of your ugly mug.”
Ferris grinned. “You are too kind.”
He led Mira toward a small door at the rear. Ned loomed at her other side, trying very hard to look intimidating and managing only to look constipated.
The back room was smaller than she had imagined. A narrow table, a few stools, a shelf of battered ledgers. Tully sat at the table, hunched over a stack of papers, his lips moving silently as he calculated.
He looked up as they entered. His eyes darted from Ferris to Mira to Ned, then back to Mira.
“I told you to come alone,” he said to Ferris, his voice thin.
“I brought reinforcements,” Ferris said. “And a client.”
“I am not his client,” Mira said. “Not yet.”
Tully blinked. “You’re a… Are you…?”
“Mira Godwin,” she said. “Thomas Godwin’s widow.”
Tully’s face crumpled, then rearranged itself hastily. “Mrs. Godwin. I—I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” she said. “You can make amends by telling me everything you know about Mr. Lysander Pell.”
Tully’s gaze slid to Ferris, who spread his hands. “You heard the lady.”
“This is dangerous,” Tully whispered. “If Caine hears I’ve been talking—”
“Then we shall be careful what we say,” Mira interrupted. “But I did not come all this way to be told to go home and embroider. I want to know where my husband’s money went. I want to know how much of it is lining Mr. Pell’s pockets. And I want to know what sort of noose he has tied around his own neck. If I can loosen it for him—”
“Why would you?” Tully blurted.
“—I may be able to choke him with it instead,” she finished calmly.
Ferris made a small sound, half laugh, half regret. “Remind me never to cross you, Mrs. Godwin.”
“See that you don’t,” she said.
Tully swallowed. “Pell’s in deep,” he muttered. “He’s been diverting goods. Signing for consignments under false names. Taking Caine’s coin, promising more than he can deliver. He thought he could play both sides. Make enough to square Godwin’s debts and his own, then walk away. But the river don’t let go so easy.”
“Did my husband know?” Mira asked.
Tully hesitated. “I…don’t think so. Godwin was…straight. Too straight. He did things by the book. Pell…didn’t. That’s why Caine wanted Pell, not Godwin.”
“Caine wanted my husband out of the way,” Mira said quietly.
Tully’s eyes widened. “I didn’t say that.”
Ferris stepped closer. “Tully. Did you hear anything—*anything*—that suggests Godwin’s illness was not natural?”
Tully’s hands twisted in his lap. “No. I swear it. Caine don’t work like that. Not with men like Godwin. It’s bad for business, going after respectable folk direct. He prefers…accidents. Ruined cargo. Rumors. Debt.”
“Debt that kills slowly,” Mira said.
Tully nodded miserably. “Pell thought he could juggle it. He was wrong. Now Caine’s breathing down his neck, and he’s looking for any way out. New investors. Old partners’ widows. Anyone with a scrap of coin.”
“New investors like Harcourt?” Ferris asked.
“And others,” Tully said. “Men with titles. Men who think they’re above the stink. Pell’s promised them all the same thing: profit. He ain’t told them what happens if Caine don’t get his cut.”
Mira’s mind raced. “If Pell falls, he drags them all with him.”
“Aye,” Tully said. “And Caine don’t care whose names are on the paper, as long as he gets what he’s owed. If he don’t…”
He made a gesture across his throat.
Silence fell.
Mira’s heart pounded. Danger was no longer a vague notion, a whisper. It had shape now. Names.
“You must not see Pell alone,” Tully blurted. “If he thinks you know…if he thinks you can expose him…”
“I am not afraid of him,” Mira said.
“You should be,” Ferris muttered.
“Fear does not keep ledgers from lying,” she said. “Knowledge does.”
“Sometimes knowledge just paints a target on your back,” Ferris said.
“Then I shall make myself too troublesome a target to hit,” she said.
Tully stared at her, then at Ferris. “She’s mad,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Ferris said softly. “But she’s our best chance.”
“Chance at what?” Mira asked.
“At untying this knot without hanging half of London with it,” Ferris said. “If we move too fast, if we accuse the wrong man in the wrong way, Caine will close ranks. Pell will vanish. You will be left with rumors and no proof.”
“I need more than rumors,” she said.
“Then we must get proof,” he said. “Bills of lading. Duplicate ledgers. Witnesses.”
“And where do you propose we find those?” she asked.
Ferris smiled grimly. “At the Mariner’s Rest, apparently.”
Tully made a strangled sound. “You’re already at the Mariner’s Rest.”
“Not this room,” Ferris said. “The other one. The back of the back.”
Tully shook his head vigorously. “No. No. You don’t want to go there. That’s where…where they meet. Caine’s men. Pell. The others. It’s not for—” His gaze flicked to Mira. “For ladies.”
“Lucky for us I am a widow, then,” she said. “I have fewer illusions to shed.”
Ferris pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Mrs. Godwin. Listen to me very carefully. There are places in this city where wearing a skirt is as dangerous as wearing a target. The back rooms where Caine’s men drink and deal are such places. If you walk in there, no one will care whose widow you are. They will see only a woman out of place.”
“Out of place is where all interesting things happen,” she said quietly. “I will not be reckless, Mr. Ferris. I will not put my life—or you, or Tully, or Ned here—at unnecessary risk. But I will not turn back now that I know how deep this runs.”
He stared at her. The lamplight in the small room carved shadows under his eyes, making him look older, more tired.
“You are going to do this with or without me,” he said at last.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then better with,” he muttered. “At least then I can stand between you and some of the knives.”
“Do you intend to stop all of them?” she asked.
“I can try,” he said.
Her chest tightened. “Why?”
He blinked. “Why?”
“You said you owed my husband,” she said. “You said you feel your ledger unbalanced. But this—this goes beyond duty.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he said, “When Godwin brought me into his partnership, I was…adrift. My brother had my future laid out for me like a prison: curate, marriage to some meek girl with a dowry, a life of small sermons and smaller pleasures. Godwin dragged me to the docks and said, ‘Look. The world. It is messy and dangerous and often unjust. But here, at least, you can do something that matters.’”
His lips twisted. “He believed in me when I hadn’t yet decided I deserved it. And then I introduced him to Pell. I thought I was giving him opportunity. I gave him a rope. He tied it around his neck and called it a ladder. When he fell, the least I can do is untangle the knots for the ones left holding the other end.”
Mira’s throat burned.
“That is,” she said quietly, “a very complicated way of saying you are a decent man, Mr. Ferris.”
He snorted. “Don’t spread that rumor. It would ruin my reputation.”
“I thought you had no use for your reputation,” she said.
“I have some fondness for my vices,” he said. “Being seen in taverns with widows is one of them.”
Despite herself, she smiled. “You are impossible.”
“Frequently,” he agreed.
Ned shifted from foot to foot. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, ma’am, but if you’re goin’ to the *other* back room, we should go now. It’ll be busier soon. Easier to slip in without no one noticin’.”
Mira looked at Ferris. “Is this wise?”
“No,” he said. “But it may be necessary. Tully?” He nodded at the clerk. “Can you get us in?”
Tully stared at him, then at Mira, then at the ceiling, as if seeking divine intervention.
At last, he sighed. “There’s a door behind the barrels,” he muttered. “Goes to a little hallway. At the end, there’s another door. That’s where they do their deals. I can say I’ve come to fetch a document for Harcourt. He keeps some of his papers there. If anyone asks why you’re with me…”
He looked helplessly at Mira.
“I am your cousin from the country,” she suggested. “Very fond of paper.”
Ferris choked on a laugh. “No one will believe that. You look as if you’ve never milked a cow in your life.”
“I haven’t,” she said. “Have you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Badly. The cow was very forgiving.”
“How reassuring,” she said dryly.
Tully rose, his knees popping. “All right,” he muttered. “Follow me. And for the love of God, don’t touch anything.”
***
The hallway behind the barrels was narrow and smelled of damp wood. Mira’s skirts brushed the walls as they passed. Her heart hammered so loudly she wondered that no one heard it.
At the end, Tully paused before a door, his hand hovering over the latch.
“Remember,” he whispered. “You are not here. You do not speak unless spoken to. If anything goes wrong, Mr. Ferris will get you out. I will…do what I can.”
Mira nodded, her mouth dry.
Ferris’s hand brushed her elbow, briefly, surprisingly gentle. “Stay behind me,” he murmured. “If I say ‘now,’ you run. Do not look back.”
“And leave you?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said firmly.
She swallowed. “We shall see.”
He gave her a look that promised an argument later.
Tully opened the door.
The back room of the back room was brighter than she expected. Lamps burned in brackets along the walls, casting a golden light over a long table scarred by years of hard use. Men sat around it, their chairs tipped back, their boots muddy, their coats of good cloth gone shabby at the seams.
At the head of the table sat Lysander Pell.
He looked different here. Less polished. His coat was still fine, his cravat still neat, but there was a tension in his shoulders she had not seen at Lady Holt’s. His smile was tighter. His eyes sharper.
Beside him, like a shadow so deep it seemed to swallow light, sat a man Mira did not recognize.
He was not particularly tall, nor particularly broad. His hair was an indeterminate brown, his features unremarkable. But there was something about the stillness of him—the way he sat as if the chair were a throne, the way his hands rested on the table with fingers just barely curled, as if around an invisible throat—that made the air around him feel thinner.
Caine.
She knew, without being told.
The men turned as Tully entered, Ferris behind him, Mira and Ned in their wake.
“What is this?” Pell snapped, half-rising. His gaze snapped to Ferris, then to Mira.
For a fraction of a second, surprise—*startled fear*—flashed across his face.
Then it was gone, replaced by something that tried very hard to be amused and failed.
“Ferris,” he drawled. “You are becoming a regular nuisance. And you’ve brought a lady. How enterprising.”
The man beside him—Caine—looked at Mira.
His gaze moved over her, slow. Not lecherous. Not curious. Assessing, the way one might look at a horse at auction or a knife on a table.
Mira met his eyes.
They were very pale.
In that moment, in that gaze, she understood what Tully and Harcourt and Ferris had tried to warn her of.
This was not a game.
This was not a gentleman’s scandal.
This was something older, colder. The sort of danger that did not care about names or titles or mourning ribbons.
Caine’s lips curved, faintly.
“Well,” he said, his voice quiet and oddly pleasant. “This is interesting.”
Ferris stepped subtly in front of her, his body blocking a portion of their view. “Apologies for the intrusion,” he said smoothly. “Tully promised me a look at Harcourt’s latest venture. I did not realize you were…entertaining.”
Caine’s gaze slid to him. “You are Ferris.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “I am afraid so.”
“You were Godwin’s man once,” Caine said.
“Once,” Daniel agreed. “Now I am very much my own. It is a less profitable but more peaceful arrangement.”
Caine’s gaze returned to Mira. “And you,” he said. “You are Godwin’s widow.”
It was not a question.
Mira lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“And you have come,” he said, “to ask questions.”
Pell made a strangled noise. “Mrs. Godwin—this is hardly—”
“Be quiet, Pell,” Caine said softly.
Pell’s mouth snapped shut.
The room seemed to shrink. The men around the table shifted, some with discomfort, some with anticipation.
Mira’s pulse thundered.
“Yes,” she said again. Her voice did not shake. “I have questions.”
Caine regarded her for a long, measuring moment.
Then, to everyone’s apparent surprise, he smiled.
“Then perhaps,” he said, “this will be entertaining after all.”
Ferris’s hand brushed hers under the edge of her cloak, a silent warning.
Mira did not look at him.
Her eyes were on Caine.
The rope Harcourt had spoken of was very real now, coiled on the table between them.
And Mira Godwin, young widow in grey, with nothing left but debts and a good name, found herself standing on it.
She had wanted answers.
She was about to discover what they cost.
*To be continued…*