Page 5 of Cora
“I’d consider it.”
Here it was. Victory within his grasp. All depended upon how he framed his proposal to be maximally appealing, without giving away his true objective. “I’ve followed your banking career closely. I’d want to examine the books, but I’d consider a merger under the right circumstances. Your bank and mine.”
Wilder inhaled sharply. Gideon froze, thinking he might have sunk the deal prematurely, but then Wilder relaxed and said, “Go on. What are your terms?”
“Assuming your books are in reasonable condition and you cut loose your unsavory clients, you’d keep your house. I’ll infuse as much cash as necessary to save your bank, while taking an ownership stake.”
“What if the run contaminates your bank, too?”
“I have the full backing of the British Crown,” Gideon said loftily. “I can survive any calamity.”
Wilder’s scowl deepened. “A luxury we cannot all depend upon.”
“It comes with responsibility, Wilder. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.” He ignored the other man’s glare and crossed arms, and continued. “We need to find a way to cement the deal. Neither of us will like working together. I propose you maintain primary control over Wilder & Co., but I will review any future investments. Some of the ones you made are quite shocking. The Bonsack Machine, for example.”
Imagine, encouraging the masses to smoke tobacco. Not only was investing in a cigarette rolling machine a risky proposition, it was a filthy habit, even for the wealthy who could afford to purchase hand-rolled cigarettes. Investing in mass-produced cigarettes was not the mark of an upstanding member of Society.
But he would make a mint. One couldn’t be too scrupulous when it came to making money.
“How do you propose cementing this bargain?” Wilder asked.
Sweat beaded beneath Gideon’s collar.
“I am yet a bachelor. Your half-brother and sister remain unwed. I do not have an unmarried sister for the seventh Duke of Gryphon to consider for a bride, but if your sister would countenance a union, I might be inclined to overlook her shortcomings.”
Wilder threw back his head, laughed, and strode away.
CHAPTERTHREE
HAWKE
Hawke strode the halls of Buckingham Palace with the familiarity of a man who knew each nook and cranny like the back of his own hand.
Queen Victoria did not summon him idly. Theirs was a curious relationship. Not a friendship, precisely. She was too stroppy for such. She reserved her patience for her children and grandchildren.
Yet there were times when the grand dame of the realm sent for him with no discernible purpose other than to offload her darkest thoughts. She trusted him to be a sounding board who would never repeat her secrets to another soul, and for fifteen long years, Hawke had served as her personal spy, her errand boy, her confidant, and, yes, something akin to a friend.
God knew he couldn’t claim anyone else as one. He and the Queen were two lonely souls who had found a strange kinship in spite of their differences in age, station, fortune…and height.
Although he was not a giant of a man, he towered over the Queen by a full foot. The top of her head did not reach his shoulder. At just under five feet tall, Victoria was accustomed to commanding the room despite being the most diminutive person in it.
“You have kept us waiting for far too long, Hawke. We are displeased.”
“I beg pardon, Your Majesty. I have been searching for someone.”
Three long weeks of tracing every step Bella had taken late last December before disappearing into thin air. He had tracked down a man who’d witnessed a woman of Bella’s description speaking with a woman at the train station. This witness, discovered purely by luck, had observed the women switch clothing. An intelligent move for a woman who had reason to believe she was being trailed. Not subtle enough to avoid notice, but a respectable attempt at evasion.
From there, the trail had gone dead. Based on the timetables, the other woman could either have gone southwest to Cornwall, or northwest in the direction of Birmingham. Bella had continued on to France. That was all he knew.
A hollow spot opened near his heart ached.
She couldn’t be dead. A force of nature like Bella came along rarely. He had expected her to be there, drifting along in her self-constructed prison, until he was ready to leave spying for the crown behind. Yet that day never came, for Victoria always needed him.
Until last Christmas, when she hadn’t shown up at her Parisian flat as expected. Ever since, Hawke had been consumed by the fear that Bella was in grave trouble. She was lucky to be alive, considering the trouble she’d stirred up the summer before.
“That dreadful countess.” Victoria sniffed as though she detected malodorous air. “We pray she is indefinitely detained and that awful charity house she runs is shut down.”
He refrained from informing his sovereign that The House of Virtue was naught but an elaborate cover for a clandestine brothel specializing in any vice the wealthy aspired to. Years ago, when rumors about its true nature were beginning to circulate—no secret ever remained secret for long, a fact essential to Hawke’s work—Victoria had tasked him with finding out the truth. She had been worried about her husband’s relation, a Prussian prince, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd.
