Page 6 of A Treacherous Trade
Pressing my lips together, I suppressed a hysterical little burp of mirth. Had I really been about to giggle? On a day like this?
I was literally unable to recall the last time I’d laughed… “I can’t believe Croft permits it.”
“As you see, Gray doesn’t have the luxury ofpermittingme anything. I all but raised that boy, and I’ll be damned if he orders me about.”
Boy?
At well over six feet, and with a bit of grey dappling the perpetual shadow against his jaw, it was nearly impossible to summon the image of Inspector Grayson Croft as a hapless child with chubby limbs and a round face.
He must have been a difficult lad, to grow up to be such an ever-present thorn in my side.
I did let some of my amusement escape on a chuckle.
Oh Lord, but I was happy to have met Amelia Croft. “Please tell me you’ve done this in front of his peers,” I begged with a wicked sort of glee. “I’d love the men who fear him to see him batted around thus. It was better than any Christmas present I’ve ever received.”
“Oh, tosh!” She laughed right alongside me, though hers was in no way impeded by my sense of propriety or care for the dead. “People fear him because of his size and his gruff exterior. But they do not know him. Gray has always been such a gentle soul…” Her smile died on her features as they melted into something distant and melancholy. “It’s why I did so much to protect him.”
Far be it for me to argue the fact, but I wondered if she knew her brother at all.
Did I?
Many people had good reason to fear Grayson Croft. I’d seen him break a man’s bones for no greater crime than disrespect.
“Shall we be off, Miss Mahoney?” Amelia gathered up her package and bustled to the door.
“Indeed.” I took up my own coat, hat, and gloves, thinking of all I had to do. First, send a message to Hao Long, my assistant, to bring my cart and supplies and the coverings, should the job be extra complicated.
At least I didn’t have to change frocks… I’d been wearing nothing but black for months.
Amelia was the first to speak, once we crunched over the cobbles to the high street in hopes of hailing a hackney. “I do wonder what brought you here,” she said blithely, adjusting her cap.
I stalled, nearly slipping on a slick cobblestone. “Pardon?”
“You know, I didn’t summon you.” She slid a sidelong glance in my direction. “Grayson didn’t lie when he claimed to have told me you were in mourning. And though I don’t have a tendency to obey him, of course I’m going to respect your own tragedies and losses. So, I am curious, Miss Mahoney—what brought you to our door? I could tell right away that you needed a reason to find yourself in my brother’s presence, and was happy to let him think you were called by me because Iamin need of your services. Still… it seems like an interesting coincidence, don’t you agree?”
My mouth dropped open. I could not think of a single thing to say.
“It’s all right.” She gave me an unsettling and rather cryptic smile and a friendly wink. “I won’t make you tell me your secrets just yet.”
I thought of the secret of hers I held in my heart. As a teenaged prostitute, she’d given an unwanted child up for adoption to a woman named Kathrine Riley.
Katherine Riley, I’d recently found out, took money from desperate women with a promise to place their children for adoption. She dazzled them with stories of childless couples of the middle and upper classes, where the children could be fed, educated, and given opportunity.
Katherine had pocketed the money, and… the babies never went to families.
They never made it out of her home alive.
The Croft siblings had been searching for Amelia’s child for some years now. And I was possibly the only person who knew where the innocent bones were buried alongside innumerable others.
I knew that Katherine Riley had been a worse killer than even Jack the Ripper.
I knew that Katherine Riley had met a terrible end. One she deserved.
Icould haveconfessed that to the intrepid—no,infuriatingInspector Grayson Croft and his nameless nebula of a sister.
But now that I’d met them in their home, been engaged by her as a client, laughed at her antics, and appreciated her affection for her brother—no matter how misplaced it might be—I knew that it would be another painful truth I might have to take to the grave.
Now that I knew Inspector Croft had a heart, I couldn’t bring myself to break it.
