Page 103 of Their Master

“No, miss.”

“Do you know when he will?”

There was a slight hesitation and then, “I’m sorry but I don’t know. Would you like me to ask Knox?”

“No, that’s fine.”

Smith would come back when he felt like it.

Or not.

***

Smith spent that night and a good part of the next day at the suite the syndicate maintained at their gambling club. It had been years since he’d used the rooms, not since he and Gideon had occasionally gone on the prowl together, often bringing back lovers to share.

He knew he shouldn’t avoid seeing Moira—that he should go home and allow her to confront him—but he needed to gather information about Clayton before the man disappeared for good. And for that, he needed a clear head. The drama that awaited him at home would need to wait a bit longer.

Once he’d bathed and slept for an hour he’d sent for Doctor Felton, who’d shaken his head andtskedat Smith’s various cuts and bruises, declared that three of his ribs were bruised—perhaps even cracked—and prescribed two weeks of rest.

Smith thanked him, ignored his advice, and spent the afternoon chasing down Clayton’s whereabouts, calling in every favor that he’d accumulated over the years from his various criminal connections.

Information was thin on the ground, but by the end of the day, he’d found somebody with something to sell.

It was almost midnight when Smith left his carriage and bodyguards in front of the Victoriana Hotel—a dingy, rundown establishment that Her Majesty likely wouldn’t appreciate using her name.

His skin prickled as he passed through the grimy lobby, and down a narrow, gloomy corridor. He kept his eyes straight ahead to avoid looking too closely at the filthy kitchen as he slipped out the back door.

Parking at the hotel and sneaking out seemed like too much precaution to take, but it made his two guards less agitated about him walking the few foggy blocks to the meeting place alone.

Barry and Howard had been on duty when Smith had been abducted. He’d told the men beforehand about the plan and had instructed them to accept whatever food Moira gave them, and to pretend as though they’d become ill. He’d also insisted that they let Blois take him from the house.

The guards had been extremely unhappy with his decision, arguing until he’d finally allowed them to follow Blois’s carriage when it left Smith’s house.

Smith knew that his friends had believed he was mad to go along with the kidnapping, but he’d never really been in much danger between the guards and his three friends.

Tonight, he’d left his guards behind because he didn’t want anyone else hearing the information that he’d paid for. Not because he didn’t trust them, but because conspiring to murder a public official—even a former, disgraced one—was a serious crime. Neither Howard nor Barry needed to expose themselves to such risk.

Smith didn’t need the exposure, either, but bloody Clayton had gone to ground like a fox immediately after Blois had sent him that damned message and he simply couldn’t think of any other way to get information about the man.

Ahead of him the battered sign for the Crab & Badger Pub emerged from the gloom, the two lamps beside the door barely managed to cut the combined darkness and filthy fog.

The fug inside the ancient pub was scarcely any better than outside.

The man he was to meet, Red Jasper, sat in the far corner, a bar wench balanced on his knee. When he saw Smith, he gave the girl an ungentle shove.

Smith handed the disgruntled lass a larger denomination coin—but not so large as to draw unwanted attention—and said, “Two pints.”

Once she was gone, he took the seat beside Red Jasper, rather than across from him, which would have put his back to the entrance. Although he’d been using the other man’s services for decades, that didn’t mean he trusted him.

Red Jasper grinned, exposing an astoundingly white pair of teeth—none of which had been gifted to him by Nature. “S’been donkey’s ears, Smiff.”

Not long enough, in Smith’s opinion, but he had nothing to gain by being insulting, so he offered the other man a brief smile and said, “Indeed it has. What do you have for me, Red?”

Red leaned closer, the smell that came with him enough to make Smith’s eyes water. “This’ll cost more’n the usual.”

Healwayscharged more than the usual, which—Smith thought with a smirk—rather made that the usual, didn’t it?

“Fine. What do you have,” he repeated.

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