Page 19 of An Extraordinary Lord

Ivy nodded and threw her arms around Veronica’s neck. Gratitude beamed on her face.

“Now put that away in your pocket, and go visit the landlord and baker before it rains again,” Veronica ordered. She released the girl with an affectionate squeeze of her hands. “And make certain you leave well before her husband comes home and finds you there. You know how he can be.”

The girl’s expression darkened with fear, reminding Merritt of a dog that had been beaten. But only for a moment before she hugged Veronica again and tucked the bag into the hidden pocket in the folds of her skirt, safely out of sight. She gave a parting wave in afterthought to Merritt as she bounced toward the stairs, then down through the warehouse to the street.

Curiosity pricked at him, and he scrutinized Veronica, taking another assessing look at her. Food, coats and boots, now rent money… She protected the people who lived here as if they truly were her blood family, along with Fernsby, who got half her thief-taking earnings to begin with.

Merritt would have admired her for her generosity if he didn’t suspect she’d broken at least half a dozen laws to do so.

She stepped to the end of the makeshift hall and pulled back a curtain of sailcloth used as a door, one that separated off the rear corner of the warehouse. Through the gap in the cloth, he saw her living quarters. The small space was crowded by an old velvet chair, a narrow bed, and a tall armoire with brass locks that were shiny from frequent use. He knew why. Where society ladies kept their accessories, Veronica Chase kept her weapons. Not an armoire but an armory.

“What next?” he asked when she turned to face him.

“You’ll return to the Armory and wait for me there.” She shrugged out of his greatcoat that he’d given her earlier and handed it to him, then blocked his way so he couldn’t enter her room. “I’ll come for you tonight.”

He nearly laughed. Did she think he was that daft? “And I’m supposed to just leave you here, to trust that you won’t decide to renege on our deal and flee London after all?”

“Yes. You are.” She flung the curtain closed.

Five

The waterman’s boat skimmed across the Thames toward a set of cement steps leading up from the river. Unease moved inside Veronica as fast as the river beneath them and swirled like the eddies they were gliding through just west of London Bridge.

Around them, the city felt alive in the midnight darkness. She could feel it humming like electricity despite the layer of drizzle and fog that continued to press in upon its streets and squares for another night. Something was coming, awakening in the darkness—she could feel it in her bones the way old sailors felt oncoming storms. And not a little part of it had to do with the man sitting beside her, who would certainly love to wash his hands of her as soon as possible. After all, he’d made no attempt to hide his contempt about the thief he thought her to be.

The boat’s bow scraped against the embankment wall as the waterman expertly guided it to a sideways stop at the base of the steps.

Merritt hopped out of the boat, then reached down to help her.

She hesitated. There would be no turning back once she stepped onto the stairs with him. But that was the rub, wasn’t it? In her life, there was never any choice of going back.

With resolve, she slid her hand into his and allowed him to bring her to her feet in the gently rocking wherry. Then she hitched up her skirt and stepped up onto the stone ledge.

“I wasn’t going to toss you into the Thames, you know,” he muttered, misunderstanding her hesitation.

No, just back into Newgate.But she would never admit to any uncertainty in front of him. Instead, she slyly smiled from behind the voluminous hood of her cape and lied. “I was contemplating tossingyou.”

That he would certainly believe. But when he returned her smile with a grin of his own, its warmth seared through her as much as his hand that still rested at the small of her back. The heat of his palm bled through her cape and dress and into her flesh, and her heart fluttered recklessly.

“As if I didn’t know that.” He turned back to toss the waterman a coin and ordered the man to wait for them, then took her elbow to guide her up the rough steps. “With every row of the oars from Blackfriars.”

She pulled in a deep breath of relief. They were back to distrust.Good.Distrust she knew how to handle, knew to expect nothing from it but disappointment. After all, suspicion had kept her alive in the past, and it would keep her alive after she’d received her pardon. And long after Merritt Rivers was gone from her life.

“This way.” She gestured across the street at the dimly lit tavern.

Although to call it a tavern was being generous. It was a mix of gambling hell, gin palace, and brothel, all crammed into a small building that had seen better days under the rule of the Stuarts. But its riverside location made it the perfect haunt for criminals, porters, and sailors to stumble into, waste away whatever blunt they’d managed to earn that day, and then stagger back out at dawn, many right into the Thames for an icy-cold dunking. It was also the perfect location for Filipe and his men to keep watch on the wharves. That was how she knew the place.

In the past eighteen months since leaving Portugal, she had been here only a handful of times. But that was enough to establish her credibility among its clientele, and as the sister of the King of Saffron Hill, she could come and go as she pleased without fear of being accosted. Any man foolish enough to try would find himself spiked on London Bridge.Ifenough of him remained once Filipe was done with him.

Yet tonight, inexplicably, she felt even safer with Merritt.

As he led her inside, she fanned an assessing look over him. He still wore the workman’s clothes she’d found for him that morning, with all his weapons cleverly hidden from sight. She took comfort in that. The plain dress and cape she wore gave little room for weapons of her own, and she felt vulnerable with only a single knife strapped to her right calf.

“Welcome to the King’s Arms,” she drawled. She scanned the smoke-filled room around her, searching for anyone who—

Danker.

Her eyes narrowed on him as he sat at the card table in the rear of the tavern, his back to the corner so he could see whoever came through the door. So no one could sneak up behind him and slit his throat. Danker had his fingers in every simmering illegal pot in London from prostitution to smuggling to child slavery. If anyone had heard rumblings of who was behind the riots, it would be him.