No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(70)

“You can drop the ruse, Mr. Slag,” Neil said. “You know why we are here. Let us waste no more time. Give us the boy, and no one will get hurt.”

Slag’s gaze drifted slowly to Juliana. She was peering about the room and missed his look. A small mercy that, for the crime lord’s leer turned Neil’s stomach.

“Give me my blunt or, better yet, the chit, and you have a deal.”

“Out of the question,” Neil said.

Juliana turned back to them. “Where is Billy? Have you hurt him?”

“Hurt him?” Slag laughed. “The lad came of his own free will. I offered him shelter.”

“Shelter? He was quite safe at Sunnybrooke,” said Juliana.

Slag shook his head. “That was not the tale he told, my lady. And the bruises on his face seem to imply he has recently been involved in a violent exchange.”

Neil did not know much about criminals. He knew they were usually caught, if not right away, eventually. He knew they were usually hanged. He knew that the large numbers hanged or transported or tossed in prison hulks did nothing to deter criminals. By necessity, he had associated with criminals on the Continent. He had no trouble deducing why they were usually caught. Most criminals were not very intelligent.

But Slag was no ordinary criminal. He had managed to survive the underworld and to come to dominate his small patch of it. Neil hadn’t investigated Slag’s criminal record—he was no Bow Street Runner—but he imagined if he had, he would have seen prosecutions for a several petty crimes when Slag had been young. Before he had learned to either evade the authorities, bribe them, or, as he did now, send others to do his dirty work.

Slag had probably grown up in Spitalfields, but he had enough wits to learn to speak properly, dress properly—if a bit garishly—and act cunningly. All of this information did not bode well for the rest of the interview.

“He and another boy had a dispute,” Juliana said. Neil had known she would not heed his directive to cease speaking. “But that is none of your affair. I would like to see Billy.”

“Absolutely,” Slag said, though he made no move to call for the boy. “And if he wishes to go back to the orphanage, I will not keep him here.”

Juliana was no lackwit either. She knew Slag would not give Billy up so easily. “But…” she hedged.

“But.” Slag spread his arms as though the situation were out of his control.

She swallowed. “I don’t have all the money. But what if I gave you some of it? I could get a hundred to you tomorrow.”

Slag wrinkled his nose, and Neil clenched his fists. Was she really attempting to bargain with a crime lord?

“I’d rather the full amount. If you don’t have it, then I am willing to accept substitutions.”

She exhaled and glanced in Neil’s direction. Clearly, she was considering accepting Slag’s offer. The fear in her eyes and the rigid stiffness of her shoulders told him what he already knew—she would do anything to save the orphans she loved.

“She won’t have you,” Neil said before she could answer.

Both Slag and Juliana glared at him. Neil was pleased to see the leer on Slag’s face had been wiped away.

“So you won’t have me?” Slag said, the look in his eyes murderous but his voice deceptively calm.

“I wouldn’t have put it that way.” Juliana stood, sensing as they all did that a storm was about to break. “You see, while I am indeed honored by your, uh, proposal, I fear we are too different to make a successful match—”

“Enough!” Slag roared. He thumped his stick on the floor.

“You should have left it,” Neil said, moving to block Juliana from Slag’s wrath.

But even as he moved in front of her, the door behind them burst open and four of the largest men Neil had ever seen lumbered inside. Two of them even made Ewan look puny, and that was no easy feat. Julia gawked at them, and Neil thought he might be gawking too before he recovered himself.

“Wait!” he said even as Ewan moved into a defensive stance. “I am certain we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

Slag stared at him.

“I have a proposal of my own.”

“Go ahead.”

“You tell these men to go back to whatever hole they crawled out of and give us Billy.”

“And in return?”

“We won’t completely destroy you.”

Slag stared at him for a long moment. Even Juliana turned to stare at him, her face clearly betraying her thoughts—he was completely and utterly mad.

And then Slag began to laugh, and Ewan had a moment when he thought, Bloody hell, it might all work out after all. He laughed too, and even Ewan curved one corner of his mouth upward.

But then Slag, still smiling, slashed his walking stick through the air and said, “Kill them all.”





Seventeen


Julia had not intended to scream. She liked to think she would not have screamed if she hadn’t been tossed onto the couch and told to get down and stay there. That was an order Julia had no trouble following. She had seen and done a great deal in the time she had dedicated herself to the orphanage. More than 90 percent of what she had seen and done were not the sort of things ladies should ever see or do. She had broken up fights, cleaned up vomit, nursed sick children, buried the carcasses of dead animals who had chosen the orphanage’s stoop as their final resting place. She had endured hunger, cold, lack of sleep, and what she had thought of as fear.