An Affair So Right (Rebel Hearts #4)(72)

“Most assuredly I will. I have a carriage of Lord Templeton’s waiting to take me directly home.”

Brown peered down the street to where Lord Templeton’s carriage had pulled up to wait for her. “Well, it’s a fine thing to have a smart carriage like that to ferry you about London. Do give my condolences to your mother when you see her. Your father adored the ground she walked upon.”

“Indeed, he did. Mother has taken his death very hard. I don’t think she’ll ever be the same.” She shook hands with him like a man concluding business would and turned for the door. Mr. Brown’s sons, openly impressed by the gleaming carriage, unlocked the workshop door and slipped outside ahead of her.

Lord Templeton’s carriage was very quick to appear before the shop. A groom jumped down from the back of the carriage and rushed to the carriage door before Mr. Brown’s sons could even get a look inside.

Theodora stepped out onto the street and quickly clambered inside the safe, dark interior. “Why on earth did you close the carriage blinds, Mama? It’s so stuffy in here now,” Theodora complained as she placed the satchel on the cushion beside her. So much money. They would never want for anything again. “Do you have a megrim?”

The door snapped shut and at the very moment the carriage lurched forward, Mama cried out suddenly.

Theodora snapped up her head at the sound to stare at her.

Dennis Small, hiding almost beneath her mother, cracked Mama on the head with the butt of a pistol, and she slid sideways without another sound, eyes glazed.

“Mama!” Theodora shrieked, reaching across the carriage.

Dennis Small, very much alive, pressed his pistol into her temple to hold her back. “Screaming for your silly mother won’t do any good.”

“Mr. Small? What are you doing?” She took in his ragged appearance quickly in the dim light, chest tight with shock. The burn on his face was healing but looked quite awful. “You’re alive?”

“Not that you care.”

“Of course I care! You’re my friend. My father’s most trusted companion.”

“Come now.” Small snorted. “I was his slave.”

“That is not true. We mourned you!”

“I doubt you gave me another thought once you’d wormed your way into the new earl’s life. Just like you did with that fool Daniel. You went after him for a reason. You fluttered your lashes at Daniel so your father could purchase his shipments at a substantial discount.”

“What discount? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, didn’t you know your father had a deal almost stitched up tight as a drum that would have guaranteed him exclusive rights to trade with that company Daniel was partners in?”

“No!”

“Well, it would have, if dear old Daniel hadn’t croaked.” Small laughed callously. “Your father was so disappointed when Daniel’s partner took one look at the contract we’d so carefully drafted and ripped it into shreds. Your father could have fought, but he wouldn’t have won. Why do you think we came back to England so suddenly? He’d already bled his friends dry in India.”

Theodora shook her head, dismissing Small’s words as false. Father had been a good man. Fair and honest. “What do you want with us?”

“I don’t want either of you.” Small smirked. “But I want everything your father hoodwinked from everyone else. I want the gems that you have in that satchel.”

He knew too much about her life. Theodora licked her lips. “What right do you have to any of it?”

“He nearly worked me to death! Sunrise till sunset and longer. Seven days a week. I poured over his papers for a pittance, until I almost couldn’t see the letters anymore. When he discovered my weakened eyes were beginning to be a problem, your father began interviewing new candidates for my position behind my back. The only choice I had was to sink to his level and demand he compensate me fairly at last, for all my years of devoted service.”

She swallowed hard, knowing Father had expected a great deal from Mr. Small, and recently had found him lacking. But she had not known about his eyes, or that father meant to replace him. But there had been a few strangers calling on Father for private meetings when Small was out. “You killed him?”

He shrugged. “Stupid old fool. Stubborn till the end.”

Theodora closed her eyes briefly, appalled that she’d been right all along. It couldn’t be true, but he never denied it. She opened her eyes and searched his face for any sign of regret. “I remember the day Father found you starving on the docks of London. We fed and clothed you, well before you began to work for him. Father invited you to go to India with us, and all you asked for was the position of his secretary. We made you part of our family.”

Small laughed. “One of you? There was nothing he cared more about than his money and his clever daughter’s future. He’d be so proud of the way you’ve secured yet another betrothal so easily. Playing the helpless damsel in distress again. Let’s hope this new one lives long enough for you to actually marry his fortune this time around.”

“It’s not like that. I’m not—”

Small swung his pistol at her head.





Chapter 29





“It seems you were correct. Mr. Dennis Small is very much alive, and given the description you furnished, following the Dalton’s about London, I’m afraid,” Mr. Banks told him after a perfunctory greeting in Quinn’s drawing room.