The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(62)

The only good that had come of those dark days, as she’d come to call them, had been the invaluable lesson—men were not to be trusted. Neither gentlemen nor men in the streets. Even as Robert had demonstrated that he was unlike so many of those cruel lords, he’d proven himself far more dangerous in other ways. His touch, heady and hypnotic, had the power to weaken . . . it was the gentle, seductive caress that a weaker woman would have traded her virtue over for.

The carriage slowed to a stop, and she pitched forward at the sudden, jarring halt.

Meredith looked expectantly at her. “Miss Banbury, we’ve arrived.” The girl with her frizzy carrot-red hair pulled back the curtain and stared with a dubious expression out the window.

Yes, ladies did not come shopping in Lambeth, and certainly not in these streets.

“You remain here,” she ordered. “I’ll be a short while.”

The young maid gave her head a hard shake. “Oh, no, Miss Banbury. His Grace would not allow that.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out that His Grace had, in fact, allowed it for nearly twenty years. Helena gave a firm look, gentling it with a smile. “I’ll be but a short while,” she pledged, drawing her hood up.

Before the young woman could issue further protest, Helena shoved the door open and jumped down without assistance. She shot her arms out to steady herself, and then pulling her hood further over her eyes, she started down the streets. As she wound her way through the throng of wooden carts, and coarse-looking men and women, Helena glanced at this end of London. Women and children held their hands outstretched, begging for coin. From her.

A wall of emotion, shame, shock, and remembrance, all slammed into her with the force of a fast-moving carriage. After she and her brothers had escaped the streets, what had they done for those who were not so fortunate, those people whose bellies were still empty and those children collecting cabbage leaves? Helena struggled to swallow past the wave of guilt choking her.

Fishing out a handful of coins, she pressed them into outstretched hands as she walked. How had she, Ryker, Calum, Adair, or Niall been any different than the lords and ladies they’d so disdained? Because they’d provided employment at the Hell and Sin? Robert, the duke, all of the nobility, they too provided work for men, women, and children. Yet, she’d never seen those as magnanimous gestures.

By the time she reached her destination, her breath came hard and ragged in her ears, deafening.

She looked up at the crooked wooden sign hanging above: In the Spirit.

She pressed the handle and, pulling the door open, stepped inside.

A wall of dust slapped her face, and she promptly sneezed. Shoving back her hood, she perused the small shop. But for a table and a counter, covered in books and more dust, the small space remained devoid of anything else.

Footsteps sounded from within a doorway draped with a black cloth. A corpulent man with greying hair, and spectacles on his nose, stepped inside. “Hullo, how may I . . . ?” His polite greeting died. No doubt it was not every day a young woman set foot inside his shop.

Helena tugged off her white gloves and strode forward. “You supply the Hell and Sin Club with their alcohol,” she said without preamble. Even saying the name of her club, and speaking on a matter of business, brought a calming sense of ease. This she was comfortable with. This she understood. Not goldenly glorious gentlemen who spoke about her past, and caressed her scars with tenderness.

The man frowned, all earlier hint of warmth gone. “It is not my place to discuss Ryker Black’s business with anyone.” Then, he stole a look about and spoke in hushed tones. “Unless ye had some coin to pay. Then I might have details.”

She sneered. Quality spirits be damned, how did her brothers do business with a man such as this one? With that a familiar wave went through her, at the lot she had the sense to see through when her brothers, so confident in their judgments, failed to do so. “Your deliveries are coming through with nearly ten percent broken in transit. Is that also a product of what someone is paying you?” she asked, settling her palms on the counter.

The man’s fleshy cheeks turned a mottled shade of red. “How dare you . . . ?” he sputtered.

She jabbed a finger at him, striking him in the chest. “I dare because I’m the one who has to answer for the erroneous liquor accounts.” Or I did, until my brothers ceased to see my value. Resentment breathed to life again, as powerful now as it had been the day she’d been summoned to Ryker’s office to find the duke waiting.

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

His eyes disappeared into thin slits as he leaned forward, peering at her. “If you’re working for Ryker Black, why haven’t I seen you before?”

Because they kept me sheltered away. Because I was too much a fool to challenge that and not demand visibility in the world.

She continued, deliberately ignoring his question. “If I have my way, Mr. Black will have a new supplier of his liquor.” All the color leached from his face, leaving a pale white pallor. “I expect your next shipment will arrive flawlessly.” With deliberate movements, Helena drew on her leather gloves. “That is, unless Sam Davies at Forbidden Pleasures does not pay you a greater purse to see them ruined?” She winged an eyebrow up.

The man coughed spasmodically. “H-How dare you?”

Her brothers may say she was a rotten read on people. However, this man rung his hands together and rapidly shifted his eyes about, avoiding her gaze, the way any criminal at Newgate did.