24. Chapter 24

Chapter twenty-four

Rowland stared at the two piles of cash on his desk, each destined for a widow of one of his men. He hadn’t experienced that rock of dread in his stomach since the war, when he’d promised his comrades to pay respects to their wives in the event of their deaths. He’d knocked on eight doors on his way back home in 1918. At least back then, he hadn’t been the one who gave the marching orders. The wives of the Devils knew the risks, but that never made it easier.

He hadn’t had to make those calls since the years before the war. In the budding years of the century, when he and the Crimson Devils were scrapping with rival gangs nearly every day until the Devils claimed them. He lost many men, but the worst part of it was telling their families. For the first time since those days, he braced himself for the resentment, even as he handed them the only thing he could offer for their grief. Enough money to start over somewhere new. Bishop Goddard would pay tenfold for the men Rowland lost.

He looked up at the sound of a knock on his office door. Lizzie stood at the threshold, a frown tugging at her lips.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Ella’s been lifted,” she answered, walking the rest of the way inside and closing the door behind her. “That fucking Goddard has all his men making reports on us. ”

Rowland sat up straighter, brow furrowing. “The police know better than to arrest one of ours.”

“New copper,” she said. “Real eager, apparently. Says he’s by the book.”

“He just doesn’t know the way of the world yet,” Rowland said with a dismissive wave. “I’ll get her out and see that the charges are dropped.”

He got to his feet and strode toward the door, grabbing his hat and jacket off the coat tree in the corner. Lizzie followed him with her eyes.

“Is there something else?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, and Rowland froze. He knew that look. Lizzie was rarely nervous, but that lip bite was a dead giveaway when she was. He recognized it from their trysts after he came back from France. She eventually confessed that she was afraid he was going to be rough with her, like most of the men coming back, who used her as a vessel for their grief and anger. When he didn’t, she had thanked him. He had only been with Lizzie a few times since, when he was truly desperate for a companion, but something akin to friendship had formed between them.

“I spoke with your sister this morning,” she said. “Asked if she could use any help in the shop.”

“What did she say?”

“That she’s not looking for any help right now. Which is to be expected. Jo’s like a machine the way she works.”

“And she’s a dictator of a boss,” he joked. “Who’s looking for work?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor before she met his eyes again. “Me.”

He blinked. “You are?”

“Yep.”

“Have you…met someone or—”

“No, nothing like that,” she said. She heaved a sigh and glanced around his office. “It’s just that I’m tired, Rowland. I’m in my forties—”

“Forties?” he cut across her, incredulous. Lizzie didn’t appear a day over thirty-five.

She pinned him with a look that made him think she and Iris should spend more time together.

“Yes, forties,” she said. “I’m not giving an exact number, so don’t ask.”

He held up a hand of apology. “Understood.”

“My point is, this work isn’t for me anymore. I’m too old, too tired, and I’ve got savings to live on if I get something with less pay. I thought I could be a secretary or something. Have you got any openings with any of your businesses in the Sinclair Syndicate?”

“Somewhere, I’m sure,” he said. “Can you type?”

She stiffened. “I can learn to.”

“You’re good with schedules, sums, taking messages, all that?”

“Absolutely.”

“What sort of wages are you after?”

“I could make do with three pounds a week.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“Don’t give me that look,” she said. “I know my worth, that’s all. I’ve got no husband or kids I’ll have to get back to, nothing to distract me.”

“All right, one more question,” he said.

“Go on, then.”

“What are the chances someone who might hire you has been a client of yours in the past?”

Her face fell. He hated that he even had to ask, but there was no avoiding it. Lizzie had been working in Liverpool for long enough that everyone in the immediate area knew who she was and what she did. Since the Sinclair Syndicate headquarters were in that same area, and most of the men Rowland did business with associated with women in Lizzie’s profession, the chances for crossover were high.

“Would it matter if they were?” she asked.

“You know it would,” he answered. “I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

“You mean that they could fuck me anytime they wanted?”

He nodded. She let out another sigh and leaned against the wall, letting her head fall back and her eyes close.

“It was stupid, wasn’t it? Thinking I could escape this?”

“No, it’s hopeful,” he said.

“Hopeful,” she scoffed. “You and I both know what a fat lot of good hope is in our world.”

He didn’t have much of an argument there. The fields of France taught him what it meant to lose hope. In humanity, in himself. Before that, it was fighting his way through the gangs in Liverpool until he was the one on top. And yet, he had to have gotten some of it back. His relationship with Iris was built mostly on hope. Perhaps there was a light at the end of the tunnel for both of them.

“Hopeful and stupid are not the same,” he said, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette to offer her. She took one and nodded her thanks.

“No, but they end up the same, don’t they?”

“They don’t have to.”

He flicked his lighter and held it up to the butt of the cigarette and she took her first drag to light it. Her eyes glanced over him, a skeptical smirk parting her lips as the smoke billowed out. “Since when did you become an optimist?”

He rolled his eyes. “Fuck off. ”

“Seriously,” she laughed. “I distinctly remember nights you told me the only thing keeping you alive was spite.”

He smiled in spite of himself. Lighting his own cigarette, he exhaled, letting go of the memory of the man she described. Freshly back from war and wounded in ways hardly anyone around him could understand. Even Ezra was confused, and he was a veteran too. But Ezra had a loving wife and a house full of sons waiting for him. Oddly, it was Jo and Lizzie who were the most sympathetic. Especially Jo, with her private burden of grief as well.

“Okay, you want to know what it was?” he said.

“Sure, I do.”

“The first time I held my niece after I got back. Jo was alone and trying to work, so I took on a bigger role in her life. I felt…needed.”

Lizzie held his gaze as she took another thoughtful drag. “Needed, eh?”

“That’s right,” he said with a nod. “You’ll be needed somewhere, Lizzie. If I can, I’ll help you find that place.”

“That a promise?”

“It’s a promise.”

Her eyes searched his for a moment longer before she cut her gaze to the floor. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“As you should. But for now, let’s say we head to the station and get Ella. I’ll see you both home, eh?”

“All right,” she agreed, lifting her head up to follow him out the door. She watched him lock up, and she spoke again. “Does your Lady Iris make you feel needed?”

Rowland stowed the key in his pocket and shook his head.

Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No, Iris doesn’t need me. Which makes her wanting me that much more meaningful.”