Chapter Ten

H ettie was seated in Honoria's drawing room. Spread out on the table before them were ledgers and correspondence as they tackled their various charitable obligations. It had been two weeks since she'd returned to Arthur's home, but she'd found herself spending several afternoons each week with her sister. It was to the point where Hettie feared she was becoming a burden. After all, Honoria and Mr. Carrow were newly married. They intended to leave London soon to visit his country estate. What would she do when there was no safe harbor for her?

Of course, she knew that provisions would be made and they were only going to be gone for a week. Vincent would do what was necessary to ensure her continued safety until their return. But it wasn't that which she feared. It was the loneliness that threatened to engulf her. And that was not her sister's burden to carry. If anyone deserved to focus only on their own happiness for a time, it was certainly Honoria.

"The hospital is requesting additional funding," Hettie said, reviewing the last letter. "Unfortunately, we have exhausted every potential donor. But perhaps we could do some sort of event? An auction or a conscripted party? Though, I daresay we are neither of us in a position to host such a thing. Is there someone else we could enlist to do so?"

Honoria sighed. "I don't know. Possibly. I'll have to give it some thought and send out some inquiries."

"I'll do the same."

"Hettie, are you . . . are you well?"

Hettie met her sister's concerned gaze. "I'm perfectly fine, Honoria. Why do you ask?"

"You do not seem quite yourself. You have been so quiet and subdued. I understand, of course, that you went through something quite traumatic, and I cannot imagine that it would not have some lingering effect. I worry that there is more to it, however. Perhaps more to do with Mr. Ettinger than with your abduction... or is it Ernsdale? Is he making your life there a misery?"

Shaking her head, Hettie took her sister's hand. "You are very sweet to worry after me so. But no, strangely enough, Arthur and I have reached a truce of sorts. I stay out of his way, and he stays out of mine. Occasionally we dine together, speaking the bare minimum of words to one another, and then we go our separate ways. We have settled into a society marriage... perfect from the outside but cold and lonely within. Not that I'd want anything else with Arthur."

"But you do want more for yourself," Honoria guessed. "Perhaps with a very large, broad-shouldered, handsome former Bow Street Runner of humble origins who has an overabundance of pride and stupidity?"

Hettie pursed her lips in displeasure. "Is it really so obvious? And I have no notion why I ought to still be mooning over him. It was one night. Only one."

"Yes, but one night where you saw one another both at your best and your worst. It complicates matters when you have a bond forged in fear and danger."

She wasn't wrong, Hettie thought. Her very survival, the very fact that she was still alive and well to have a conversation with her sister was due to Joss Ettinger. And despite his rejection of her that morning, she couldn't forget the way he'd looked at her in the darkness or the almost reverent way he'd touched her. Those remembered pleasures were her only company at present. "Perhaps that is it. Over time, as I continue to heal and recover from all that I went through, that bond may become lessened. It certainly hasn't been an issue for him. I've neither heard from him nor seen him since. And it doesn't matter. I'm not free anyway, am I? At the end of the day, I'll still be Arthur's wife. Perhaps when he is gone, then I will find a man to love me the way your Vincent loves you."

"I want that for you. I didn't know how much I needed that until we found one another. And it isn't that I wasn't content or that I didn't feel like I had a purpose in life. But contentment is not happiness," Honoria said wistfully. "And you should have happiness."

Hettie felt those words reverberate within her. Honoria wasn't wrong. But wanting something to be did not make it so. Getting to her feet, she gathered her things. "We are becoming a maudlin mess. I should go before we both wind up in tears."

As she turned to exit, the drawing room doors opened and Vincent walked in. But it was the man beside him who made her halt. Joss Ettinger stood there. Their gazes locked, and Hettie would swear that the very air crackled between them.

"Lady Ernsdale," he said, his tone stiff and cold. "You are looking well."

Hettie forced a polite smile to her lips. "Thank you, Mr. Ettinger. I am well. Quite well. Good day." With a nod to Vincent and to her sister, she then simply walked out as she completely ignored the fact that she could not properly expand her lungs and that her knees were shaking.

*

Joss watched her walk out, and it took everything he had in him not to go after her. He wanted to chase her down, pull her into his arms and kiss her till they were both utterly senseless with it. But he had no idea how such an advance would be welcomed. Likely, it would not. He'd made his choice, for better or worse, and his cold treatment of her would not be easily forgiven. Hettie was a woman with a great deal of pride. It was one of the many things he admired about her.

"Excuse me," Honoria said. "I'm going to see my sister off." Then she sailed from the room, leaving him alone with the Hound.

"Go after her," Vincent urged him quietly. "It's patently obvious that you are both miserable."

"Why?" Joss asked. She'd still be married to a worthless shite, and he'd still be poor as a church mouse and working for a living. "There's no way it ends well. We are both imprisoned by our current stations in life. I'm too poor, and she's too married."

"It isn't a real marriage, a fact of which you are very well aware. Besides, he's old. He's sick. And he won't live forever."

"Maybe not. But despite any lapses in judgement on my part, I'm not the type to make a cuckold of a man, even if he is a son of a bitch," Joss replied. "Leave it alone. I don't meddle in your affairs of the heart. I'll thank you to stay the hell out of mine."

"Is it?" Vincent asked.

"It is what?" Joss fired back, confounded by the whole conversation.

"An affair of the heart?"

Realizing he'd said too much, revealed too much, Joss shrugged. "It's not anything. Not anything at all. Now tell me why the hell it was so urgent that I come here."

"I need you to take over for me. Just for a week while we are away in the country. And only at the club. Honoria and I mean to go to the countryside for an extended stay eventually, but we need to take the measure of the house first, see what needs to be done to make it fully habitable."

"When do you intend to leave the city for good?" Joss asked. He was ambivalent about it. Vincent was his friend. The Hound was his employer. Sometimes separating the two was very difficult.

"I think sooner rather than later. As for the club, I need someone there I can trust."

"You have Stavers," Joss protested.

"Yes, but he can't very well do it all, can he? I need you, Joss. I need you to manage things for me, and if you do, you will be very well compensated."

"How well compensated?"

"Two hundred pounds?"

"Five."

The Hound stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Fine. Five. And while you're at it, you can consider whether or not you'd like to do it permanently."

"I'm not a gamester, Vincent. I'm a private inquiry agent."

"A poor one. You wouldn't be poor then, I'd make you a partner. Me, you, Stavers. Everything would be split in thirds."

It was tempting. Very tempting. "I'll think about it. But I'm not a criminal."

"A gaming hell isn't criminal either, not when it's well run and honest. Mine always has been. My hands are plenty dirty, but that establishment is quite clean."

"I'll think about it," Joss repeated. And he would. Because the financial freedom that offered him would put him on better footing. But he was likely just pissing in the wind. He could be rich as Croesus, and Hettie would still be married to another, and even if widowed, far beyond his reach.