Chapter 27

Tessa kept her step light and her eye sharp about her.

It had been years since she'd ventured into Whitechapel environs—environs that took instant stock of interlopers and disposed of them quickly and quietly.

The address she sought still lay a few winding turnings of pocked cobbles ahead.

Blaze Jagger would be at this address—or, at least, that was what the Bow Street Runner had reported. Since Gabriel and Julian had seen fit to have Jagger investigated, why not her, too?

But it hadn't been his past or his business interests she'd sought information about. This report had been in regard to his private time. Was he married?…Did he have siblings?...What was his favorite meal?...How did he spend time not engaged in business or slumber?

The answers were: No…Just the one half sibling from the correct side of the blanket—Lady Beatrix St. Vincent…Eel pie…It was the answer to the final question that yielded a fact so unexpected and interesting that she'd had to see it with her own eyes.

Hence her now striding down a dark Whitechapel alleyway trying to keep her wits about her and her throat intact. The coming conversation with Jagger was a vital step toward being able to leave England.

She rounded a bend and slowed her pace. The address she sought would've passed unremarked but for the crowd of women and children gathered before it. A woman with a low-slung bosom and a forbidding scowl on her face was shouting, "Now, no need for all that, Nan. Have ye ever walked away with an empty basket?"

This was the place.

The interesting bit of information she'd received about Blaze Jagger was this: He funded the distribution of food and provisions one day a week to women and children in dire straits.

Half of Tessa hadn't believed it, but here was the proof before her eyes.

Steeled with purpose, she elbowed and shouldered her way to the front of the crowd, using her height and determination to her advantage. She reached the matron, who was quite emphatically not looking her way. Tessa waited…and waited. She cleared her throat…and cleared it again. "I need to speak to Jagger," she called out.

That got the cut of a suspicious eye. "Wants ain't needs."

Tessa wasn't sure what that meant or how it applied to her circumstances, but it meant something to the woman who stood between her and Jagger. She went for a different angle. "Tell him Tessa Calthorp needs to see him about some business."

She'd left off the lady part of her name, but the other woman heard it, anyway, as she cast a slow appraisal over Tessa's person, taking in the fineness of her garb and the high gleam of her boots. Tessa didn't shrink. Her adversary would understand this lady wasn't ceding an inch of ground until she'd had her say with Jagger.

At last, the woman snorted and disappeared inside the building, eliciting frustrated groans from the crowd. Tessa sensed her popularity diminishing by the second. To her relief, a different woman appeared at the door holding a basket full of vegetables—potatoes, carrots, leeks, turnips, parsnips, and such—and another woman crowded at her side with a basket of meats that ranged from pork joint to whole chickens.

The first matron appeared, catching Tessa's eye and giving a curt nod that spoke of both annoyance and resignation. She'd wanted to send Tessa packing.

When she disappeared into the dim recesses of the building, Tessa took it as her cue to follow, brushing past the women handing out provisions and stepping directly into a long, narrow corridor. Muted voices drifted from the other end, growing in volume as they approached a square room, its walls lined floor to ceiling with baskets and boxes containing all manner of foods. From the few snippets Tessa had caught, Jagger was listening to an accounting of inventory.

It was only after the conversation concluded that Jagger turned to Tessa. "So, you've discovered my dirty secret, have you?" The roguish grin that accompanied the words didn't make it to his eyes.

Any sense of pique Jagger might harbor made no difference to Tessa. "You and I need to talk."

"Before you're off to the Continent?"

Of course, Jagger would've heard.

"Aye," she said. "In private."

He lifted an ironic eyebrow before leading her into an adjoining room, this one smaller and appearing to serve a variety of functions—walls of shelving that indicated storeroom; cot in the corner indicating sometime sleeping quarters; rectangular table indicating impromptu office. The door clicked shut behind him, and he propped a shoulder against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest.

Tessa cocked a hip onto the edge of the table. Before she spoke, she took one last measure of Jagger. It wasn't too late to change her mind.

Actually, it was.

She was to be a mother. The trajectory of her life was irrevocably altered.

"I've given the problem of you some thought."

A shocked laugh escaped Jagger. "The problem of me?"

Tessa didn't crack a smile. She was here on serious, life-altering business—and he would soon know it.

"Really, the solution to the problem of you has been before my eyes the entire time."

Any lingering amusement turned quizzical. "There's a solution to me?"

Tessa nodded, quite certain. "I finally arrived at what it is you truly want."

"And what is that?" he asked with the condescending air of a man humoring a woman.

"Legitimacy."

His condescension fell away in an instant, and his jaw tensed. Tessa had hit the mark dead center.

He gave a shrug that would suggest indifference to the casual observer—but Tessa wasn't observing him casually. "So," he said, "you know about my interesting parentage."

"Aye," she said. "But that's not the legitimacy you want—at least, I don't think it is—and it's certainly not the sort of legitimacy I can offer you."

His brow lifted. "You're here to offer me legitimacy?"

"I am."

"I'll humor you." But not for long, his eyes said. "What sort of legitimacy is that?"

"I'm here to sell you a share of The Archangel."

The air went dense, the sudden tension a near solid object. Emotion flickered behind Jagger's eyes, and she knew it for what it was—hunger. She was speaking to the deepest desire hidden within the darkest corner of Blaze Jagger's heart. The desire he kept concealed even from himself, but which drove and fired his relentless ambition every waking hour. To make a place for himself in the world—and for that place to be deemed worthy of respect.

The London streets were a tough life for a lone wolf.

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What's your angle?"

She'd expected the question. "No angle."

"You think because I give food to the poor, that makes me a worthy man?"

Tessa shook her head, firm. "I spent enough of my youth in the rookeries. I know better."

His air of suspicion abated not a whit. "What is this, then?"

Time to get to business. "You're buying Lydon's debt all over Town, and you need to stop."

"Now that you're a nob, you're protecting your own?" he asked in false affront.

"You need to stop for yourself."

Jagger snorted, but the hunger hadn't faded from his eyes.

"You have a sister," continued Tessa.

"She doesn't have the faintest idea of my existence." No mistaking the bitterness in his voice.

"But you know of hers. If you call Lydon's debt, you will destroy her, too."

Jagger's jaw clenched and released. "She's a lady. She'll be all right."

Tessa wasn't so certain. After their conversation at the Derby, she'd been left with the sense that something in Lady Beatrix St. Vincent's life wasn't quite right…

But she wasn't here to sort the family problems of others. Her own were enough to keep her fully occupied presently. "So, do you want it?"

"You're offering to sell me a share of The Archangel," said Jagger, slowly, as if needing to hear the words aloud again to confirm their authenticity.

"Aye."

"What about your dear brother?" he asked, following the logic. "I would be in business with a duke?"

Tessa shook her head. She already had this part sorted. "A portion of his share is being sold to Mr. Dupratt, floor manager of The Archangel, and Monsieur Ricard, our doorman."

"Is that the brick wall of a Frenchman?"

"The very one."

Jagger snorted. "You think he'll be enough to keep me in line?"

"Perhaps."

He gave that moment's consideration. "What would my share be?"

"Dupratt and Ricard will each have a ten percent share. Gabriel and I will each retain five percent."

"Which leaves me with seventy percent." Jagger cocked his head speculatively. "I thought you were getting out."

"This is us getting out," she said on a wry laugh.

"So, you won't let me have the whole lot, eh?"

"You will want us somewhat in." She'd thought this through, thoroughly.

"And why is that, milady?"

Tessa noticed Jagger enjoyed putting on a thick East End accent when it suited him, to see if he could catch her on the back foot.

"Your own good sense." She held his gaze steadily. "Dupratt and Ricard know the patrons and the business of a gaming hell that caters to the highest tier of society. They will ensure continuity. You will need them. As for Gabriel and me…" She lifted her hands, helpless to the ways of the world. "You'll have the title of the Duke of Acaster at your back."

Jagger went stone still, his mind turning each and every one of Tessa's points over. His mouth gave a bitter twist. "I'll always be the dirt under their feet, though, won't I?"

"It's your choice."

"Choice?" he scoffed. "You think the life I've led has been by choice? It's been survival from the moment I squalled my first breath. But then, what would you know of that, my lady?"

"A bit," Oh, where to start…"The death of my parents six months apart when I was nine years old. Then it was scratching and clawing for years to keep out of the workhouse and pickpocket gangs and hold my family together. You're not the first or the last person who has gotten through days and years just surviving." Her hands were clutching the edge of the table. Finger by finger, she released them. "Of course, the ton—the lords and gentlemen The Archangel caters to—they know nothing of that. Success scraped up from the dirt doesn't make you noble in their eyes. Only blood can make you noble, and you came by yours on the wrong side of the blanket."

She didn't believe in mincing words when they were the truth.

Jagger gave a dry snort. "And yours was come by on the correct side."

"Through some improbable twist of fate, yes," she acknowledged.

"And this choice you speak of?" he asked, returning to the main conversational thread.

"It's not complicated." Tessa spread empty hands wide before her. "You can prove them right—or you can prove them wrong."

Jagger sucked his teeth in dismissal. "You said it yourself. I don't have the right sort of blood."

Ah.This very intelligent man who never missed an angle was missing this one. "But isn't all this in the eye of the beholder? You can prove them right or wrong in your eyes, Blaze." It was the first time she'd called him by his given name, and it felt right for this conversation. "When you look in the mirror, who is the man you see? A man who is the dirt beneath their feet? Or a man who is worthy?"

Though she was speaking these words to Blaze Jagger, there was another man to whom she could be speaking with very few alterations.

She couldn't think about that man right now.

His head canted subtly. "And you think I could be a worthy man?"

She held his gaze without wavering. "I do." She went on. "You're intelligent and capable, Blaze. You're a man who sees what he wants out of life and goes after it. Gabriel and I are much the same as you."

He considered those words for a solid minute, and Tessa waited. Then he pushed off the doorjamb and closed the distance between them, his hand extended. She was meant to shake it—and that handshake would be the true point of no returning. Life as she knew it—the life she'd built brick by carefully placed brick—would irrevocably alter. In an instant, that life would be the past.

But wasn't it already? Wasn't the child curled in her belly proof of that?

This child was her future—and she would have it no other way.

Her hand met Jagger's halfway, and they shook on the deal.

"I'll be keeping Lydon's debt," he stated.

She'd expected as much. "But hold it just for now. It only makes good business sense."

"Ah," he said on a nod that took Tessa's meaning. "If I call the debt and bankrupt one of their own, I'll be branded a villain by the very nobs I'm fleecing at The Archangel."

"The club would fail within a year."

"I'd only be cutting off my nose to shame my face."

"And that's not a face you'd be keen to have staring you down in the mirror every day." Tessa pushed off the table. "My solicitors will have the contract delivered to you by evening."

As she exited the room, Jagger's voice sounded at her back. "Why me?"

Her step didn't falter as she said over her shoulder, "Everyone deserves the chance to fulfill their potential."

Easily, she retraced her steps out of the building, sparing a nod for the matron guarding the door. Her feet hit cobblestones that had grown slick from the light mist that had enshrouded the city while she'd been dealing with Jagger.

Now the final item was ticked off her list. Nothing was stopping her from leaving England and proceeding with her plan.

And no one stopping her, either.

The unresolved knot she'd carried with her this last fortnight tightened in her chest. But she'd learned how to walk on with it by putting one foot in front of the other. She'd point herself in the trajectory of her altered life and follow its logic to inevitable destinations. The first had been arrived at easily.

Simply, being a gaming hell owner and a mother weren't compatible roles for her, a hurdle easily surmounted by the deal just struck with Blaze Jagger.

Next for her and her child was a destination quite literal—the Continent. There, she would remain for the duration of her confinement and a few years beyond. A fictional husband of convenience would be invented and almost as quickly killed off by a swift-moving fever, leaving her a widow and, most importantly, her child legitimate.

The plan was decently sound, as long as she stayed away from English society abroad. Further, it was a plan that allowed her to proceed with her life.

Even if it did nothing to soothe the riot of emotions that yet scrambled through her. Hurt…anger…frustration…ache…And that other—annoying—emotion that yet—improbably—remained.

Love.

She now understood why love was so precious. To experience, then lose it, was no small thing. Love was nothing to bandy about. One must gift it with great care.

But how did one go about being careful with love? Didn't its arrow take a trajectory of its own deciding?

It seemed to Tessa the two participants had little choice in the matter.

Except…

There was a choice.

To accept love—or turn away from it.

Julian had made his choice.

And now she was making hers.