who’d bet too much money on him and lost it over the last fight he’d thrown.
“Sir?” Another insistent knock. “Look, see I told ya, he’s not in.”
“Roscoe, open the damned door.” Griswell’s instruction was sharp. “It’s time to fulfil your end of the bargain.”
Isaac eyed the window. It was too great a drop onto the street below. No way out, nowhere to run. And he was so good at running. It was all he’d known for a long time.
The kitchen boy spoke again. “That lady going to be all right, sir? She’s all pale-lookin’. Want me to send for someone?”
Lady. Isaac stood, braced over the wash-table, with water dripping into the basin. No. A loping stumble and he was at the door, sliding back the lock and dragging it open with a stiff creak. The kitchen boy’s eyes – sunken with poverty – were wide and round as he looked from Griswell to Isaac to the third person; a half-conscious woman, propped up on the merchant’s arm like a scarecrow.
“Miss Osbourne?”
The girl didn’t answer and Griswell forced himself into their room, pulling the lifeless woman in with him, to the ragged cot in the corner.
“What did you do?” Isaac was beside her, pushing her hair back from her bloodless face, finding her unresponsive.
“Laudanum,” said Griswell.
“You could’ve killed her.” She was breathing. He could feel her chest rise and fall, though it was a shallow movement. She’d live, she’d live.
“It was a calculated risk I had to take.”
“We need a doctor – anyone, someone.”
“No.” There was no concern on Griswell’s part, as he stood, unruffled, over the young woman. He turned to the kitchen boy, dropped a few coins into his expectant palm, and told him there’d be more if he kept quiet, before dismissing him. No one had seen them enter. The merchant had made sure of that – Griswell’s own reputation would be fine. Isaac was known to be a cad. This would not affect him in the least. The girl, however, was ruined. Even if Isaac managed to get her out and back across the city, it was all in Griswell’s hands – the puppetmaster, who had set the scene and controlled the outcome.
Isaac shook his head, a hand to his mouth. “I didn’t – I didn’t agree to this.”
“So long as you take my money, you’ll agree to whatever I want.”
“You cannot leave her here, they’ll all think—”
“Yes,” confirmed Griswell. “They will.”
“The deal is off.” Isaac pushed himself to his feet. He was broad, tall and strong. The merchant was an old, sallow man. There was no competition between them and Isaac enjoyed the sudden fear in his eyes. “Take her home, to where she belongs. I will not let you compromise her like this.”
Griswell flinched, but his tone remained level. “Don’t say you’ve grown soft, Roscoe?”
“I want no part in this.”
“If you’d done as I asked, these drastic measures could have been avoided.” The merchant looked over to where the sleeping girl lay, boredom etched into his features. “And stop posturing. There’s no need for violence; let’s not get the authorities involved. No one will care much for the girl’s fate, but strike a gentleman and there shall certainly be consequences.”
“You will pay for this.”
“I already have: I paid you.”
Isaac clenched his fists around empty air. A quick jab to the throat and Griswell would be on the floor, eyes bulging, clawing for air. But as impulsive as Isaac was, he wasn’t a simpleton. Hurting him wouldn’t help the matter.
Although, he thought, it would make me feel a lot better.
“The discovery will be made in the morning, when she’s had time to wake up. I’d advise you to leave this place early, Roscoe, and to make sure you’re seen, so that the wrong conclusions can be made by the right people.”
They’d assume it was a secret meeting, an affair, two lovers who could keep apart no longer. Because they didn’t know Ruth; they weren’t to know she was a perfect, bland and dowdy housewife. No, not a housewife, not yet, and now she never would be. Poor fool.
“She doesn’t deserve this.”
“Don’t tell me you like the girl?” The merchant paused in the doorway, with a pitying expression. “Oh, it’s more than that, I see.” A callous, mocking laugh almost tipped Isaac over the edge and had him forget common sense, the deal, his money. “You two do make a fine pair, Roscoe.”
In the slim seconds before a fight is to take place, there’s a calm rage, a quiet anger. Isaac felt it now. “If it’s to be like this, then give me what you promised or you will not leave this room intact.”
Griswell was too clever to be within hitting range. He took a hasty step backwards, one hand reaching out to ensure the door was where he’d left it. “What’s owed to you will be paid once my daughter is wed to Pembroke and no sooner.”
“I didn’t agree to that.”
To any of this, to that lost girl lying a short distance away.
“What choice do you have?”
None.
And he’d gone too far to back out now.
***
Only when the sky grew pale, with the colour running away at the edges, did Ruth stir. Isaac hadn’t slept. He kept his back to the door, legs splayed across the uneven floorboards, having listened to the downstairs sounds reach their drunken crescendo, before petering out in the early morning hours.
There was a groggy noise – a strangled, startled sound – and Ruth dragged herself up – too quickly, it seemed, for her fingers folded around the cot’s sides for support. Her bleary gaze finally settled on Isaac and he did not shy from it, though shame rankled in his guts.
Isaac didn’t move. “I couldn’t leave without making sure you were…” Again, as seemed to be the pattern around her, his usual charisma drained away. What was he meant to say after all that had taken place?
“You?” She was not yet fully lucid, though her gaze spun around the room wildly. “What?”
“Griswell brought you here last night. He arranged it all, to make it look as if…as if we…” Isaac trailed off, slowly getting to his feet, body knotted with dull aches. “He wants his own daughter married to that buffoon, but I didn’t think that he would…that it would come to this…”
Would she scream, shriek, throw things? He wouldn’t blame her; he wouldn’t stop her either. Let her punish him. He could take a hit; he could take a thousand.
“No.” Ruth bent forwards, still in her frumpy gown, hands pressed to her face.
