Authors: Charis Michaels
“And Lady Piety? She will come with us?”
“I don’t know, Joe. We shall see. That was never the arrangement.”
The last thing Trevor saw before he allowed the horse to run was Joseph’s emerging smile, spreading wide. He refused to allow himself to react to the cautious delight, clear on the boy’s face.
J
anos Straka and his two henchmen had taken rooms at the village church. With Trevor’s new notoriety as Bridegroom Extraordinaire, it took less than an hour to discover this. The villagers fell over themselves to answer his casual inquiries.
Of course Joseph had not thought of the church, because it was the last place Janos Straka had ever been known to visit. But Straka had a fondness for bitter irony, especially when it made a fool of someone new, and what was more ironic than a criminal overlord taking refuge in a house of God?
Trevor rode to the parsonage and circled at a distance, confirming his hunch. A spirited black stallion was tied in the yard, much too tall and too high-tempered for Straka. A very likely sign. Straka insisted on the showiest mounts, the taller and more belligerent, the better. There were also two lesser animals, clearly for Iros and Demetrios, and a crude fire scorching a blackened hole in the middle of the vicar’s formerly bright, lush garden.
Around this fire, they would have stayed up all hours, drinking and eating and laughing. If there were village women of a certain age, a certain ilk, all the better. Add gypsies from a nearby camp, and Trevor could recall the scene from hundreds of his resented yesterdays. It lacked only his bitter, former self, slouching drowsily in the shadows, willing the night to end so he could get some sleep or check on his mother.
But now that he’d found them, what was the best way to approach them?
If possible, Trevor wished
not
to involve the vicar. Whatever his future with Piety, she would likely remain friends with the marchioness, and she would be back to Hare Hatch at times throughout her life. His chief goal—beyond dispatching Straka—was keeping the stench of his lawlessness and violence far from her.
In the end, he chose the graveyard. It was on a hill, some distance from the church, bordered on one side by a stand of holly trees that blocked a corner from view. The whole place looked like a bucolic oil landscape, something framed in gold and hanging above a cozy fire. Shallow grass swayed with cornflowers and bluebells. Animals foraged. Birds sang.
Enter a middle-aged Greek slumlord with whom Trevor would barter for his life, and the joke would be complete.
He waited an hour for Straka to emerge. When he did, likely after seeing Trevor stalking the property and making him purposefully wait, the old man pushed open the door to the parsonage and staggered into the sunny churchyard. He was laughing, of course. Chuckling at first, rising to full-blown guffaws. It was his signature greeting, meant to signify either that he was glad to see you or soon you would die. Or both.
Trevor forced himself not to flinch. He refused to stray from his relaxed—nay,
bored
—slouch on the cemetery wall. He moved only his head, cocking it to study the old man. By the time Iros and Demetrios had stumbled from the house, Straka was halfway up the hill, still chuckling.
He was a large man; tall, with a rotund belly, thick shoulders and hands. He was dressed in his native garb now, a deep purple kaftan with a yellow kalpak on his bald head. These did nothing to minimize his brawn—likely another calculated choice. When he reached the wall, he held his arms wide, an invitation to embrace, but Trevor refused even to stand. Instead, he raised his chin and said in smooth Greek, “What can I do for you, Janos?”
“But what is this greeting?” Straka said in a deep booming voice. “No embrace for your old boss? No welcome to your country? After all this time?”
“It’s been three months, Straka,” said Trevor, “and you are no longer my employer. You let me go, remember? My time in Athens has come and gone.”
The old man studied him, running a hand over his salt-and-pepper beard. “Did I let you go, Tryphon?” he asked, feigning confusion. “Or did I let you
leave?”
Trevor shrugged. “Either way, I am gone. I have a new life now.”
“And a new wife!”
Trevor bristled at the mention of Piety, but he tamped it down. “Why are you here, Straka?”
“I have come to see you! How we have missed you at home. Things are not the same. The money, the Sultan; there are many problems. People are angry. There is trouble.” He shrugged.
Casually, the old man took a knife from his belt and held it out, gauging the distance to a nearby tree. With a flick of the wrist, he threw the knife. Trevor heard it plant with a
thwack
in the trunk and hang there, thrumming from the force of the throw. He refused to look.
“What kind of trouble?”
Behind Straka, Iros and Demetrios were heaving and sawing their way to the top of the hill. Straka retrieved his knife and shouted for them to wait at a distance. The duo grimaced and turned around.
“Ah, but surely we won’t discuss business
now
,” said Straka. “Let us celebrate this reunion. Let us celebrate your marriage.” He turned to the tree and hurled the knife again.
“You hate weddings, Straka. It’s why you have countless mistresses. You hate reunions, too.”
Straka shrugged and pulled the knife from the tree.
“Look,” Trevor went on, “it’s been nostalgic to see you, but please be aware that I am set to leave Berkshire this morning and return to London. After that, I will leave Britain altogether. If you have business with me—though what it might possibly be, I cannot guess, because you and I are no longer affiliated—please, let’s have it. As I’ve said, I live a very different life now. I have my own commitments and obligations. You understand obligation, I know.”
“Obligation,” Straka said, studying the tip of his knife, “yes, I understand.” His grin dropped into a hard line. “Very well, we will dispense with the niceties. You always were a miserable son of a bitch.”
“Yes,” Trevor said, “I’m no fun at all.”
Straka let the knife fly a third time and crossed his arms above his heavy belly. “I need one favor, Tryphon. A final favor.”
“What kind of
favor
?”
Straka’s head shot up, and the rage in his eyes Trevor made his heart stop.
“Your word, not mine,” Trevor said.
After a heavy moment, Straka said, “So it is. But you may term it however you like. Favor, errand, task. I don’t care.” He looked at Trevor. “I need money, Tryphon.”
“Money? You’re one of the richest men in Greece. You have more money than the Sultan.”
“Yes, but the Serbian uprising? The independence? I gambled on the wrong side of the conflict, and I lost. A lot—too much. I did not count on the Sultan letting them go. The war has cost me.”
Trevor thought about this, his mind filtering what he knew of the Serbians and their revolt against Ottoman rule some five years ago. He’d been conscripted to work for Straka about six months after the truce. The conflict had not seemed relevant to his duties for Straka. The old man never chose sides. He followed the money,
only
the money.
Not wanting to sound too interested, Trevor asked, “Cost you how?”
Straka swore and waved his thick arms dismissively, rattling off the details of an arrangement he’d made with the Sultan before the revolt. The Sultan had allowed Straka to lease-hold half the tenement slums in Belgrade, but the new Serbian government began to reclaim the property when the Serbs won their independence. Straka no longer had claim to their rents.
There was more. He’d been skimming money off the top, not giving the proper cut to the Sultan, and now the Serbs were extorting him for double-crossing the Sultan all those years. He owed money coming and going. His summation was accurate: there was trouble.
But it was not Trevor’s trouble. He hadn’t managed this corner of Straka’s empire; he’d never even been to Serbia. And either way, Trevor didn’t have any money to give him.
He shoved off the wall and shook his head. “I hear your dilemma, Janos, but you’ve come to the wrong man. I have no advice on your swindling Serbia or double-crossing the Sultan, and I’ve no money to give you at all. You’ve journeyed a long way, and I appreciate the confidence in me, but I cannot work for you again. My responsibilities to the earldom are too great.”
“No money?” said Straka, seizing on the heart of the matter. “You wouldn’t expect me to believe that an earl, a peer of the realm, a man to whom they say,
no, my lord
, and
yes, your lordship
, does not have money?”
“I cannot be responsible for what you believe, only what I know to be.” Trevor told him about his wastrel uncle, the cost of settling the debt. “Old titles are expensive and time consuming. I cannot help you with Serbia; I’ve problems of my own.”
“Fancy wedding for someone who claims he’s penniless,” said Straka, his voice light but potent. He retrieved his knife and threw it again. “Musicians. Dancing. Lavish feast. Imagine my surprise to arrive in London, searching for you, only to be told you were in the countryside, getting shackled. And then to follow that trail all the way to a castle—”
“Hardly a castle,” interrupted Trevor, “the manor house belongs to a well-meaning neighbor of the woman I married. The wedding was her gift to the bride.”
“Lot of trouble for a well-meaning neighbor.”
“She has a grandmotherly affection for the bride.”
“Information we gathered about
the bride
was she’s as rich as Croesus.”
With considerable effort, Trevor kept his expression neutral. “Well, your information is not true.”
“When you lie to me,” Straka said, wrenching the knife from the tree, “you only make things worse. For everyone.”
And there’s a thinly veiled threat
, thought Trevor, his anger flaring. But he kept his tone lazy and bored. “The woman I married owns some property in London—a townhome next to mine. This is how we became acquainted. But her money has been sunk into the house and its repairs. Her parents were wealthy Americans, but her father is dead and her mother holds the key to the coffers now. That’s why she fled to London; her mother was starving her out. They never got on. You know how it is.”
“I know there must be money somewhere.” Straka chuckled and sent the knife flying again. “Knew it soon as I clapped eyes on her pretty little face. Why, I could
smell
the money. Maybe you are in the poor house with your uncle’s title, but I don’t believe this is the case with your wife. Not for a second.”
“You don’t take my meaning, Janos.” Trevor emphasized each word, hating the desperation in his tone. “If you must know, the woman that I married and I agreed to the wedding in order to keep her mother from marrying her off to someone else. The other man did not suit—he was violent and cruel—and she deserved better. You know how I feel about this sort of thing. ‘Soft,’ I believe was your frequent term for my sympathetic bent.
“We do not operate as an authentic married couple. We will not become ‘a family.’ We are not ‘in love.’ In truth, we barely know each other.” It was only as the words left his mouth that he realized how much it hurt to say them. The first rule of lying—learned at Straka’s knee—was to stay as close to the truth as possible. To say he did not know her? That she was not his family? It felt as far from the truth as possible.
“Our plan is to annul the whole thing next year,” he went on, “when her mother is gone. Even our households will remain apart. I’m selling my London house to travel, and she is restoring hers to move in. Even if my”—he stopped himself from saying
wife—
“even if the woman I married was in possession of some great fortune, which she is
not
, I could not get to it, because this was not part of our arrangement. It’s a union in name only.”
“Looked very real to me. Why, I almost choked up, listening to you whisper your heartfelt vows.”
“Believe what you wish, but I am telling you the truth,” said Trevor, barely hanging on to calm.
“And what did you get, Tryphon? For pretending to marry her, as you say?”
“I know this is difficult for you to grasp, Janos, but I did it because it was the
right thing to do.
It’s as simple as that. There was no direct benefit to me.”
“Oh, I know what you got,” Straka said knowingly, “paying it off on her back, is she, Tryph—”
“
We are not intimate
, and that’s all I have to say on the matter. I will not discuss this woman with you. There was no payout. She has no money to pay, even if there was. And I have no money at all. You have come to the wrong man.”
Straka stared at him a long moment, and Trevor raised his eyebrows, a challenge. He hoped it was enough of a show, even while his heart raced and he was covered in a cold sweat. It was a new response; the old man had not had this effect on him in the past. It was one of the reasons they had gotten on so well. Trevor had been impossible to bully. But there had never been anything at stake before, never anything to lose.
Janos laughed, the exact sound you did not want to hear when trying to stave off panic. “But of course I did not come here to take
your
money,” he said. “Whether you have it or not.” His laughter died away, and he shot Trevor a hard look. “I would not steal from my most loyal and trusted advisor.”
Well, that’s a lie
, Trevor thought.
“But I do appreciate your long and elaborate protestations. An earl with no money? Ha! A wife who is really no wife at all?” He pushed the notion away with a bat of his hand. “But this is not what I want.
What I want
is someone else’s money.”
Right
. Trevor swallowed hard. When the second option sounded better, it was always worse. Always. “Whose?”
“He is a young man, like you. And an English lord, also like you. A viscount.” Straka shrugged. “I knew his father—
he
was the viscount then. He and his lady wife came to the Greek islands from time to time. A holiday tour. They had certain, shall we say
tastes
that could not be satisfied on
this
island.”