G
olden brown hair, lit by the light streaming in from the windows behind her, made him stare in shock for a moment. When he had encountered all three locks to his office door disengaged and free of scratches and gouges, he had envisaged a great many possibilities. Except this one.
Phoebe Pace sat in his chair, head bent over a ledger, a stack of invoices beside her, intense concentration on her features.
He hadn’t forgotten that she was living here for the unforeseeable future. How could he when he recalled every few seconds that she was sleeping just down the hall from him? But he had thought maybe he could
avoid
her.
Better that than to think of what deals had and could be made.
“What are you doing?” He had meant to bark it or hiss it or emit it the way some feral animal might. Instead, the question emerged strangled.
“Oh!” She looked up at him brightly. “Good morning, Mr. Merrick. I thought you might be abed a few more hours. You aren’t much of an early riser.”
He felt like snapping out something such as how he had gone to sleep three hours before and part of that was because he kept seeing
her
in his mind’s eye. He reined it in with difficulty.
“What are you doing?” he repeated darkly.
“I have been painstakingly working on these figures. Numbers are not my strength, unfortunately, but working diligently—long and hard—I believe I can meet even your exacting standards, Mr. Merrick.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. So he strode toward the windows and yanked the drapes closed, plunging the room into darkness, only slivers of light seeping through the edges.
“Too bright for a creature of the night?” she asked lightly.
He didn’t answer, lighting the lamps on his desk instead, as she smartly slipped into the seat on the visiting side.
“It is as if you are expecting an attack through a second-story window,” she mused. “As if someone might shoot you from a broken pane across the alley.”
“What are you doing in here?” His seat was still warm in the little space that had held her rear. He shifted.
She nodded at her pages. “Math. Or I was. It is hard to do anything with such little light. You are going to go blind, Mr. Merrick,” she said cheerfully.
“Why are you in my room?”
He didn’t ask how she had entered. Three sets of locks on the door open and unscratched. Either someone had let her in, or Roman had left a set of cranking master keys in his bedroom.
“I had thought your room was upstairs?” she said.
“My
office,
” he responded, in a more surly manner.
It looked like she tried to keep the smile from her face but then decided to let it bloom anyway. “I needed somewhere to work, and I wished to speak with you. Your office suited both desires.”
He could throw it in her face that the exchange had included her promise to leave him alone in order to stay in his brother’s rooms. But something about that smile prevented the words from emerging.
And that irritated him.
“Well, speak, then leave.” He started writing on a piece of free paper on his desk, tasks for the day, anything to keep him from looking at her.
“I would like to use some of your staff if you would allow it.”
“No.” She could probably cause the lot of them to revolt.
“Just for a few small tasks. Like taking Mr. Wiggles out for walks and relief, which I have commissioned help with already,” she said lightly.
He continued scrawling on the page. “You want them to look for your brother.”
She said nothing for a full minute, damned by the silence, even if he hadn’t been sure of her motive before. “Yes.”
“Do you think to find your brother in London? Not even a mudlark would help you now.”
The silence after that statement grew heavy and weighted. He rubbed his chest. Damned guilt. He had survived splendidly without it for thirty-odd years. “Fine. You can choose three of them to help you.”
God, he was going to regret this. It was like loading a pistol, then handing it to the enemy.
“Truly?”
Her voice was warm and happy, and the feeling in his chest loosened. Shit, shit, shit.
“Yes.” He raised his gaze, pinning her. Not so far away, really, with the way both of his arms were resting on the desk’s top, his shoulders well over the edge, leaning toward her. He watched the pulse leap at her neck for a moment, unable to look away. He finally tore his gaze back up to hers. “But you can’t leave this building. And if someone with loose lips inadvertently gives away your location and leads trouble here, I will kill the lot of you myself.”
She smiled, bright and warm, the rays of it lighting the room as if he’d never pulled the drapes.
“Thank you, Mr. Merrick.” She leaned across the desk, meeting him halfway, a stretch that lifted her rear into the air, and lightly kissed him on the cheek, a brush of warm wind and soft lips. He froze.
“And I’ll have the numbers done tonight,” she said, pulling back to meet his gaze. “I’ll bring them to you by nine.”
He was so shocked he didn’t ask her
what
numbers before she disappeared, smiling, from the room, ledgers pressed to her chest.
H
e stared at the figures in front of him for the twentieth time. It was an easy task. Add, divide, subtract. Nothing taxing. And yet each set of numbers might as well have been recipes for apple pie written in Sanskrit.
Indecipherable and twice as useless.
The padding of steps thumped softly above.
He desired to take a look inside Roman’s rooms. To see James Pace and figure out what the devil was going on there. He had listened with varying degrees of incredulity to five different men report on the arrival of the Pace family. Dressing the man as a woman had actually been brilliant. Three older servant women entering the hell had provoked not a single bit of talk outside of it. And nondescript bags containing their personal belongings had been brought in at various times throughout the day to avoid speculation that someone was moving in.
There had been a tremendous amount of forethought given to their move, especially with the nondescript baggage. The thought that she had planned the move in advance wasn’t a new one. But he wondered for how long she had done so. Right from the beginning? The thought of it made him nervous. No,
she
made him nervous.
Which all spiraled back to the reason he wasn’t upstairs asking questions and demanding answers from her parents—for it meant that he would have to face Phoebe Pace too.
And her lips.
So he sat holed up in his office, finding it increasingly difficult to sit still in his seat.
How the
hell
had she gained the upper hand? He could threaten anyone. He could make giants cry in their porridge with little effort. He had had her exactly where he wanted her last night. Hell, she had promised him thirty percent of her company last night. If that wasn’t victory, he didn’t know what was.
And yet, here he sat, feeling completely on the defensive. Had let her breeze by earlier, granting her request to investigate
them.
My God.
She knocked on the door just as the clock’s hand clicked, and the first of nine chimes began. He had felt and heard her since she’d stepped off the landing. If he were honest, he had been avidly listening for her steps every time he heard the creaking of the floors upstairs.
“Enter.” He didn’t look up as she walked inside and closed the door. This was a business meeting. A simple transaction. “Very punctual, Miss Pace.”
“You seem a punctual sort of person, Mr. Merrick. Or at the very least, one to expect punctuality.”
“And here I thought you sought to defy all expectations.” He looked up as he said the last, trying to inject the appropriate amount of dark sarcasm.
She gifted him with a brilliant smile. He stared at her bright lips—truly as soft as they looked he now knew. “You’ll make me blush, Mr. Merrick, with such complimentary humor.”
He waited a moment to make sure his voice didn’t emerge strangled. “What figures do you have for me?”
“The last of the figures to straighten out the books. Or up, as you will.”
He simply waited for her to continue.
“And I am settling things so that you have action on our account for our company holdings.”
He stared at her for an indescribable moment. “What?”
She shrugged lightly. “Well, I did promise you a thirty percent stake last night. And combined with your other single shares, you are close to a controlling percentage already. If anything happens to us—should we go to prison or disappear more permanently—I want someone with intelligence and foresight to deal with Pace & Co. of London. It is my father’s legacy,” she said, the last uttered more quietly but no less resolutely.
That feeling stoked again—fire burning under his heart. Guilt.
“Why wouldn’t you make this deal with your friend,” he said harshly. “Edward Wilcox. With the provision that Lord Garrett, his father, cannot touch the company.”
She tilted her head, a small smile upon her lips. “Why indeed. Why do you think I am dealing with you instead?”
“I don’t know. I am hardly omniscient,” he said tightly.
“That is not what those around you think. A god among men.”
“I am something far darker, if anything.” He leaned forward as he uttered the silky words, expecting her to back away at the dark net flaring toward her. Considering their previous words, he didn’t know why he expected such a thing, for she leaned forward as well. As if she wanted to be entrapped by the spell.
He
pulled back instead. “Why wouldn’t you offer to Wilcox? He has gained his majority and does not need to answer to his father. Garrett would be horrified.”
It would actually have made things easier and more difficult for Andreas’s own plans if she’d done that from the beginning.
“Edward, though he is a dear, is uninterested in financial matters. Even with his estate accounts, he is smart enough to know his limits and hire others to help. However, there is no other I would trust to pick out livestock and good, arable land.” She tilted her head. “We all have our skills. But his father is still able to bully him. And Henry too. It would be a burden for them in the end, and they would not be able to save the company.”
“And you think I will?”
“I know you will.” She said it simply.
“You are assuming I want to.”
“You are heavily invested.” She tilted her head. “It is a boon to us to have you heavily invested, actually.”
He didn’t verbally acknowledge the thought that she might have planned this all along. But it was a distinct possibility that he would not lightly dismiss.
“Some investments turn out poorly.”
“I have heard that you make very few bad investments.”
“It sometimes happens.” He lifted a shoulder. “I do not have control of everything.”
“No?” She examined him. “I think I would like to see you out of control.”
His body reacted to her words, unfortunately. Already watching him keenly, her eyes followed the sudden movement of his lower body shifting behind the desk.
He quickly leaned forward, unnerved and irritated with his own reaction. And hers. “You choose to put your company and lives in my hands? You play a dangerous game.”
“I do.” She watched him, head tilted up, eyes holding his. “Will you do it?”
“Yes.” It was as if the word had been just sitting there, on his tongue, waiting to be said. Everything up to that point leading to it.
“Good. Do you have a copy of
The Statutes of the Realm
?”
He started to point, but then realized it was the perfect opportunity to avoid looking at her. He stood and briskly walked to the bookcases beside the door. He pulled the legal volume from the shelf and turned around, only to find that she’d followed him. Trapping him.
He hadn’t realized the danger he had put himself in by escaping the barrier of his desk.
“Thank you.” She looked at the volume, then back to him. He hadn’t felt so trapped in a very, very long time. It made him want to snarl and push away. But instead he kept himself still, muscles tight.
She took the volume from him, bare fingers drawing over his.
“Why aren’t you wearing gloves?” he said harshly.
She contemplated the book for a moment before tilting her head up so that she could meet his eyes. He wasn’t sure anyone other than Roman and Nana had ever met his eyes so often.
“I wear them when necessary. But I enjoy feeling the sensations and textures when I touch things.” As if she had enjoyed touching
him.
“I enjoy not wearing gloves in my own home.”
“This isn’t your home.”
She smiled. “You are wrong. At least temporarily it is. Home is where my family is.”