Page 70 of A Treacherous Trade

“Of course.” I gathered the shawl before rushing out.

Croft was staring at the wall behind her as she laid into him.

I crept back upstairs to wash and was chagrined to find that their conversation was not private at all. Not with how Amelia’s voice projected. I learned more about her past as I washed away the miraculous herbs she’d used to aid my healing.

I learned how young she’d been. How many times she’d come home looking just like me.

And worse.

He’d saved her life when he was old enough. He’d put men in the ground for her, or at least I thought that was what she alluded to.

I rinsed my lip and scrubbed my face, lingering until mine were the cleanest features in all of the world, and still she railed.

Croft listened. To his credit, he listened.

Eventually, I wandered back down the stairs, avoiding the creak of the fifth. I thought she knew I could hear. Or maybe she was so angry that she didn’t notice.

I thought about leaving, but couldn’t very well do so in a nightgown.

With a puff of my cheeks, I sank onto a chaise in the parlor across the hall from the kitchen and tucked my feet under me.

“You’re going to that photographer’s shop with her in the morning. You two will see Charles Hartigan. And you’re going to help her find out if he slaughtered my friend and threw her in the river, do you hear me?” She should have been a warlord, fearsome as she was. Or perhaps a queen. I’d have followed her into battle.

Croft replied, but his voice was at such a low register, I could only make out two words.

Fiona. Danger.

Whatever he said brought Amelia’s fury back to a manageable level. “She knows her mind, and she’ll have you to protect her.”

He said something else, but I caught none of it.

“Grayson,” she said, with the hoarse bitterness of a thousand wronged women. “I do not ask you for much, and I never leverage anything I did upon you. But this… this is important, little brother. And youwilldo it. If not for Alys or for Jane, forme. Because I couldn’t raise you both… and I chose you, Grayson. I choseyou, and I need you to return the favor.”

I knew what she was talking about.

The child.

The child she’d given up for adoption to Kathryn Riley.

I closed my eyes, swamped in grief and guilt. Somehow, I knew Grayson Croft was doing the exact same thing.

Grief, I had learned several times over, was the price we paid for love. For family.

I understood that as fervently as I knew that tomorrow, Croft and I would be paying Charles Hartigan a visit.

ChapterSixteen

Even on a winter’s morning, where I had to squint against the light, Croft seemed swathed in shadow.

He still wouldn’t look at me.

So we both stared across the street at our quarry. C.B.H. Photographer and Gallery was tucked into a market square off Warwick Lane, a comfortable jaunt from Fleet Street by way of Ludgate Hill. Some tidy residences and apartments mingled in and over specialty stores such as bookshops, tea shops, and even a cutler’s livery and guild hall.

Inspector Croft and I loitered out of view of the frosted windows, bundled in winter wear and our own discomfiture in each other’s company.

I hadn’t meant to sleep the morning away in Croft’s parlor. I’d planned to request a frock I could wear home beneath my soiled coat and meet him in the morning.

I’d have it laundered, of course, and send it back with compensation and my undying gratitude. However, I’d lost consciousness before the Croft siblings concluded their fraught interaction.