Page 17 of The Secret Word (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #10)

Michael whistled again, and this time Harry shook his head. “Ramping Billy. My father is not going to like that.”

“I didn’t like being put out on the street,” Chris retorted, irritated on Billy’s behalf.

Harry gave him a wry smile. “I’ll make sure to point that out to him, cousin.”

“Did you really work in a brothel?” Michael asked, then seemed to remember that Clem was there, for he shot her a glance and muttered, “Never mind.” Clearly, he wanted salacious details. He was doomed to be disappointed, for Chris wouldn’t share the few he had available.

“This place runs a depository for letters,” Chris said, changing the subject. “If you need to reach me, or if I need to let you know something, write to me here. I’ll be collecting letters addressed to C. Waite.”

“Oh fun,” Michael said. “I’ve always wanted my own secret correspondent, like in the Gothic novels. I’ll be M. Good, shall I?”

“What can I be?” Harry asked. “H. Satters might not be different enough, if someone asks the right questions. C. Waite writing to H. Satters would give it away immediately. Let’s say S. Henry.”

“Very good,” Chris approved.

The cousins parted in charity with one another, and Clem reflected Chris’s feelings when she said, “That went quite well, I thought.”

Better than Chris had expected, and certainly better than his next encounter with family.

The sign that something was wrong came from one of Billy’s boys. He was waiting by the door under the supervision of Billy’s lieutenant, Tiny, and approached Chris nervously. “Mister, I’m sorry, mister. I di’n’t know I shouldn’t, only ’e said ’e were yer gaffer, so I let ’im in.”

Chris looked at Tiny over the boy’s head. “My grandfather?”

“Seemingly. The boss said might as well see him now as later.”

Chris crouched to look the boy in the face.

Like most of them, he had old eyes in a young scrawny body.

He flinched, as if expecting a blow, then peeked at Tiny and straightened, setting his chin and squaring his shoulders, as if determined to take whatever happened.

Jim, this one was called, though whether it was the name he had as a baby or one he’d adopted since was anyone’s guess.

Jim was a recent addition to Billy’s crew.

Chris might have been the first boy Billy took from the streets, but he was far from the last. Billy’s people fed them, civilized them, educated them in useful skills and in basic writing and arithmetic, and when they were finally of some use, they disappeared. But others always took their place.

People had dozens of theories about what happened to the trained boys, some more lurid than others, none even close to the truth. Chris, as Billy’s bookkeeper, knew they all went to legitimate positions. Households and businesses throughout England hired on Billy’s former boys.

If Chris managed to set up his school, he planned to ask Billy to send the most promising to him, for he himself was the only boy he knew about who had been educated beyond the basics. Chris thought that was a waste, for there were other intelligent lads who would go far with the right education.

“Is my grandfather in my office, Jim?” Chris asked.

Jim nodded. “I’m sorry, mister,” he repeated.

“You weren’t to know, Jim,” Chris told him. “If it happens again, though, tell the person who calls that they must wait. That study is where I write things down about Mr. O’Hara’s business. You wouldn’t want Mr. O’Hara’s enemies finding out things they are not meant to know, would you?”

Jim shook his head so fast that his cheeks wobbled. “No, sir, mister,” he said fervently.

Chris nodded and went to face his grandfather.

He wasn’t truly worried about the records he kept for Billy.

Everything was locked away whenever he left the room.

Tiny knew that, and so did Billy, or Grandfather’s time in the room would have been short indeed.

But let Jim worry a little. It would help the lesson to stick.

It was lucky that Chris had no expectation that Grandfather might have changed. The way the man bullied his way into a room he should not have entered without Chris’s invitation showed he was the same man who cheerfully abandoned Chris to his own devices in one of the world’s wickedest cities.

“Grandfather,” Chris said, as he opened the door. The man hadn’t changed. Perhaps he was a little greyer, a little older. But he turned from the window as the door opened, caught sight of Chris, and went straight to the point without a smile or even a glint of recognition in his eyes.

“Wright. He’s worse than a commoner. He’s a coal miner. You cannot marry his daughter.”

“I intend to marry his daughter,” Chris told him.

“I forbid it,” Grandfather declared. “You are a Satterthwaite of Blethering. Marry an heiress who doesn’t belong in the gutter. And what are you doing here? Working for a debt collector? It won’t do, Christopher. You must resign.”

“You cannot tell me what I can and cannot do, Grandfather. You gave up that right when you abandoned me in the street.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Grandfather said. “I left you safely at my brother’s house.”

Chris had been over this painful ancient history often enough in recent days to speak calmly.

“You left me in the street outside your brother’s house, from which we had already been turned away once.

I was turned away again, and had nowhere to go.

I could have died in the streets that first winter. I very nearly did.”

“Fool boy. You should have tried your mother’s people.”

“I did not know my mother’s people,” Chris pointed out. “I was a child.”

“That is hardly my fault,” said Grandfather, and then he waved a dismissive hand.

“I did not come here to discuss ancient history, Christopher. Your father was a disappointment to me, falling in love with your mother and running off with her when all he was meant to do was be paid off by her father.”

That was good to know. Chris felt slightly better about his father, knowing he had loved his mother when he ruined her.

Grandfather had not finished his rant. “I expect better from you, boy. I have plans for you, and they do not include being married to a coal miner’s daughter. But if we play our cards correctly, she could be worth something, for all of that.”

Chris opened the door which he had closed behind him when he entered. “I want no part of your plans, Grandfather. Please leave.”

“Shut the door, boy, and I’ll tell you about the bride I have chosen for you. I think you shall be pleased.”

“I’ll have no part of any of your plans, Grandfather,” Chris insisted.

“Her father is Morton Vaughan,” Grandfather said, ignoring him. “Born a gentleman, mark you, Christopher, though he does work in trade. Tea, and as rich as Croesus. The girl is pretty, too. I’d have married her myself, but he won’t have me for her. Says she deserves a handsome young husband.”

“I am marrying Clementine Wright, Grandfather,” Chris said, wishing the man was twenty years younger, for he would be happy to hurl him down the stairs and out the door into the stable yard.

“You’ve no choice, Christopher. I’ve signed the marriage agreements. You are marrying the Vaughan filly.”

Obnoxious turnip! Chris struggled to maintain the appearance of calm while his temper seethed and bubbled. “Your signature is not valid. I am an adult, and have not agreed, and will not agree.”

“You will do as you are told, Christopher,” his grandfather growled.

“I will not,” said Chris, firmly.

His grandfather complained, harangued, and eventually left, muttering about serpents’ teeth and thankless children.