Page 4 of The Sound of Seduction (Miracles on Harley Street #4)

S tan needed to speak to Felix, too. He still carried his father’s letter in his pocket.

My Dear Son,

The weight of our house and the fate of our people rest heavily on us, and now more than ever, you must act with vigilance and diplomacy.

Protect those under our care, especially your brother as he journeys to Cornwall.

For even the thinnest threads of our family’s security are vital.

Our enemy, List, is no better than his father, a man vile in his scapegoating of the Jews and cunning in evading accountability.

His charm belies his true nature, and he grows more dangerous by the day.

I trust your strength and decisiveness will meet the challenges ahead; this family and our people depend on it.

Your devoted Father,

Prince Ferdinand

But today, the hallway outside Felix’s office at 87 Harley Street felt narrower than it should have, like a space that seemed to close in when tension filled it.

Stan adjusted his stance, his boot squeaking on the worn oak floor.

Felix stood stiffly in front of him, his face unusually tense, his jaw clenched as if holding back words.

The sharp smell of mint poultices and something metallic drifted from the rooms beyond, but Felix didn’t seem his usual composed self today.

His hands, normally quick and steady, hung stiffly at his sides.

“I haven’t seen you downstairs,” Stan said when Felix gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Henry told me that you had to change his appointment because you didn’t have enough material.”

Felix flattened his lips. Of course, Stan didn’t expect that any of the doctors at Harley Street would discuss private patient matters with him but since Stan lived with Henry, the Earl of Langley, he just happened to know.

“It’s not because of me,” Felix started, scanning the hallway before speaking again, quieter. “But about the Klonimuses.”

The name landed like a blow. Stan’s chest tightened as he straightened, his mind leaping to the six brothers.

Kind men. Brilliant, even. Stan could still hear any of the six brothers Klonimus chattering while they bent over a delicate commission of the Grand Service for the Crown.

They had served England with grace—and for that, they’d become targets.

“Are they safe?” Stan asked, his voice too sharp, betraying his nerves.

“For now,” Felix replied with a grim edge.

He folded his arms, his gaze fixed on Stan.

“But it’s List. He’s not working alone. He’s working with a man named Richard Nagy, calls himself a bailiff.

The kind who’ll do anything for coin and out of sheer hatred for us.

And his men nearly killed Benjamin Klonimus. ”

Nearly. The word lodged in his throat like grit.

Ben was a friend and one of the most honest and talented people Stan had ever known, just like Felix.

And anyone who targeted his Jewish friends were enemies to Stan, too.

His jaw clenched instinctively. He kept his eyes on Felix as if the calm demeanor might dull what was quickly blooming into anger.

“What do you mean, ‘nearly killed?’ Is Ben all right?”

Felix shook his head, frustration flickering across his face. “He’s well, which is more than we expected. They didn’t find him, that’s all. And List hasn’t ceased trying. He’s had others attacked already, and worse. Men like Nagy act with impunity under his name.”

Stan felt the slow churn in his stomach coil and rise. Tactics. Orders. A pattern forming. He’d seen it before, knew it too well. “He’s escalating,” he said, though it felt more like confirming suspicions aloud.

Felix inclined his head, but the energy in his stance didn’t shift. “And the brothers’ gold,” he continued. “It’s nearly gone. They send me whatever meager amounts they can spare so I can treat patients, but… I don’t know how much longer I can keep taking it.”

There was more to this, Stan knew it. Felix wasn’t a man to focus on his own troubles unless he believed something greater was at stake. Stan narrowed his eyes. “Gold for your patients. That’s part of it, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Felix inhaled through his nose and lowered his arms. “Yes,” he said softly.

“If word gets out that any of us can’t treat our patients, it damages us all.

The doctors, the rehabilitation center at Cloverdale House.

Worse than that, though, this directly affects the brothers.

They’re the Crown Jewelers, Stan. If they can’t supply Prinny with what he demands, the humiliation alone…

You know how fragile England appears on the heels of Napoleon’s defeat. ”

Stan’s pulse quickened. This wasn’t just about the Klonimuses or Felix’s practice. This had layers, consequences stacked too high to ignore. And yet, the thought of six brothers being targeted for daring to exist was what burned brightest in his chest.

“It all leads back to List?” Stan asked tightly. “What’s stopping him?”

“You? Or nothing yet,” Felix admitted. His voice dropped further, and he closed the space between them. “He’s been seen in the House of Lords, Stan. He’s got men rallying to him. Some of them don’t care what he stands for, as long as the money flows. Something is… deeply rotten.”

Stan’s thoughts swirled as Felix spoke. Enough.

Stan had hoped he’d left the battlefield when he’d accepted his father’s task to prevent the exploitation of Transylvania’s gold mines from a position in England, or so he thought.

But the knot sitting hard in his gut told him this was no different.

Only here, it wasn’t a field. It was the shadows in corridors, secret deals, attacks in the dark.

Men like List didn’t stop until someone forced them to.

He stared past Felix for a heartbeat, his earlier optimism now gone.

If List succeeded, he could strip Transylvania of its gold and resources, turning it into a hollowed land mired in despair.

The blame would fall squarely on Stan’s family, left to govern an impoverished, depleted region.

Their power would crumble, their coffers drained, and Stan and his siblings would face a future without wealth, influence, or hope.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Stan said quietly, more to himself than Felix. His voice carried steadily, though a part of him wanted to shout at the injustice of it all. “He has to be stopped before this web tightens.”

Felix’s gaze lingered on him. There were no promises exchanged, but there didn’t need to be. Stan squared his shoulders. Whatever was coming, he wouldn’t stand idle. There was too much at stake. And for the Klonimuses, for Felix, for Transylvania, he’d act before it was too late.

“Be careful,” Felix said but Stan was already on his way out. He needed to think about his next move—if he could anticipate List’s next attack, he could prevent it. Or perhaps, he could even stop List from getting away with wielding the forces of evil without scruples and punishment.

But the faint murmur of voices reached Stan as he paused in the hall on his way out. He recognized hers immediately—soft, warm, gently lilting like a summer breeze.

Wendy.

She was the ray of sun in the dark storm brewing in his chest. And like a ray of golden warmth, she had the unique ability to make him briefly forget the thunder brewing with the rays of her sweet and lovely voice alone.

Now, however, she wasn’t speaking to him. But he couldn’t ignore the pull that made his feet move toward the sound.

He stood outside Andre’s treatment room, expecting to see the familiar tall figure of the physician bending over a patient. But Andre wasn’t there. Instead, Wendy’s voice carried through the cracked door, low and melodic. She was talking to someone—cheerful, tender, and unhurried.

“I don’t want the other children to see me like this.” A boy’s voice now, timid and trembling slightly.

Stan frowned at the fragility in it, the kind of raw uncertainty only childhood could carry. That tone—he’d heard it before. In war camps, in exile camps. Dread of judgment.

“They won’t know what to say,” Wendy replied lightly, “because none of them have such interesting contraptions as you. It’s a brilliant thing, see? With hinges, leather straps, and metal bars on the sides.”

Her tone made Stan pause, his gaze resting on the narrow slice of the room visible through the gap in the door. He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t linger. Yet her words reeled him in—effortless reassurance and an ease that seemed to cradle the boy’s insecurity in her capable hands.

“But my sister Charlotte said I look like I’m stuck in a birdcage,” the child’s voice trembled with another sniffle. It was muffled, as though he’d turned his face away.

Fabric rustled faintly. Stan leaned closer, his pulse ticking faster as though proximity would allow him into that space where Wendy’s presence was the sun casting everything else in shadow. He dared a glance through the door.

She was crouched beside a boy, her skirts and white apron pooling in soft folds around her as she delicately dabbed a small handkerchief against his blotchy cheeks.

The boy’s shoulders curled inward, his thin legs bound in the contraptions he’d heard that Andre had crafted—splints of metal and leather to straighten bones and strengthen poorly healed fractures or to help children with rickets walk—Andre had mentioned it to Stan before.

They did not resemble a birdcage though, Stan thought absently, more like the lanterns at Bran Castle perhaps.

But that’s what a genius’s inventions often initially appeared like, didn’t they?

The world was rarely ready to accept medical breakthroughs in a timely fashion.

“It’s not fair,” the boy whimpered, his head bowed. “I can’t walk unless I have the splints on.”