Page 29 of To Heist and to Hold

She expected him to voice disbelief that she would attempt to continue the business after her husband passed—a typical response—or offer false murmurs of commiseration that held no more water than a sieve—even more typical than the first.

But he did neither, remaining silent as the seconds ticked on.

She glanced up, curious, only to see an expression on his face she had never seen before, a softness she had never expected.

The breath caught in her throat, not so much at the shock of seeing it, but because it made her want to crawl into his embrace and never leave.

Flustered, she looked away. “But I did not answer your question, did I?” she continued.

“You were asking why Sylvia invited me into her home. The viscountess is rather eccentric and likes to surround herself with things that are strange and unusual. As I am rather strange and unusual myself, I was the perfect fit for her little menagerie.” She gave a light laugh.

“So she has her own peculiar reasons for inviting you to live with her,” he said softly. “But why did you accept?”

The question gave her pause. Not because he’d asked it; it had been completely natural to do so, she supposed.

But the truth of the matter was, she had never really asked herself why she had agreed to Sylvia’s offer.

Yes, her life had been falling down about her ears, her future in a shambles.

And yes, Sylvia had offered her a comfortable home where she could pursue her passions to her heart’s content.

It made perfect sense through such a narrow lens.

But to live in the Wimpole Street house, she had been required to join the Widows in their work, an enterprise that had shocked her to her core when Sylvia had told her of it.

And one that she had quickly learned could be dangerous, that took cunning and skill and all manner of talents that she was even now lacking.

A thought that had her feeling much too raw and vulnerable.

“Who would not wish to live with a viscountess?” she replied lightly, noncommittally, before fixing him with a stern glare. “Ah, but that is a second question, isn’t it?” She wagged a finger at him. “Enough of that. It’s my turn now.”

He narrowed his eyes, looking as if he would argue with her. But in the end he dipped his head in acknowledgement and indicated with a sweep of his hand that she could proceed.

Hiding a smile, she pursed her lips and pretended to consider it. Not that she had much to consider. This little game was hers, after all.

“How did you meet your partners?” she asked now.

He smiled some. Just with the corner of his mouth, barely enough for it to be considered a smile.

But there was something like ghosts in his eyes.

The expression took her aback, for it was as if a deep, dull pain lurked beneath the surface, a presence that might rise up and swallow him whole if given a chance.

A dull throbbing started in her chest, and she fought the urge to rub at it.

What was this emotion? Concern? Pity? Neither would be conducive to her plans.

Shaking off the feeling as best she could, she tried for a light tone as she said, “Remember, if you choose not to answer, you must pay the penalty.”

She was rewarded with the slightest deepening of the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, the scattering of those ghosts in his gaze.

“Oh, I’ll answer,” he replied. “Like you, I’ve nothing to hide.

And the story is well known, anyway. You may have heard I grew up in…

difficult circumstances.” He waited for her to nod, which she did.

Who hadn’t heard that he had come from the seedier part of London and risen from the literal gutter?

It was part of what drew the nobility to Dionysus, that prospect of flirting with the taboo.

“We ran in the same crowd, Teagan and Parsons and I,” he continued, his gaze taking on a faraway, haunted look, as if he were witnessing those days once more.

“And my brothers, of course. In fact, nearly everyone who works for me is connected in some way to those days.” He paused.

“I hoped that connection would ingrain a sense of loyalty in those who work here.”

The words fell off, heavy and somber. She had seen that loyalty for herself, had even commented on it.

But the dark air coming off him revealed something completely different was going on.

Was there disloyalty within Dionysus? She recalled then Julia’s tear-streaked face, her insistence that the club’s tables had been crooked.

Add to that how much the club obviously meant to Ethan, and doubts began to creep in, like tendrils of smoke beneath a closed door, warning of danger on the other side.

Was his pain connected to all that, then?

Had he heard rumors as well that something unsavory was afoot at his club?

Was he not, in fact, part of the corruption within Dionysus, but a victim of it?

Another moment and she shook herself back to her senses. Ethan was not a victim. Commiserating with him, pitying him, would only lead to failure. There was too much at stake, her promise to her late husband and Julia’s safety and her position in the Widows included.

That, however, did not stop the small roots of doubt that had crept into her heart.

But she had been silent too long. She shifted in her seat, shooting him a covert glance.

He, however, did not seem to notice her distraction, his morose gaze fixed quite firmly on the still-full glass in his hands.

She should not feel compassion for this man.

She should continue to direct their little game down the path that would give her the outcome she desired.

But nothing could have stopped her from trying to smooth the strange sadness from his brow.

Scooting forward in her chair, she reached out and laid a hand on his arm. He started, looking at it bemusedly.

“Tell me how you met them,” she said softly. “What was your friendship like? And this still counts as my one question,” she continued louder when he looked up at her. “For you truly haven’t answered me.”

A spark of amusement lit his gaze. “Is that so? Well then, to save myself from a penalty, I’d better answer, hadn’t I?”

She moved to settle back in her chair, strangely pleased at herself for having put a smile, however small, on his lips.

When her hand would have fallen from his sleeve, he grabbed it, holding it in place.

His large, scarred fingers traced hers, sending shivers of need pulsing through her, and it took every bit of her willpower to focus on his words and not on how his touch affected her.

“I don’t recall the exact date,” he continued, voice low and almost as hypnotic as his touch.

“I was five. My ma had just given birth to Gavin, and she couldn’t deal with a rambunctious child underfoot.

So I was sent out to find my own adventures.

And I did, in the form of two equally dirty, equally wild hellions.

We were inseparable after that.” He chuckled softly, then quickly sobered, fingers rubbing absently at a scar on the back of her hand.

“They were at my side when Ma had Isaac the following year, and when my pa left shortly after that. They helped me gain access to the seedier gaming hells so I might try and use my talents at cards to support my family. And they were there to nurse me back to health when I nearly died.”

That, finally, broke the spell of his fingers on her skin. She sat up straighter. “You almost died? What happened?”

He grinned and wagged his finger in her face, a blatant imitation of what she had done to him. “Now, now. I have answered your question. You wouldn’t wish to be unfair by not allowing me my turn, would you?”

Oh, he was maddening. Shooting him a scowl—her curiosity was quite thoroughly piqued—she pulled her hand from his and flopped ungraciously back in her chair. “Very well,” she grumbled. “What do you wish to ask me?”

He chuckled, then sobered, gaze intense on her. “How did you meet your husband?”

She blinked. “Gregory? You wish to know about Gregory?”

“Unless you wish to take your penalty,” he murmured, indicating with a jut of his chin the still-full glass in her hand.

“Oh, no,” she declared. “Those two drinks have already gone to my head, and I don’t fancy another. Besides, I vowed you could ask me anything.”

She cleared her throat, shifting in her seat, her mind already traveling back in time, to places she would be more than happy to forget.

“To tell you about Gregory, though, I suppose I shall have to first explain what led me to his doorstep. You probably know from the information you gleaned about my past”—here she paused and gave him a pointed look, to which he dipped his head in acknowledgement without the slightest hint of sheepishness—“that I was an orphan, that I was sent to my uncle’s house when I was young, that I learned blacksmithing from him.

But they had more than their fair share of mouths to feed, and I was not welcome.

My aunt, particularly, was eager to see me gone, and was quite fond of letting me know in no uncertain terms that the sooner I came of age and left her house, the happier she would be.

My cousins followed her lead, of course, in making me feel as unwelcome as possible.

And so I soon became as eager for the day of my departure as they were. ”

It was meant as a kind of dark humor, this way of explaining why she had left her uncle’s home the moment she’d been able to.

Yet Ethan did not seem to see it that way.

He looked at her with something like sadness shadowing the depths of his eyes.

“And you had no one else?” he asked. “No siblings? No grandparents? Not even a friend?”

“Not a one,” she replied.

“It sounds to be a horribly lonely existence for a child.”

She blinked, for she had never thought of it that way. She had been surrounded by family, after all, her uncle and aunt and cousins.

Yet she truly had been lonely, hadn’t she? “I suppose I was,” she replied quietly, suddenly aware of a deep ache in her chest that seemed to have been there for far longer than she had realized.

“But I did my best to be useful to them,” she continued, flustered by the foreign emotions bombarding her, her explanation of the situation more a reminder to herself than for him. “Affection cannot be expected, after all. I had to earn my place with them.”

But her words did not alleviate his peculiarly mournful mood as she’d intended. If anything, they seemed to deepen it. “No one should have to earn their place in anyone’s life, most especially a child.”

Shouldn’t they? But his quiet words were dredging up emotions she would rather not confront just then.

Needing to regain control of the conversation, as well as her rapidly thawing heart, she continued.

“When my uncle grew sick and was nearing the end of his life, I knew it was only a matter of time before I was thrown out onto the streets. By this time my fascination with weaponry had taken over everything else. I was haunting Gregory’s fencing studio, watching his classes from the street.

I finally screwed up the courage to introduce myself, to offer up a partnership of sorts: I would supply him his weaponry and mend his blades and do anything else he needed around his salon if he would offer me a place to stay.

He counteroffered: We could marry, a marriage of convenience of sorts, and form a true business partnership.

” She shrugged. “And that, as they say, was that.”

“You make it sound so simple,” he murmured.

“I suppose it was. It all fell into place, after all.”

“Fell into place?” Disbelief colored his words. He took up her hand, his fingers warm around her own, giving her a comfort she hadn’t expected to receive. “I think you underestimate the strength of character it took to forge ahead when it seemed the world was against you.”

Which was so unexpectedly kind, she was unable to speak for several long moments. Flustered, yet unable to bring herself to remove her hand from his, she continued.

“Anyway, though it was not a love match, we grew to become good friends. The time I spent married to him and working alongside him in his salon was a blessing.” Then, to remind herself why she was here in the first place, she said a bit louder, a bit more forcefully, “And I gained true family in the form of Gregory’s sister. I would do anything for Julia.”

Which naturally guided her to her next question. She wanted to ask him how he had nearly died. She wanted to ask him about the brother he had lost.

But this was not about what she wanted, was it?

“And now it is my turn once more,” she declared. Then, taking a deep breath, she asked, “Will you bring me someplace within Dionysus I haven’t been before?”

His eyebrows shot up, his surprise at the request evident. “That question is hardly within the rules of the game.”

“I said we may ask the other anything we may wish, and if the other refuses, they must pay a penalty. I did not specify that the thing we ask must have a verbal answer.”

A bark of laughter escaped his lips. “You’re a sly minx, aren’t you?” he murmured with more than a hint of admiration. He stood and held out a hand to her. “Come along, then.”

Heart pounding in her ears, she took his hand and rose, and together they made their way from his office.