Page 58 of What a Courtesan Wants

“How many others do you help care for?” he asked, releasing the boy’s arm and crouching to fish the sovereign from his boot. “You’re the oldest, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be eleven soon. There’s eight of us, and … Cor! Ya weren’t lyin’ after all! Never see’d one up close afore.”

The boy’s eyes went wide as dinner plates as Benedict held the coin up between two fingers. As the lad made a grab for it, he curled his fist and drew it back, clicking his tongue in admonishment.

“First, you tell me what I want to know. Your family could eat well on this sovereign, so I won’t give it up without proper incentive.”

“Wot does incen—incentive mean? Ya don’t look like no lord, but ya talk like one.”

Technically, he wasn’t a lord, not yet. Not until his father finally had the grace to die. It annoyed Benedict that as much as he couldn’t wait to watch the man cock up his toes, he also wasn’t ready to become a viscount—which mean simultaneously willing the man to live but to also drop dead. Confusing bit of business, that.

“I’m no lord,” he said. “Incentive means you have to give me a reason to want to give you this coin. You can start by telling me—”

A dark shadow converged on him out of the dark. Benedict hardly had time to react before he found himself pinned to the wall, two large weights compressing him from either side. Ripe body odor assaulted his senses as he fought to get free, realizing that two pairs of massive hands held him as the sovereign clinked to the ground and the boy crouched to pick it up, giving him a mournful look.

“Sorry, me lord.”

Rage overwhelmed him, and Benedict twisted to get his arm free of the first man’s hold, then turn and lunged. The top of his head connected with soft tissue, the force of his head-butt sending the other man stumbling away from him with a string of oaths and a gory spray of blood. Swiping the crimson stain off his forehead, Benedict whirled to face his second assailant.

A fist came flying at him out of nowhere, his momentum carrying him right into it. He doubled over with a grunt, the force that slammed into his gut enough to throw him off his feet. Another blow slammed into his head, dazing him.

Benedict sank to the ground with his back pressed to the wall. His belly clenched and ached, and his chest burned. His head pounded like the devil. His vision blurred as he glanced up to find the men retreating from the alley, one still muttering under his breath and trailing blood along the ground.

Another dark shape approached—this one much smaller than the ones that had accosted him. The scent of lily-of-the-valley invaded his senses, combining with the odors of piss and rubbish in the alley to make him feel violently ill. It was a woman, he realized—wearing a veiled hat that hid her face, and a heavy cloak. A slender, black-gloved hand reached out to brush the hair back from his face, though the gesture had more menace to it than tenderness.

With a growl, he jerked away from her touch, glaring at her with his teeth bared. He had no doubt in his mind the attack had been orchestrated, and that he sat in the presence of The London Gossip herself. Had she been following him, or merely guarding her errand boys, which allowed her to happen upon Benedict in the midst of his mission? Either way, he’d been snared in her trap and blindsided.

“Shhh,” she crooned, holding one finger up over her veil where he supposed her mouth might be.

Rising to her feet in a fluid, graceful motion, she retrieved something from her bodice and flicked it in his direction before heading off in the direction her two lackeys had just taken. With a groan, he sat up straighter, glancing down at the thing that had fallen into his lap. It was a calling card.

His heart leaped into his throat as he noticed the familiar scrawl of two initials in neat black swirls on its face.

GC.

“Fuck,” he grumbled, letting his head fall back against the rough stone of the wall.

Sheknew. Perhaps not everything, perhaps not even enough to implicate or ruin them. But as he glanced down the alley to find that the woman had disappeared completely from view, Benedict realized two things at once.

First, that the woman knew more about the Gentleman Courtesans than he’d previously assumed, and that the lull of silence had merely been the calm before an inevitable storm. And second, she was well aware that the administrator of London’s secret society of male courtesans was none other than him.

“God damn it all to hell.”