His Secretive Madam (Enterprising Women Book 3) by Peri Maxwell

Author:Peri Maxwell [Maxwell, Peri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

“Why not cut Spencer from the middle and go straight to Stratford himself?”

Joss stared at her father from her seat in the center of his cell. Her cloak was open, despite the chill in the air. Condensation trickled from the stone walls, leaving dark trails that matched her umber-colored dress. “What?”

“He could be useful, should he know you held this over his head.”

Given the battle she and Drake had survived, Joss was certain Stratford already knew what they held. Though he might not yet be able to put a name with a face. “I am not certain how my lack of anonymity benefits anyone.” Not to mention ending up in the Thames. “Or how it brings about any sort of justice.”

“The ton will never serve justice on their own; you know that. It will be left to shoulders like mine to hold up the system while they look down their noses. She will be just another dead doxy to them, mourned by none but others like her. There will be no reason to act.”

Joss hadn’t known Violet in life, but now she spent so much time thinking of the girl that her father’s words cut. “Then there is a reason for me not to go to him directly. What regard would he have for me, given my line of work?”

“Don’t be that way, my girl.” He moved closer. “You’ve spent your life learning how to make people pay attention.”

She forced herself not to recoil. He was her father, after all. But dear God he stank. His hair, his breath, his skin. She had paid the warden for additional toiletry supplies and more bathing privileges, even for chits to do laundry more often. He wasn’t pocketing the money, at least not all of it, because new bottles sat on the shelf near the mottled mirror that stood over his wash basin. However, the bottles had looked new during her previous visit as well.

“Da, are you using the things I’m buying you?”

He followed her gaze to the shelf. “Certainly, but there’s no real need to use them all the time when I don’t see anyone.”

Not even when his only child visits, the one who’s doing unthinkable things to keep him in tooth powder?

Joss went to the shelf and uncorked a bottle of hair tonic. The fumes made her eyes water. “Gin, Da?”

His neck reddened at his frayed collar. “It helps pass the time.”

The bar of soap was little more than a sliver. “Where’s your soap?” She looked hard at him.

“I sold it to a guard,” he said. “I needed the coin to pay a debt.”

How on earth had he found a way to gamble in prison? Honestly, that had been the one small bright spot of his spending time at Horsemonger Lane. Trust Da to darken that brightness. “What sort of debt?”

“Penn, two cells down, put a wager on how many pigeons would land on the wall during the hour we were outside.”

And Da had lost.

She lifted his tobacco tin and removed the cap.

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