In the street below a gas lamp flickered, a yellow beacon in the windswept darkness. I’m not having this. All I’ve worked for, threatened by a dead whore and a spinster of no consequence. My position and my work are too important. And I’m sick of worrying about it. High time it all ended. High time. He turned and glanced at his guest, one he ordinarily wouldn’t allow in the kitchen yard, much less his study. “Hawthorne, is it? Damnation and hell. Hawthorne isn’t a man to cross.” “Who woulda thought?” Fleet mused softly. “Nightshade a gentleman. A bloody miracle, that’s what it is. You heard of him, have you, governor?” “In my line, one gets to know these things. But that’s hardly relevant, Fleet. We have to get her away from him.” There was a short pause. Then Fleet grunted. “Maybe not, governor.” Fleet sat down in one of The Gentleman’s leather wingback chairs, purloined one of his host’s expensive cigars, and lit it. “Maybe not. If we can get into his place, or if we can use somebody already there.”
