Unlacing Lilly. Gail Ranstrom

      Mr. Devlin took the banknote and gave the boy a stern look. “Next time, Ned, keep going. Returning invites recognition and being caught.”

      “Aye, sir.” Ned turned and ran back the way he’d come.

      Lilly looked at him in amazement. “Is that my banknote? Are you teaching the boy to steal, Mr. Devlin?”

      “No. I was teaching him not to get caught.”

      “Perhaps he should be, if he is taking other people’s belongings.”

      “I might agree with you, Miss O’Rourke, if I did not know that he will not eat tonight if he does not steal. Nor will he have a place to lay his head.”

      “Surely his parents—”

      “He does not know his father, and his mother…well, shall we say she is not interested in her son?”

      “But she is responsible for him.”

      “She believes her first responsibility is to her addiction. Blue ruin, Miss O’Rourke. Everything she can manage to scrape together goes to feed that need.”

      Blue ruin. Gin. Lilly shuddered. She could not even imagine such a life. “I am sorry for him, but would he not be better off in an orphanage? There, at least, he would be fed and have a place to sleep. Perhaps he would learn his letters and ciphers, and certainly the difference between right and wrong.”

      Mr. Devlin gave her such a look of profound disbelief that she began to question her conclusion. “The street is often a better place than an orphanage.” He presented her with her banknote and a small bow. “I pray you do not think less of me for assisting your villain.”

      In truth, she didn’t know what to think of him. His physical presence was nearly intoxicating, and she’d never met a man who admitted to having been a thief. Nor one who commanded the respect of a small pickpocket—a very good one, at that.

      She took her banknote and pushed it back in her reticule. “The note is all I have. Can you make change for it?”

      He shook his head. “You may pay me the next time we meet, Miss O’Rourke. Meantime…” He tossed another coin to a flower vendor they were passing and plucked a dewy pink rose from a bucket with a natural grace that belied his size.

      When he presented the rose to her, she knew she should refuse, but she found she couldn’t. The hypnotic hold of his eyes compelled her to accept. Their fingers brushed when she accepted the flower, and the heat of his touch spread up her arm to make her cheeks burn.

      “Thank you, Mr. Devlin. If you will give me your address, I shall send payment once I am home.”

      He seemed almost as unsettled as she had been. He waved one hand in a gesture of dismissal as he backed away. “Never mind, Miss O’Rourke. I can wait until we meet again.” He turned and wove rapidly through the crowds.

      Nancy tapped her shoulder. “I say, Miss Lilly! Who was that? A real looker, he is.”

      “His name is Mr. Devlin. I barely know him, Nancy. I met him a few weeks ago at Lord Olney’s ball.”

      Nancy gave her guarded look. “We had better get you married soon or ’twill not be the last we see of him, I warrant. He looked at you like you were a cherry tart, miss, and he had a very big spoon.”

      Cherry tart? Nancy’s assessment was unnerving. In truth, Lilly did not know what to make of Mr. Devlin. Why, she had recently thought of him as an “odious man,” and mere moments ago she had thought him quite gallant to come to her rescue. But perhaps Nancy was right. She had better marry Olney soon, before her vague misgivings took root.

      Chapter Three

      Devlin separated his papers into stacks. One for his barkeeper, one for his solicitor, one for his valet and his own private list. Within a day or two he’d be ready to put his plan in action, and just in time.

      A soft knock at his study door as the clock chimed eleven drew his attention. This would be Basil Albright, his solicitor, prompt to a fault.

      The door opened a crack, and Knowles, his valet, announced, “Mr. Albright, sir.”

      Devlin nodded and Knowles widened the gap to allow the solicitor through, then closed them inside. A smallish, balding man, Albright looked meek and ineffectual, but in reality, he was a shark. Nothing got past the man, and he was ruthless in dealing with his opponents.

      “Mr. Farrell, what is this nonsense about drawing up a will? Has someone challenged you?”

      How interesting that Albright would think in those terms. And yes, it was a very distinct possibility someone would, considering what he was about to do. Nonetheless, Albright’s impertinence should not be indulged. “I am simply trying to tie up loose strings before I turn my attention to other matters.” He gestured to the chair across the desk from him.

      Albright gave him a sharp look as he sat down, opened his portfolio and withdrew a lead pencil. “Give me the particulars and I shall have it drawn up immediately. If it is not complicated, I should have it ready for signature tomorrow.”

      “Not in the least complicated. First, I wish to leave the gin house, both business and building, to Knowles.”

      “The valet? But what does he know of running a gin house?”

      “We’ve lived above it for five years now, Albright. Do you think he’s absorbed nothing?”

      Albright looked around and Devlin knew he was assessing his apartments above The Crown and Bear. He’d said on more than one occasion that he found Mayfair quality above a Whitechapel slum to be a poor investment. But Devlin liked living above his business. He hadn’t acquired wealth by delegating responsibility to others. No, he’d learned early to cling tight to what was his.

      “The contents, as well?” Albright asked.

      “Everything as it stands at the moment I cease to breathe.”

      “Mr. Farrell, the furnishings alone must be worth—”

      “As it stands,” Devlin repeated.

      He waited until Albright finished making his notes, then continued. “My investment portfolio to Mick Hadden.”

      “Why, that’s—”

      “He wasn’t always a barkeeper, Albright. Michael Haddon. M-i-c-h—”

      “I can spell Michael, sir. And what of your cash accounts?”

      Devlin turned in his chair and gazed out his window to the teeming street below. He lived in the midst of poverty and squalor. There was no way to end it, and he hadn’t enough to make a scintilla of difference to the inhabitants of Whitechapel. He was not even certain most of them wanted a better life. But a few did. And he’d already made provisions for them.

      Had his own mother had the wherewithal, she’d have gone back to Wiltshire when she’d found she was expecting him. Instead she’d been discharged into the Whitechapel rookeries to make her way the best she could. At first that had meant sewing and mending for a bawdy house, and when her eyesight began to fail when Devlin had been merely eight, she’d done whatever had come her way to put food in his mouth. Yes, even that.

      “I want you to look into establishing a fund—a foundation, if you will—to assist women who wish to leave a dissolute life.”

      Albright coughed and glanced up from his writing. “Surely I did not hear you correctly.”

      “Surely you did.”

      “But you…”

      He raised an eyebrow, daring Albright to continue. After escaping the orphanage when he was eleven, he’d done many things to build his fortune, most of them illegal, some of them immoral, but he’d never made money off women’s backs. That one sin, at least, was foreign to him.

      Albright wisely