A Most Unconventional Match. Julia Justiss

necessities, Elizabeth wished she had paid more attention to her governess’s lessons on mathematics. With her older sister Mereydth and younger sisters Emma and Cecily in the room—the girls two and three years her junior and bubbling over with lively conversation—she’d usually been able to escape Miss Twimby’s attention. Daydreaming through the lesson, she’d merely bided her time until she could abandon her books and return to her charcoal and her paints.

      ’Twas no use; she’d lost track of the total again. With a huff of frustration, she pushed the book away. Such an interesting pattern the figures made, flowing down the page in her husband’s neat hand. The three at the edge of the page, turned on its side in her current viewing angle, looked like a bird seen at a long distance, its wings curved in flight. While the seven at the bottom reminded her of a tall crane, balanced on one skinny leg, bill facing into the wind as he stood at the edge of a marsh.

      She was smiling at the image when a tap sounded at the door. The portal opened to reveal Sands, but before the butler could utter a word, a swarthy, powerfully built man shouldered past him into the room.

      ‘Needn’t announce me like some toff,’ the man said as he strode in. ‘Smith’s the name, ma’am. I’m here at the behest of my employer, Mr Blackmen. And since my business is with the lady…’ he looked back at Sands ‘…you can take yourself off.’

      Despite the intimidating stare the intruder fixed on him, Sands held his ground, looking at Elizabeth. Lifting a hand to signal he should remain, she said coolly, ‘I don’t believe I am acquainted with a Mr Blackmen, sir. Perhaps you have mistaken your errand.’

      Smith gave a crack of laughter. ‘Not likely. Old Blackmen, he don’t tolerate mistakes. And you might not be “acquainted”, but I guarantee your lately departed ball-and-chain was. Knew the boss right intimate, Mr Lowery did. If you know what’s good for you and your little boy, you’ll let me tell you what he sent me to say. A personal matter, so you’d best send old long-nose there packing.’

      Alarmed—but also angered—Elizabeth hesitated. On the one hand, she didn’t relish being left alone with a man who looked like a ruffian out of a tenement in Seven Dials. But if the matter were sensitive, perhaps she should receive his message in private.

      Swiftly making her choice, she nodded at Sands. ‘You may wait in the hall’

      The butler bowed. ‘As you wish, madam. I shall be outside the door.’ Despite his advancing years and the fact that the visitor outweighed him by several stones, Sands gave Smith a challenging look. ‘Directly outside the door, if you should need anything, ma’am.’

      While the butler bowed himself out, Smith laughed again. ‘As if I couldn’t snap that old coot like a twig if’n I wanted! Got to credit him for gumption, though.’

      ‘Perhaps you could just deliver your message,’ Elizabeth interposed, unnerved and appalled by her unwanted visitor’s vulgarity.

      ‘Let me just do that, then,’ Smith said affably. ‘I can see your late husband had a hankering for pretty things.’ He looked Elizabeth up and down, the insolent inspection making her want to slap his face.

      ‘Didn’t always have the blunt to purchase his niceties, though,’ Smith continued. ‘Which is where my employer came in. Always there to help a gent who’s a little short of the ready, for a modest return, of course. I’d guess your man meant to pay back what he’d borrowed, but then—’ he made a swiping motion at his neck ‘—cocked up his toes afore he could make good on his expenditures. Now, my employer being a soft-hearted man, he gave you a month after the funeral for grieving. But now he’s wanting his blunt.’

      Mr Blackmen must be a moneylender, Elizabeth surmised, consternation flowing through her. Why would Everitt resort to borrowing money? Were dealings with a cent-per-center even legal? If they were, could she be held accountable for repaying the debt? And, if so, where was she to obtain the funds?

      Desperately trying to mask her distress beneath a façade of cool uninterest, she said, ‘I know nothing of these transactions. You shall have to take this matter up with Mr Scarbridge, my husband’s man of business.’

      Smith made a rude noise. ‘Scarbridge—that incompetent? Seeing how deep he’s in River Tick hisself, I doubt he’d know a groat about handling anyone’s finances—if he was to leave off his gaming and whoring long enough to try, that is. No, little lady, my master intends to settle this business with you personal.’

      This was too much—she simply couldn’t handle one more disaster. An almost hysterical anger burning through her alarm, she snapped, ‘Do you expect I know any more than Mr Scarbridge does? I’m neither a solicitor nor a banker. You waste your time here, sir! Good day.’

      Smith’s genial expression hardened. ‘I wouldn’t be so quick to run me off, Mrs High-and-Mighty,’ he said, advancing on her. ‘Don’t expect you’d be so high in the instep if the magistrate was to come calling, ready to haul you and that boy of yorn off to Newgate.’

      Her momentary flash of bravado extinguished, Elizabeth gasped. Newgate! Could this awful Mr Blackmen truly have her imprisoned for debt? Her mind slammed from panic to anger and back like a child’s ball tethered to a string.

      What should she do? Nicky was a peer; he would know. Oh, why did he and Sarah have to be away now?

      ‘No need to get yourself into a pelter,’ Smith said, recalling her attention. He gestured around the room. ‘Got lots of fancy things here—that silver inkpot, them vases on that shelf, those marble heads of soldiers over there by the divan. Fetch a pretty penny, I’d wager. Lowery paid enough for ’em.’

      ‘Those are classical Greek, my husband’s pride,’ Elizabeth protested.

      ‘His pride, eh?’ Raising his eyebrows, Smith leaned across the desk and put his hand over hers. With a moue of revulsion, Elizabeth tried to snatch it back.

      Laughing softly, Smith seized her fingers, tightening his grip until his nails bit into her skin. ‘You kin lose the fripperies…or yer house. Or,’ he said in a deeper tone, his dark eyes heating as he stared at her, ‘we could deal in another commodity.’

      His gaze fixed on her bosom, he lifted his free hand to tug at a strand of golden hair. ‘You’re a fine-looking woman. My master might like that—or I might.’

      No one had ever looked at her or talked to her so crudely—as if she were some Covent Garden strumpet procured for his amusement. ‘My husband would kill you for speaking to me so!’ she said furiously.

      ‘Lucky for me he’s already dead then, ain’t it?’ Smith replied.

      Renewed outrage drowning her fear, Elizabeth wrenched her hand free. ‘Get out!’ she cried, her voice shaking with indignation and rage.

      Smith made her an exaggerated bow. ‘I’ll leave—for now, Mrs High-and-Mighty, but I’ll be back. You can bet the golden curls on your head on it.’

      As if concluding a normal business call, Smith pivoted and walked with a jaunty tread to the door. Opening it, he gave her another mocking bow before shutting it behind him, leaving Elizabeth appalled, outraged…and thoroughly alarmed.

      Chapter Three

      Hal had just finished his inspection of the Lowery boy’s soldier when a door further down the hall opened and closed. ‘That’s Mama’s studio,’ the child said, excitement in his eyes. ‘Mayhap she’s done now. Let’s go see!’

      Hal tried to ignore the sinking sensation suddenly spiralling in his gut. He was rising to his feet when a swarthy man in a freize coat, hat pulled down low over his eyes, brushed past them, a frowning Sands in his wake. Without a backward glance, the man exited through the door the butler hurriedly opened for him.

      ‘Now!’ the boy said urgently, tugging on Hal’s hand. ‘While Sands is busy!’

      Hal tried to summon the words to tell the child that although he might scurry in to visit his mama,