Bessie nodded once, as if a decision already reached now had confirmation.
“I keep accounts,” she said. “Not only of money. Of behavior. Fenwick’s record with me is untidy. I will have copies made for you. Names. Sums. Places. You will speak to the men he owes. Not all will talk. Enough will.”
“I will need a place to receive them,” Marcus said. “Somewhere he does not see me.”
“That can be arranged. There is a small room above a coffeehouse near Bow Street that owes me a favor. I will have word sent.”
He turned back from the window.
“What of Miss Edgewood?” he asked. “She should not walk alone until this is done.”
“I have already adjusted her schedule,” Bessie answered. “She will leave only with others or with you. I cannot keep her wrapped in cotton. It would insult her. But I can place obstacles between her and a man who circles.”
“Good.”
Bessie regarded him with that faint, unnerving smile again.
“She worries she is a burden to you,” Bessie said.
“She is not.”
“Tell her,” Bessie said.
He looked away.
“It may ease what is knotted in her,” Bessie added. “You are not the only one who has learned to survive by keeping still.”
A knock sounded at the door. The footman entered with a small folded packet.
“As you requested, madam.”
She nodded. “Leave it.”
When he withdrew, she tapped the paper with her cane.
“Fenwick’s current gaming rooms. One in Covent Garden. One further west. Both answer to men who dislike disturbance. Take care.”
“I intend to disturb only what is necessary,” Marcus said.
“I have never met a man,” Bessie said dryly, “who measured necessity correctly once the woman in question had taken root.”
He did not accept that word aloud.
But he took the packet.
“When this is finished,” he said, “I want him nowhere near her. Not here. Not in her street. Not in her conversation.”
“We are agreed,” Bessie said.
He inclined his head and turned toward the door.
“Wolfton.”
He paused.
“You do not require my blessing,” she said. “But you have it.”
He released a breath he had not realized he was holding.