“Here are my stipulations, Lord Highgrove. You are going to tell your sister that this was your idea. Not mine. You will write a letter addressed to me at Lucifer’s Fall, describing everything I’ve just told to you as though it were your very own idea, which occurred to you because you were aware I employ children from Bethnal Green. I will then inform your sister that I think it’s a noble and excellent solution to your debt to the house. Do you think you can handle this assignment and its parameters better than you handle your liquor?”
“Of course.” Hogarth shrugged with one shoulder.
“All right. Now point to the body part you like best.”
“I—er—I suppose—” Hogarth pointed to his groin. Blushing scarlet.
“Good man. As it should be. That’s the part I’ll remove with a sword if you fail at this.”
“Ha ha!” Hogarth’s face creased in merriment.
“Hogarth. I wasn’t joking.”
“Honestly, Marchand. You can’t persuade me that you’re a thug. Despite all the...” He gestured eloquently with both hands at Gabriel’s general person and demeanor.
“?‘Thug’ was once an actual position I held at a place of employment. It was on my calling card.
“Written in blood,” he added, when Hogarth’s eyebrows slanted skeptically.
This was maddening in a new way. Perhapsallthe Woodvilles were uniquely maddening.
“You don’t have to threaten me,” Hogarth said, almost gently. As if he were soothing a wild beast.
“Yes. Based on your previous performance, I am entirely convinced that threatening you is just the thing.”
Hogarth paused.
“Why is this so important to you?” he asked suddenly.
“Because if you do fail at this, you will break her heart.”
He realized at once that he had revealed entirely too much of his hand. It was stunningly unlike him, and a measure of how enmeshed he now was.
Too late he pressed his lips closed tightly.
“Why the devil are you worried about my sister’s heart?”
Hogarth said this sharply. He suddenly sounded very much like a brother who would happily call Marchand out and skewer him.
Which Marchand appreciated.
And he hesitated scarcely more than a second.
But it was long enough to incriminate him.
“Marchand... are you sweet on my sister? OnGinny?” Hogarth was stunned.
“Sweet?Sweet?” Gabriel made a series of disgusted little noises, as if he’d just accidentally ingested a flying insect.
“It seems like—”
“I’m not sweet.”
“All right.”
“Nothingabout me is sweet.”
“I believe you,” Hogarth said, soothingly. But he looked troubled, indeed, as well he might. Given the immense gulfs in their respective life stations.