“Well, he’s very persuasive . . .”
“Josie! It’s one thing to take a man as your lover, but it’s quite another thing to work with a man. You know how men are.”
“He agreed to all my terms.”
“And you believe him? He’s a man. Lord, Josie, it’s almost like you’re married to the man already!” Josie laughed. “You are overreacting, Ashley Brittany. I wouldn’t marry Stephen Doubleday—I couldn’t marry him—even if wanted to. Which I don’t.”
Ashley scowled at her. “I don’t like it, Josie. And what about your grandfather’s honor? How are you going to prove him innocent with the very man who’d like to vilify his name throwing obstacles in your path?”
“Westman doesn’t know that part, and as long as he doesn’t, he won’t know to throw obstacles in my path. In a way, having his help searching for information on the treasure almost makes it easier to also find information exonerating my grandfather.”
“And if Westman becomes suspicious?”
“Then I’ll kiss him and make him forget.”
Ashley laughed. “I’m sure you will, too. You’re a wanton woman, Josephine Hale.”
Josie shrugged. “I do what I can.”
“What are your plans today?” Ashley said, switching the subject. Josie didn’t mind. After all of Ashley’s protests, she preferred almost any topic to that of Westman.
“I thought I would lie here all day until it was late enough for me to sneak over to Lord W’s. Why?”
Ashley closed her eyes. “Do not tell me these things. I’m going to be up all night worrying.”
“You worry? Ha!”
“Do me a favor, cousin.” Ashley pulled Josie up and out of bed. “Get up, get dressed, and come with me to Gunter’s. I’ll buy you an ice and then we can visit Maddie. She made me promise to help at the orphanage. Or the widow’s home. Or whatever her latest charitable endeavor.”
Now it was Josie’s turn to scowl. “Oh, no. I love Maddie, but she has far too many causes, and they’re all in Seven Dials. You know my mother will not allow me to go.”
Ashley crossed her arms. “Has that ever stopped you before?”
“No, but I was never this close to losing my virginity before. I have to stay alive, or I’ll be a maiden forever.”
Ashley shook her head. “Get dressed fair maiden. I promise to have you back in time for your rendezvous.”
Chapter Six
Seven Dials was at the northern end of St. Martin’s Lane and was so named for its column, from which seven sundials radiated, each facing one of seven streets that branched from the center. For an area named after sundials, there was very little sunny about it. Seven Dials was a place of trash-filled gutters below and fetid air above. On every corner one could see skinny dogs watching skinny children with hungry eyes. Men loitered about aimlessly, without work, without hope, their eyes shifty and prowling. Women and children fared no better, and possibly worse. The lucky ones had a hovel somewhere to crawl back to after a day of hard labor. The unlucky slept on the streets.
It was no place for a gentleman of the ton, but that didn’t stop many of them from slumming in search of cheap gin and cheaper women. Stephen had spent considerable time here when he’d been a youth. He knew its twists and turns, where to find the cleanest whores and the dirtiest fights, where to pawn a ring to pay off a gambling debt and where to find the highest stakes games to lose it all again.
There were other pleasures to be had as well, but Stephen, though once an unrepentant libertine, did have standards. He would not buy a child. He would not attend dog fights, cock fights, or bear baiting. In Stephen’s opinion, those pastimes were more accurately labeled crimes. He’d never had any wish to hurt anyone or anything, though he’d done just that nonetheless.
And now here he was again, walking the old streets, smelling the old stench, but for once he wasn’t interested in sin. His thoughts were on redemption.
Stephen was careful not to allow himself to become too optimistic. He was pursuing an item of interest, no more. He wasn’t entirely convinced that Miss Hale’s treasure was anything more than a figment of her imagination, though the map in his pocket gave him some reassurance. That did not mean, however, that if there had been a treasure, said treasure was still waiting for him to stop by and scoop it up. It had been more than fifty years since the treasure had been hidden. Surely bandits, smugglers, even tide and time could have absconded with the gold doubloons by now.
He’d thought about mentioning these possibilities to Josephine Hale the night before, but why dash her hopes? He was tired of being the man who dashed everyone’s hopes. Miss Hale could learn for herself some of the harsher realities of life. He needn’t be the one to teach her.
He turned down Queen Street—a street he doubted Her Majesty had ever set foot upon—and glanced down at the crumpled paper in his hand. Josephine Hale was not the only one with resources and knowledge. Stephen had done a bit of digging through old papers himself, and he’d found a receipt for a warehouse in Seven Dials among his grandfather’s things. He didn’t expect the warehouse to still be standing, and he really didn’t expect it to hold anything of interest, anything of his grandfather’s. But he had nothing better to do in the hours before his sweet neighbor called on him—if that was the appropriate term—and so he’d sent for a hack and traveled back in time, to another time in his life, to Seven Dials.
He glanced at the paper again and scooted aside to avoid a snuffling pig. “Can I ’elp you, gov?” a young man, presumably the owner of the pig, asked. Stephen turned to him, and the scrawny, grime covered youth looked him up and down. “You lost or something?”
“I’m looking for this building.” Stephen held out the paper, pointing to the name and address of the warehouse.
The boy shook his head. “Can’t read. Wot’s it called?”
