Page 16 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
The tension that seemed to hang over the buildings and their inhabitants was anything but casual, though. Everyone knew there was as good a chance as any the police could come knocking on their door next. And they would likely find something.
“Is everything well, Penny?” Doris, one of the more popular whores in the area, asked as she leaned out an upstairs window in nothing but her chemise, her ample breasts spilling out for anyone to view.
“As well as can be, Dori,” Penny called back to her. “But I’d have a care about who you entertain for the next few days.”
Doris sighed loudly. “Don’t they know that some of us need to work to survive?”
Penny laughed at her teasing complaint, but the truth was that she was right. The rest of the world might not have approved of the way folk in their part of East London made their living, but everyone had a living to make.
“You seem to be friends with everyone,” Greer commented as they turned the corner onto the street where Mrs. Hunt’s boarding house stood.
“That’s me,” Penny said, sending a wry grin over his shoulder to Greer, who took a few steps to catch up to him. “I’m everyone’s friend and no one’s responsibility.”
He didn’t mean to sound resentful for having to take care of himself and Helen without help, but the bitterness he tried to keep swallowed most of the time welled up.
To distract from it, he glanced at Greer and said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?” Greer asked, the tension around his eyes and mouth telling Penny he knew full well.
Penny smirked. “Why me? Why do your friends want me to go to Cornwall with you? Everyone knows you work alone.”
Greer grunted, but he didn’t answer.
There was something about the man’s sullen look, combined with the way he was still flushed from their mad flight over the roofs of Whitechapel, and everything that had happened afterward, in the cabinet, that left Penny grinning. Greer might have been older than him, but sometimes he looked like a pouty boy who hadn’t gotten his way.
After too long a silence, Greer said, “It is the nature of the commission I’ve been given.”
Penny’s brow flew up. “So, you’ve started taking commissions beyond the scope of your normal tricks?” he asked. “These friends of yours must be powerful indeed.”
“They have influence.” Greer didn’t sound happy about it.
They’d reached the door to Mrs. Hunt’s boarding house. Despite the late hour, the lamps were lit in the front parlor, and Penny spotted movement from the other side of the thin curtain that partially blocked the window. He wasn’t ready to go inside and answer questions yet, so he stopped just short of the door and turned to Greer.
“Everyone knows you work alone,” he said, puzzling over the mystery Greer had presented to him aloud, “and yet, these powerful friends of yours insisted you recruit me. For a job in Cornwall.”
“Yes,” Greer said.
Penny shook his head. “I don’t like it. Who are these friends and how do they know me?”
Greer frowned. “They’re…influential figures. Owners of a particular…club.”
Nothing about Greer’s explanation reassured him. Not when he was less than half an hour past nearly being nabbed by the coppers and dragged off to who knew what prison and for how long.
“I can’t do it,” he said, planting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “You’ll have to go back to your friends and tell them I said no.”
Greer growled and rubbed a hand over his face, like he was exhausted and tired of Penny’s stubbornness. “Please.” He spit out the word as if he didn’t like the taste of it.
“You don’t want me, so why should I say yes?” Penny asked.
Heat filled Greer’s expression. “Oh, I do want you,” he said.
Penny laughed and swayed closer to him, resting a hand on Greer’s chest. “I know you do, love. That cabinet will live in my dreams for a long time.”
He slipped a hand down to the front of Greer’s trousers, which were still just a bit damp. Greer must have been horrifically uncomfortable, but he was still there, pursuing Penny for the Cornwall job.
Greer grabbed Penny’s wrist and pulled his hand up and away from where it could have caused more trouble. “I need your help,” he said in a flat voice, shoulders bunched with tension. “My friends want your help. Your help specifically. They seem to think you and I are the only ones who can succeed at this mission.”
“What do they need us to liberate from Trebarral Castle, or whatever it’s called?” Penny asked, fixing his stare on Greer and silently demanding he reveal all.
