Page 18 of An Extraordinary Lord

The man nodded.

With a grimace, Merritt yanked his knife out of the floorboard. He sheathed it in his sleeve as he followed her downstairs.

“But you trust Navarre,” he said quietly over her shoulder.

“With my life.”

Dark irritation corkscrewed through him. Yet it wasn’t jealousy.Couldn’tpossibly have been, not for someone like her. He’d spent his adult life fighting criminals and upholding the law. Still, a bitter heat grated unexpectedly at his gut at the thought of any intimacies between her and Filipe Navarre, and it compelled him to ask, “Are you and he…?”

“Like brother and sister?” An inscrutable expression slipped across her face as easily as the clouds gathering once more over the city, blocking out the sunlight and turning the warehouse gray. “Yes. We grew up together in Portugal.”

Portugal…sothatwas the accent he heard coloring her voice.

“I consider him to be my brother. Just as I consider everyone here to be my family.”

That was why she hadn’t fled London when she escaped from Newgate, he realized. She couldn’t leave her family here, just as he could never leave his father or the men of the Armory.

She stepped off the stairs onto the first floor and called out through the sea of gently moving sailcloth, “Ivy!”

A soft voice answered. Veronica smiled with affection as she followed it through the sailcloth maze, with Merritt trailing after her.

A young woman of no more than fifteen or sixteen pulled back one of the sheets and stepped out to greet Veronica with a big hug that broadcasted her worry.

“Where have you been?” the blond girl scolded. She possessed a grace and regal bearing that belied the threadbare clothes she wore, although she’d done her best to alter them to resemble the current fashions donned by society women, right down to the ribbon at the high waist of her dress. “When you didn’t return on time, I was worried something had happened to you.”

Somethinghadhappened, but Merritt knew Veronica wouldn’t divulge where she’d been. Or why. Instead, she eased Ivy’s worry by tenderly brushing a stray curl from the girl’s forehead.

“I met someone last night.” She nodded toward Merritt and sent Ivy’s attention to him.

Big brown eyes slid curiously over him. Then her face lit up, and dread spiraled through Merritt to his boots. He knew that look—she wore that same expression as marriage-minded mamas who were looking to add a barrister to their families.

“He’s very handsome,” Ivy tried to whisper privately to Veronica. “I think he likes you.”

But Merritt heard every matchmaking word and fought back a sardonic smile.Like?What he felt for Veronica Chase was raw lust flavored with disdain, irritation, frustration—nothing anywhere close tolike.

“He’s married,” Veronica corrected. To Merritt’s relief, she’d fallen easily into playing along with his fabricated tale. “And he likes everyone. He’s a nice man.” His chest warmed at the compliment, although that sentiment was undercut when she added, “But he carries a knife.”

The girl shrugged her slender shoulders, as if men with knives were the most ordinary thing in the world. The sun rose in the east, rain fell down, men always carried knives…

“You have yours with you, of course?” Veronica asked casually, like an older sister making certain her sibling hadn’t forgotten her pelisse against the cold.

With a nod, the girl lifted her skirt to reveal the sheath she wore strapped to her stocking.

Merritt blinked. He shouldn’t have been surprised; he knew the everyday dangers faced by people who lived in the rookeries. Yet the sight of an innocent, pretty girl so nonchalantly checking for her knife…Good God.

“Ivy, this is Mr. Herbert,” Veronica introduced, somehow managing to keep her lips from twitching with laughter at his expense. “He’s going to be moving his family into the Court. His very large family.” At that, she gave up all hope of hiding her amusement and laughed aloud. “Filipe wants you to find a place for them and explain the rules.”

“Of course. Welcome to the Court of Miracles, Mr. Herbert.”

The smile the girl gave him was purely angelic. If she were a gentleman’s daughter, men would be fighting to marry her and give her a life of luxury and ease. But here she’d be lucky to live to see her twenty-fifth birthday.

He cleared his suddenly tight throat. “Thank you.”

Veronica took Ivy’s upper arms and turned the girl’s attention back to her. “There’s something else.” She cast a quick look around to make certain no one else lurked nearby, watching them or listening in through the sailcloth. Then she reached beneath her leather bodice and withdrew a small bag of coins. She placed it in Ivy’s hand. “For you, for your sister and her baby.”

Ivy’s face fell at the kindness, and her eyes glistened instantly with unshed tears. “Oh, Roni! You really don’t need to keep—”

“I want to,” she interjected, cutting her off before Ivy said more than Merritt was obviously meant to hear. She lowered her voice, but he could just make out the words. “It’s to go directly to the rent and for bread and milk for the baby, understand? Your sister’s husband isn’t to touch one farthing of it.” She placed a kiss to her forehead and whispered what Merrittcertainlywasn’t meant to hear: “If you or your sister give him even so much as a ha’penny, you’ll never receive more, understand?”