Page 39 of A Debt Inherited

He underlined it twice.

Price and his wife were all that remained of a household. He could not dismiss them.

The candle nearest his elbow guttered and recovered. A faint thread of smoke crossed the page and vanished. Kerr closed the account book, placed the pencil within the fold, and rested his hand upon it.

One hundred and forty-seven pounds looked almost respectable on paper. It would not last six months.

He thought of the unopened letter to Lord Ashby, burned six years before in this very grate. He had asked then for an introduction and received back his own seal untouched. Not money. Not recognition. Not a place at Glenbride. Only a name set behind his own long enough to open a door in London.

His uncle had not refused him.

Refusal would have required reading.

Now even Lady Isobel’s provision had ended. Respectability, he had discovered, required patrons; ruin required only patience.

Belowstairs, Price moved about the kitchen. A chair scraped, then stilled. His wife spoke too low to be heard. Kerr looked towards the door and remembered what Price had once said of Seven Dials: acquaintances there, and more of Mrs Price’s than his own.

He told himself it was only prudence.

Only enquiry.

But even as the thought settled, he understood that decency was now a luxury.

Somewhere below, the area door closed, the bolt drawn firm for the night.

Chapter 17

Upper Gower Street, October 1809

The frost clung to the railings like powdered glass. Inside, the fire had burned to a red eye in the grate. Kerr sat before it, coat unbuttoned, the room too large for the warmth it held. Half the shutters stayed closed now to save coal; the carpets had been lifted from the upper floor.

He had begun to think of silence as another creditor.

On the table lay three coins and a folded bill. The coal chute was empty, the brandy long gone, and even the Prices had started to whisper in the kitchen when they thought him out of earshot.

Mrs Price came in with the tea tray. She set it down without ceremony. “You’ll be needing work, sir.”

He heard more than insolence in her tone. “Have you a recommendation?”

She folded her hands. “No, sir. But my cousin might. He keeps order for a man in the Dials. Finds employment for them as can be trusted.”

Kerr lifted a brow. “What sort of man?”

“The kind you don’t look in the eye,” she said, smoothing her apron. “Best not ask his name. My cousin will fetch you if you’re wanted.”

Three nights later, he followed Tom Sykes into the Forge—a narrow gin-shop off Short’s Gardens. The place smelled of damp straw and gin, lit by lamps that smoked where the glass was cracked.

Sykes—broad, scarred, with hands made blunt by old violence—looked him over once. “You’re Mrs Price’s lodger.”

“Her employer,” Kerr corrected.

“Aye.” Sykes’s mouth curved, almost a smile. “Let’s keep it that way.”

He leant against the counter. “She says you can read, write, and keep your head down. Is that it?”

Kerr nodded. His mouth had gone dry; he did not reach for the gin.

“You’ll run messages—quiet ones. Deliver, fetch, wait. You won’t ask what or why. You’ll be paid fair if you’re worth it.”