Page 103 of When We Touch

“Of course!” she said irritably. “You can trust me—as long as you don’t cheat me!”

He sat back. “I don’t think I have a mind to cheat you.” He lifted his hand. The ruffians who had lazed around the pub straightened themselves and stood, and came to stand by the table. “Here you have Matthew, Luke, and John. Seriously, those are their names. Sebastian, Raoul, and Garrett.”

“Hello,” Arianna said.

They lifted their caps and gave her strange grins. “This here, fellows, is Annie.”

“Annie,” they said in unison.

“She’s going to be helping us out. I’ll train her to be the guide.” He offered Arianna a grim smile. “Hannah told me that you had a friend. What’s she know about this?”

“Nothing, except that I was looking for work.”

“Hannah said you had a working girl’s accent. I don’t hear it.”

“I was actually able to take some really good lessons with the tailor’s daughter. When I first came here, naturally, I wanted to blend in. I was afraid to do anything but.”

Jeremiah Heath seemed to accept everything she had to say. “Well, then, if your friend was staying with you, she’s not now.”

“I can’t leave her on the streets, not when . . . not when there’s a madman on the streets!”

“You keep your peace about others or you don’t work with me.”

“Let’s hope you make me a decent income, then. And don’t be asking me to come walking out on the streets in the middle of the night, not with a murderer on the loose.”

“You’ll be safe—the boys will see to it.”

The boys . . . She looked at them all again. Matthew, Luke, John, Sebastian, Raoul, and Garrett. And, of course, Jeremiah Heath. They were like a pack of sharks, watching, seeming to drift, ready to strike. Sharks . . .

But sharks who would protect her in the murky waters of this evil underworld.

“When do we start?” she asked.

“We’ve an appointment tonight,” Jeremiah said.

“Tonight,” she murmured. She had to stop herself from looking across the room. Fiona was there, of course, swaddled in a black cape, scarf, and hat.

Well, she wouldn’t be able to speak with her; she’d have to understand that it was all going just as it should.

“One more thing,” she said.

“What?” Jeremiah asked her.

“Red Hannah. I owe her. She set up this meeting.”

Jeremiah nodded to one of the boys. The one named Matthew, she thought.

“He’ll see to Red Hannah,” he told her.

“Fine.”

“For now, Sebastian and John will go with you to your place. Get your things, bring them to mine.”

A flutter of nervousness seized her. “I thought that we went to our . . . clients’ houses?”

“Oh, we do. But the group resides together. A lodging house near the old pump. I like to keep a firm eye on my brood.”

Again, a certain sense of nervousness seized her. Recklessly, she wondered if it really mattered what happened to her. Her father was dead. Maggie had suggested that he’d left a wish stating she should marry Jamie! Jamie, like a brother to her, but not . . .