Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,2
has greater insight and knowledge on how this place is run than you ever will?” Tynan dangled those words he’d heard whispered among the guards, a reminder that Hinton was an outsider here.
Hinton’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red. “You are a thorn in my damned side,” he hissed.
“A remarkable feat, given that I am here.” Tynan swept his arms wide. “And you are there.” In a display of boredom sure to both frustrate the other man and inspire unease, Tynan removed the blade that had been snuck into his cell and proceeded to clean the undersides of his nails.
“Where did you get that?” the warden barked. Not waiting for an answer, he did a search about for his men. “Guards.”
The two men in the wings rushed over to meet him.
“Where did he get that?” Hinton demanded of them.
Smithfield shook his head frantically. “No idea, sir. None at all. Perhaps Ridley? It had to be him, sir.”
Hinton’s jaw tense. “Send him to my—”
Tynan chuckled, and the sound of his mockery brought the other man’s orders to an abrupt cessation. “What is it?” he snapped.
“Ah, but you make assumptions that my only support within comes solely from the men who worked for me,” Tynan said in silky tones. “If you have a guard problem, that, sir, is on you,” Tynan said with relish.
Hinton opened his mouth just as another guard appeared.
“Sir, the lady’s arrived again, she has.”
Hinton wrenched his attention away from Tynan and over to the new-to-Tynan guard. The warden cursed. “Damn it, Long, can you not see I’m in the middle of something?”
“No, you’re not. Not really. You’re just talking to yourself more than anything,” Tynan delighted in pointing out, and he savored the latest rush of ruddy color to suffuse the other man’s cheeks.
The guard Long dropped his gaze to the floor.
That deference and fear had once been shown him.
And he was struck for the first time by just how much he missed being on the other side of all this. The world might say what they would about Tynan Wylie, but he’d kept a tight ship. The men here had all done precisely as he’d ordered. There’d been no rogue operations. There weren’t bothersome interruptions. Nay, with the evil that lived within these walls, one wasn’t permitted to falter… or find oneself at the mercy of the people.
A wry grin formed on his lips.
But then, that was what had landed him in trouble, after all.
Hinton glared. “You’re amused,” the other man snapped, interpreting that smile as a product of his failings. “You think you’ll somehow reclaim your role here.” The warden gripped the bars and placed his face against them. “But let us be clear,” he whispered. “I’m in charge now. The men answer to me. Everything here belongs to me.”
Tynan stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “Tell me, are you issuing that reminder for me?” He paused, giving the other man a meaningful look. “Or you, Hinton?”
It was decidedly the latter.
Gnashing his teeth loud enough that they ground noisily enough to be heard by Tynan, the other man opened and closed his mouth several times, and then, turning on his heel, he stomped off.
As he left, Tynan resumed singing.
Chapter 2
Miss Faye Poplar, daughter in the wicked Poplar family, notorious for their involvement in the disappearance of a young lord years earlier, had just fourteen days.
Fourteen days of freedom.
Fourteen days to sneak off, with her family none the wiser.
Fourteen days to see justice done.
With her brother-in-law’s recent passing and her family otherwise occupied escorting back to London Faye’s now-widowed sister, a mother of three, Faye intended to use every single moment afforded to her to right those wrongs.
Alas, she’d already lost two precious days. She couldn’t lose another.
Standing outside the office of the warden of Newgate, Faye once more consulted the timepiece affixed to the middle of her black cloak.
She’d anticipated the hardest part of enacting her plan would be securing time away from her family’s watchful eyes. What she’d not anticipated was confronting integrity and honor from the new head of Newgate, a place notorious for covering up crimes, where anything and anyone could be bought, sold, or traded for the right price or secret.
The echo of footfalls drifted near, and Faye released her timepiece.
At last.
“Ye got business with the warden?” someone whispered from the shadows.
Another woman might have wilted, but she’d come to welcome and understand darkness and danger. She glanced about. “Mr. Hinton has proven quite contrary—”