Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,65

to do if it means keeping them safe.”

That was a sentiment she understood. Where her parents had been driven solely by their thirst for wealth and power, there’d always been a greater concern among Faye and her siblings about looking after one another.

“Mr. Wylie,” the child went on. “He likes ye.”

She smiled sadly. “I don’t think he much does.” Passion was there between them, yes. But he’d been clear in his feelings—or lack of—for her.

“No, he does,” Finn argued. “Jack and John, they thought what you thought, too,” he said matter-of-factly. “That he didn’t want to ’elp you and wanted y gone but Mr. Wylie didn’t. Jack and John they just read it all—” He abruptly stopped talking. His face blanched.

She frowned; taking in everything Finn had shared.

He was adamant Tynan wasn’t to blame …

Jack and John, they thought what you thought, too…

And then understanding slipped in. They’d believed Tynan hadn’t wished to help her, and out of loyalty to Tynan had attempted to…scare her off.

“Jack and John,” she said softly.

“I didn’t say that,” he said all too quickly.

Not with words. “They were the ones behind my…meeting with Mr. Bragger, weren’t they?”

Finn lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Shouldn’t matter who did it, only that it wasn’t Wylie.”

Oh, God. She’d been wrong. So wrong.

Faye’s eyes slid shut.

Guilt. It was to be the new flavor of the day, strong, potent, and sour in her stomach. She’d misjudged him so completely.

“I told you,” Daria murmured in her phantasmal tones.

Finn grunted. “Should listen to that one, you should. You wanna know wot kinda man ’e is? Go pay ’im a visit where ’e is now.”

She hesitated, intrigue swirling.

Eyeing Daria for a moment, the child drifted closer to Faye, and then he went up on tiptoe and she came down part of the way to meet him so he could whisper in her ear. It was a telling sign of his mistrust that, even approving of Daria as he did, he kept that secret from her.

Faye puzzled her brow, committing the information he told her to memory.

The moment he straightened, Finn headed for the window.

“Halt!” she called after him, and Daria raced over, putting herself between the child and the makeshift entrance.

“In the future,” Faye said gently, going down on a knee beside the boy, “you shouldn’t go about climbing through windows. It is entirely too dangerous. If you have need of me, simply go to the front door.”

“Go to the front door?” He gave her a look like she’d sprung a second head before him. “Ye think they’re going to let the likes of me in to see the likes of you?”

She frowned. “I…” Faye stopped herself, for could she truly be sure of that? The constraints her mother and all of Polite Society adhered to were also held firmly in place by the people who served them. Their posts were dependent upon the staff maintaining barriers between men, women, and children such as Finn and Tynan and the lords and ladies who owed their privilege to nothing more than chance.

With a wink, Finn darted past Faye, around Daria, and in one swift motion, he had the windows open and was gone.

Sprinting over, she leaned out, Daria sliding into the place beside her. Finn had already nearly reached the ground. The moment his feet hit the ground, he was off and running.

She remained there, staring down at the cobblestones below lightly covered in snow, the roads quiet and empty, adding to the winter’s still.

They both shivered, their teeth chattering from the cold.

“What are you thinking?” her friend asked as she rubbed at her arms.

Faye was thinking there was no way on God’s green earth that she wasn’t going to visit the address Finn had told her.

Nearly thirty minutes later, with Daria returned home and Faye journeying by her familiar hack, she found her way to the place Finn had directed her. The entirely too cryptic details had only added to her curiosity which her sisters had long insisted would be the end of her.

Nonetheless, she could no sooner quit her goal of outing London’s powerful families with crimes on their hands than she could not see what he’d been so adamant for her to see.

She reached a row of residences that looked comfortable enough to belong to any member of the gentry. The street was pretty and clean, and… light, a direct contradiction to the place Tynan lived.

With more questions stirring, Faye scoured the neat row of townhouses until she located Finn’s address,