and a shawl that had seen a lifetime of mending. A shabby basket dangled from her arm, handle splintered, holes worn into its base, five lone dahlias at the bottom, wilted from a day out of water in the market square.
Hattie met the girl’s dark brown gaze, recognizing the uncertainty and resignation there. The girl knew her flowers weren’t what they might have been hours earlier. Knew, too, that she couldn’t go back to wherever she’d come from without having sold them.
Hattie knew it, too. So she bought them, tuppence for the flowers, and another penny for the girl, who made to leave, no doubt thinking that if she didn’t Hattie might change her mind. But when Hattie said, “Wait,” the girl hesitated. Hattie leaned down to meet her wary eyes. “I’m looking for someone. Perhaps you could help?”
Wariness narrowed into distrust. “Don’t know anyfin’ ’bout anyfin’, lady.”
“I’m looking for a man,” Hattie pressed on. “His name is Beast.”
Recognition. There, in the girl’s rich brown gaze. There, then gone. Hidden as the girl looked about, taking in the people lingering in the fast darkening square. Looking for someone? For spies?
“I don’t wish to hurt him,” Hattie added.
The girl’s smile was unexpected, as though Hattie had made a wonderful joke. “No one ’urts Beast,” she said before she realized she’d given away a piece of information that she shouldn’t have. Her eyes went wide, but before Hattie could press for more information, she said, “Nah, lady. Can’t help ye,” and scurried off with impressive speed, as though she’d never been there in the first place.
Hattie sighed her frustration and watched the girl go, pulling her shawl tight around her as the late September air lost the warmth of the sun. Did the man have all of Covent Garden on his balance sheet?
She’d have to leave soon—once it grew dark, it would be harder to hail a hack, but she had to find him, dammit. He was the key to everything—to her desires, to her plans, to her future. If she could convince him to call off his search for Augie, if she could finagle a deal with him to return what her idiot brother had taken, if she could convince him that she had the power to put an end to these severely misguided attacks . . .
If she could just find the ruddy man, she had a chance at everything.
Not to mention the fact that he’d made her a promise.
The thought sent fire through her, pooling deep and speeding her pulse and setting her lips to tingling with the memory of his kiss the night before. He’d promised to make good on that kiss. To make good on the rest.
And she intended him to keep it.
“Try your luck, lady?”
She turned at the sound, to where a man sat several yards away at a makeshift table of an ale cask and a wooden plank. He shuffled a deck of cards slowly and methodically, barely paying attention to the movements, his blue eyes shining bright beneath the brim of his cap, a wide, friendly smile focused on her.
“I beg your pardon?”
The soft rhythm of his next shuffle teased her. He fanned the cards across the wood, then picked them up in a single smooth motion.
She shook her head. “I don’t play cards.”
“Neither do I.” The man winked. “Awful habit.”
She laughed, moving closer. He reminded her of a fox, sly and wily, bred of Covent Garden. He was like a weed sprung from the cracks in the stone slabs of the marketplace, with strong, hardy roots that were sure to regrow no matter how many times they were pulled. A man bred in the Garden would know the king of it, no doubt. She moved closer. “Then what is it you do play?”
He spread the cards again. “Choose your three, milady.”
She raised a brow and he laughed, spreading his hands wide. “Such mistrust!”
“Whyever would I think you were planning to fleece me?”
He put a hand to his chest and feigned affront. “Like an arrow in me heart.”
He was absolutely planning to fleece her, but Hattie hadn’t grown up around sailors for nothing, and she had plans of her own. She reached down and slid three cards from the spread, leaving them facedown on the table. The gamer collected the rest of the deck, setting it to one side, lifting the card from the top of the pile with a wide smile. “Nothing below board.”