I don’t expect you do,” the other man murmured, motioning to a nearby chair. “May I?”
Hugh grunted. “Please. Should I ring for pastries and tea?”
Setting his bag down at his side, the other man rested a thick folder on his lap. “I trust you are familiar with Diggory’s predilection for those born to the peerage. Mostly boys, and a handful of girls, whom he had snatched from their families and absorbed as part of his elite gang of children.”
Yes, there’d been rumors that had become widespread truths not long after the bastard had died. “And what does this have to do with me?” he asked impatiently.
“Many years ago, a young child, a marquess, found himself orphaned. After his parents’ tragic and untimely deaths, Cannon Hewitt McCade found himself a ward of the Earl of Kent, brother to his late mother, the Duchess of Wingate. Kent was impoverished. In deep. There was no vice he’d not spend his money on.” Withdrawing a sheet from his folder, the detective held it out for him.
Hugh walked across the stained floor, the boards groaning and creaking under his weight. He collected the sheet and read through the small biography about the peculiar subject of their discussion.
He felt Steele’s assessing stare on him and lowered the page. “He was never a patron here.” Hugh well knew the records of every man who’d set foot inside the arena doors since he’d begun working here, and the time before it. “Our crowd tends to largely be the merchant class and street roughs, with some noblemen added to our client list. If you’re looking for him, you’re wasting your time.” He handed back the sheet. “Look somewhere else.”
Steele made no move to take it. “That isn’t why I asked. Kent was good friends with his sister’s brother-in-law through marriage, a Lord Dudley Nesbitt. Both men have since died.”
Hugh stole a glance at the clock over Steele’s shoulder. “I have business to see to, and I still am failing to see why I should care about—”
“I’m getting there. If you’ll bear with me a bit longer?” the detective asked. “A plan was hatched between Nesbitt and Kent. One that would see Nesbitt named duke and Kent’s debt forgiven, but it involved the child . . .” Sadness flickered in the other man’s eyes and was instantly gone, mayhap a mere play of the shadows. “The Marquess of Pemberton.”
He stared long at Hugh, as if that name should mean something.
Hugh racked his brain. Only there was nothing he recognized. No hint of familiarity.
“They claimed the child died and held an elaborate service.”
Hugh glanced briefly at the clock. “And . . . I trust he was not . . .” The other man’s time was nearly up, and yet he’d insist on filling Hugh’s ears with information about some fine lords he knew nothing of?
“No.” That glimmer was back in Steele’s eyes. “He was very much alive. Kent had the idea to sell the boy to Diggory, for a profit. The child, however, proved an exceptional fighter. Diggory saw there could be greater uses to him.”
Ah, this was how it all intersected, then. Even so, Hugh had nothing to contribute. “And this child?”
“He was purchased for a hefty coin by a man named Dooley. The one you and your partners tasked me with finding information on.”
An odd hum buzzed in Hugh’s ears. He found himself walking around his desk and taking a seat. “Dooley,” he repeated. That bastard who’d reemerged, whom his partners were eager to end, and Hugh? Hugh had less of a stomach for that deserved revenge. Only to have it all come rushing back with the detailed telling of another boy whose innocence had been lost. A nobleman’s child, who’d have no chance or hope at survival. And as rage pumped through his veins, he was reminded all over again that a killer was what he was and would always be. “What became of the boy?”
The detective gave him another long, sad look, and when he spoke, he did so in grave tones. “That boy . . . was . . . is . . . you, Your Grace.”
Hugh froze.
That boy . . . was him?
He burst out laughing. Him, a goddamned duke? As if the far-fetched tale, better suited to a child’s story than actual fact, were real? He tossed the sheet across the desk at the other man. “You had me there for a moment. Up through Dooley, I was very nearly with you.”
“I trust this