Being Welsh and growing up in St. Giles meant that Hugo had known of Bev Davies from an early age. He even recalled the man coming to the pitiful shack his parents had called home. His father had bowed and scraped whenever Bev visited, but his eyes had glittered with hatred after Bev’s visits.
“Bev Davies is a worse friend than enemy,” Hugo recalled him saying to one of Hugo’s elder brothers.
After Hugo’s father sold him to Mr. Caton—who’d taken him away from St. Giles—Hugo hadn’t seen Bev for several years.
He’d been eighteen when he next ran into him. At the time Hugo had been working in a birching house which Bev had systematically destroyed before purchasing for a greatly reduced sum. He’d asked Hugo to continue working for him after he’d taken over the business.
Finding the right words to decline Bev’s offer—and not end up face down in the muck—had been one of the most nerve-racking experiences of Hugo’s young life.
And here he was, tangled up with Bev all over again, but for far larger stakes.
“Well, well, well. If it ain’t Mr. Hugo Buckingham. I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”
Bev’s lack of surprise greatly displeased him. While Hugo hadn’t hidden his presence in London, he’d not advertised it, either. And he’d not yet released Laura, so Bev’s source of information had been somebody else.
No, he didn’t like that one bit.
“Hello, Bev,” Hugo said. He had to look up since somebody had sawed a good six inches off the chair legs.
“Drink?” Bev gestured to a bottle and two none-too-clean glasses beside it.
It was only eight in the morning.
“Thank you,” Hugo said. No reason to antagonize the man by rejecting his offer of hospitality, no matter how spurious.
Bev poured the liquor and then shoved the glass across the desktop, spilling some and forcing Hugo to stand and fetch the glass.
“Thank you,” he said, feigning a drink, his nostrils burning at the harsh smell of cheap brandy.
“What can I do for you?” Bev grinned, the expression knowing. “If you’re here to talk to your old partner I’m afraid I haven’t seen her in a few days. It seems she took an urgent trip … somewhere.”
So, he’d guessed that Hugo had taken Laura. Well, no surprise, there.
“No, I’m here to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I never signed the papers for the sale of my half of the business.” He had decided on the bold, suicidal approach on his way over this morning.
Bev’s black bushy eyebrows shot up. “I’m confused. Are you saying that Laura forged your signature?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“I don’t think you did,” Hugo prudently lied. “But, if I were to take the matter before a magistrate, I can prove that I was abducted and tried in a false court so that Laura could gain control of my half of the business, not to mention significant personal assets that were seized from my rooms here.”
“Hmm.” Bev rocked back on two legs of his chair, his expression one of exaggerated concern. “That’s quite a tale. And you say you can prove this?”
“Yes.”
Bev let his chair fall with a loud thump, his smile … unfriendly. “Why do I feel like you’re threatening me, Hugo?”
“I’m only telling you that we were both victims of Laura.” And your scheming son, all with your knowledge and encouragement, no doubt.
Hugo wisely left out that part.
“I will pursue this matter through legal means. Or …” Hugo hesitated.
“Or?”
“Or we can make some sort of arrangement.”
Bev stared hard enough to burn holes through his head.
And then he threw his head back and laughed.
And laughed.
Hugo couldn’t help the slight shiver he experienced at the other man’s reaction.
Bev owned a half-dozen brothels—and now Hugo had an idea how he’d accumulated so many—but they were the sort of places where a man would go in with a hard cock and come away with a case of crab lice. At best.
Solange’s was … well, it was so different from the bawd houses that Davies ran as to constitute a different species, entirely.
Was Hugo insane to be here today, confronting Bev head-on, using his suspicions as a bargaining chip?
Probably. But what else did he have left? If he couldn’t regain his stake in this business his options were grim. He could pursue the matter in the courts, but that would take time and Bev would bleed him of money—if he didn’t actually bleed him of blood—and there would be nothing left of Solange’s if he ever did get his hands on it.
Or he could sup with the Devil.
Bev leaned back in his chair after he’d caught his breath and said, “Did I ever tell you I offered to buy you from your pa?”
Hugo could only stare.
Davies smirked. “Aye, yer ma worked for me in my very first house.” He chuckled at Hugo’s shocked look. “Flora was a prime article in her day. Yer pa met her when he came to work for me. And then he stole her away.”
Hugo wasn’t sure he believed the man. His parents had worked in a brothel? His mother had died when he was thirteen and his father had sold him soon after—not that he’d ever exchanged more than a dozen words with his father in all his years. In truth, he knew nothing about his parents. Besides, why would Bev lie?
“Er, what kind of work did my father do for you?”
“He wasn’t a whore, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. No, Evan Dinwiddy were a tough lad but he weren’t a pretty one.” Bev’s eyes crawled over Hugo like insects. “Not like you.”
Hugo thought Bev must be the only man or woman in the entire city who would call him pretty. He somehow doubted the other man’s regard for him would do him any good.
“No, he didn’t look like you, but then Evan weren’t yer da.”
Hugo had always suspected that. “Do you know who was?” he asked, not that he cared.
“Coulda been almost anyone since
