Читать книгу To Wed A Rebel - Sophie Dash - Страница 7

Prologue

Soup-thick smoke pressed against the tavern walls, beer-soaked straw lay matted upon the flagstones, and all the furniture was as chipped, stained and weathered as the drunks who nursed their tankards around it. The Navigation was packed with rowdy customers after the evening’s boxing match beside the docks: celebrations, commiserations and coins were exchanged in abundance. Amongst all the filth was one individual who did not belong. The merchant’s birdlike features were scrunched up in distaste and his fine coat was crumpled with travel, dotted with Bristol Harbour’s rain, and smudged with the coal-smoke scents that dirtied the night. A man in his middling years, he shuffled cautiously past unkind faces and vulgar scenes, with a handkerchief pressed against his mouth, as though it would protect him from catching the ill repute that hung about the place as stubbornly as its grime.

“Roscoe,” he muttered to a barkeep. “Where?”

A rag was waved towards a corner occupied by three shapes. False female laughter could be heard, accompanied by a lower, amused tone. Lounging in between two women was a bruised and bloodied man. There was a cut above his eye and marks along his knuckles. Dark hair flopped across his forehead, mussed and damp, while yesterday’s five o’clock shadow had stolen away any sign that he was ever once a gentleman.

“Ladies, I’ve already told you,” said Isaac Roscoe, with an easy manner and a cocky smile, “I cannot afford your company tonight.”

“Don’t be cruel,” replied one, stocky and comely, her skin goose-pimpled from the chill and how little she wore. “You threw that fight. Got paid well for it an’ all. That’s what they’re all saying at the docks.”

“Then you better tell me who’s spreading those little lies, Mags,” he said into her ear, a deep purr that had the desired effect: lust and not a little fear. “That’d be bad for my business and for yours as well…” Isaac trailed off, his brown eyes snapping up when he found his conversation was no longer private. The merchant was hovering awkwardly nearby and stole away his easy mood. “We’ll finish this later, loves.”

Mags pressed her mouth to the cut on his lip, pulling a wince from him. “Be sure you do.”

The women were dismissed with a lingering smile that faded the instant they had gone.

The two men were left alone.

Isaac leaned across the table. “Do you have the money, Griswell?”

“You shall get it when I have what I want,” said the merchant, unwilling to sit down, lean on or touch any surface. “I want the happy couple broken up. I want that Osbourne girl put in her place.”

“She will be,” promised Roscoe, with a flash of teeth. “You know my reputation; I’ve never failed before.”

Money will buy you anything: flesh, sin and ruin. Isaac Roscoe knew his talents and others knew them, bought them – to use against others. He’d seduced his victims across the British Isles. He’d made a name for himself, yet not enough to limit his activities. It had made him a pretty penny and it would make him even more in the coming months.

“I have expenses,” Isaac continued. “I can hardly tempt a respectable woman while looking like a vagabond, can I?”

The logic was begrudgingly sound and Griswell threw a few slips of paper towards the younger man. “You’ll get the rest when my daughter is wed to that rich fool and not before.”

Isaac held a feral grin that bordered on dangerous. “That’s not what we agreed.”

“It isn’t, and yet you’ll still do as I command because you’re desperate,” sniffed the merchant. “If you won’t do it, Roscoe, I’ll find another who will.”

Pride almost won out. It compelled Isaac to refuse, to use his practised fists, to beat down the upper-class crow who gave him orders as though he were little better than the women whose warmth still remained in the cushions beside him.

“I want the girl ruined, I want the engagement called off, and I want my family tied with the Pembrokes. Those damn Osbournes don’t deserve to be connected to a family like the Pembrokes.” A hand was thrust towards Isaac, speckled and veined. “Do you understand me?”

Reluctantly, Isaac nodded, feeling Griswell’s cold rings bite into his palm. “Consider it done.”

The deal was made, a small sum was exchanged, and a woman was doomed to fall.