My Bankrupt Father Tried To Trick A Ruthless Investor — But The Man’s Dark Secret Changed Everything

Part 1

There is a distinct smell to desperation.

It smells like cheap beeswax trying to mask damp rot.

When I pinned the coarse lye-washed collar of a maid’s dress around my neck, I certainly did not do it for romance.

I did it because my father was facing debtors prison.

The man arriving for dinner tonight was our absolute last lifeline.

I just did not know the brooding investor walking through our door was a man of such terrifying power.

The uniform actually belonged to a woman named Nancy.

She had possessed the good sense to quit when my father missed her wages for the third consecutive month.

This meant the stiff black wool dress presently hung off my frame like a terrible sack.

The heavy hem stopped awkwardly above my ankles.

The fabric smelled fiercely of lye soap and old, nervous sweat.

I stood in the center of the stifling kitchen, tugging at the starched white collar.

Is the roast in?

My father, Craig, burst through the swinging wooden door.

His face still carried the soft, expectant lines of someone used to being deferred to.

Tonight, however, those lines were pulled taut with sheer panic.

He wore his best evening coat.

Unfortunately, it was five years out of fashion.

It is in.

I did not look at him.

I was far too busy trying to force my feet into Nancy’s discarded leather shoes.

They were as stiff as wood and a half size too small.

He is due any moment.

Craig paced the cracked flagstones of the scullery, wringing his hands together.

Dan, the man from the northern mills.

They say he is a rough sort of man, no title, no breeding.

But he has endless capital.

If I can just secure his investment for the shipping venture, the butcher will stop threatening us.

I finished the sentence for him, my voice entirely flat.

I jammed my left heel into the shoe.

A sharp, blinding pinch of pain shot up my ankle.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.

I know.

You do not have to do this.

Craig stopped his pacing.

For a brief, agonizing second, he looked entirely broken.

If we tell this man we cannot afford a single servant, he will know you are bankrupt before the soup is even served.

Investors do not give money to desperate men.

They give money to men who do not need it.

Go into the parlor.

I will open the door when he knocks.

Craig nodded slowly, his throat working.

He turned and retreated down the hall.

I absolutely hated this house.

I hated the constant, low-level anxiety that lived permanently in my chest.

The heavy thud of the brass knocker echoed from the front hall.

I jumped.

I wiped my hands on my coarse apron.

I took a deep breath of air that smelled of hot mutton fat.

I walked out of the kitchen.

The corridor was dim.

I opened the heavy oak door.

Instead of a corpulent industrialist, a wall of cold, rain-dampened air hit me straight in the face.

The man standing on the threshold was imposingly tall.

He was built with the dense, heavy solidity of a bricklayer.

He wore a dark, heavy riding coat slick with rain.

Are you the investor?

I kept my eyes lowered to his chest.

I aimed for the subservient gaze I had seen Nancy use so many times.

Yes.

His voice was a low, resonant rumble.

It sounded exactly like gravel shifting underfoot.

Please, come in.

I stepped back.

As the man crossed the threshold, the light from the hall sconce caught his face.

I completely forgot to keep my eyes down.

His strong jaw was covered in dark, coarse stubble.

A pale, jagged scar cut straight through the line of his left eyebrow.

His eyes were the color of storm-churned slate.

They were hard, flat, and taking in every detail of the decaying hallway with predatory swiftness.

He stopped to shrug off his wet overcoat.

I stepped forward automatically to take it.

The damp wool smelled of horses, rain, and cold iron.

When I took it from his hands, his knuckles brushed mine.

His skin was surprisingly warm against my freezing fingers.

He did not hand the coat over blindly.

He paused.

His slate eyes snapped down to my hands.

Then they snapped up to my face.

I froze completely.

Miserable night for a ride.

It was not polite small talk.

It was a statement of fact delivered with a strange, flat intensity.

Indeed.

If you will follow me to the parlor.

Dinner was a truly suffocating affair.

The dining room usually felt drafty and large.

Tonight, it felt impossibly small with him sitting at the table.

He took up entirely too much space.

My father, meanwhile, was drowning.

My ships are sound.

Craig said, his voice a little too loud.

His laugh was a little too forced.

He took a massive gulp of his wine.

It is a guaranteed return on investment.

The dark-haired man slowly set down his fork.

I have seen your ledgers.

You have exactly two ships left.

One has been impounded at the docks for unpaid docking fees.

My father’s face drained of all color.

That is a temporary misunderstanding.

A simple clerical error.

A clerical error.

The investor repeated the phrase.

His tone was entirely devoid of mockery, which somehow made it significantly worse.

Standing by the dark sideboard, I gripped the handle of the water pitcher.

I hated this rough, unblinking man for dissecting those lies so effortlessly.

But mostly, I hated the sharp, stabbing pain radiating from my left heel.

The awful blister had ruptured somewhere between clearing the soup plates and serving the roast.

More wine?

I stepped out from the shadows.

He did not look at me.

He merely tapped two fingers against the base of his empty glass.

I moved to his side.

I tipped the cheap glass bottle forward.

At that exact moment, I shifted my weight.

The raw flesh of my heel scraped agonizingly against the back of the shoe.

My leg buckled.

It was just a fraction of an inch.

But my hand jerked.

The dark red wine missed the glass.

A heavy splash of it hit the pristine white linen tablecloth.

A single bright crimson drop splattered directly onto the cuff of his crisp white shirt.

I froze completely.

The silence in the room suddenly felt like a physical weight.

Good god, girl.

Craig hissed, halfway out of his chair.

Are you entirely blind?

I did not gasp.

I was too tired, too in pain, and too angry at the entire pathetic situation.

Bloody hell.

I muttered the words under my breath.

It was not meant to be heard.

But the room was far too quiet.

Grabbing the linen napkin draped over my forearm, I reached down to dab at the spilled wine with a hand shaking not from fear, but from sheer, furious humiliation.

He caught my wrist.

His grip was not punishing, but it was absolute.

It felt exactly like an iron band snapping shut over my skin.

I inhaled sharply.

I finally looked up.

His slate gray eyes were mere inches from mine.

He was not looking at the spilled wine.

He was looking directly at my hand.

My breath hitched in my throat.

I suddenly realized exactly what he was seeing.

Nancy, the real maid, had hands like rough sandpaper.

My hands were calloused from the past few months of hard work, yes.

But the nails were neatly filed.

The fingers were long and unblemished.

They were the hands of a woman who played the piano forte, not one who scrubbed iron grates.

He looked at my clean hands, his eyes narrowing as he realized the truth: I wasn’t the maid at all.