This was not funny, not at all, and he absolutely did not want to laugh. Dominic bit his lip, couldn’t quite tell if the shaking was Zoë or himself, then gave up the struggle to maintain a shred of dignity.
“You two can cackle,” Silas growled, emerging from behind the screen. “What sort of gimcrack place is this? The hell sort of whorehouse has chains that don’t come off?”
“It’s not her fault,” Dominic said, recovering himself. “Mechanisms break.”
“See, that’s a gentleman,” Zoë told Silas. “But I must beg your pardon, sir.”
“Not at all,” Dominic said, with equal courtesy, to the woman straddling him. “It was unfortunate, to say the least, but you run an excellent house, and I suspect you may have saved both our necks. At the cost of my reputation, but…”
“Probably done it a world of good,” Silas growled. “Zoë doesn’t tup just anyone.”
She grinned. “Only the ones with pretty eyes.”
“Yes,” Dominic said. “About that—”
“Aye, well, and you,” Silas interrupted. “That how you talk when you’re in charge?”
“Not often, no. Could somebody, perhaps, get this cuff off my ankle?”
Zoë shifted off him to stand against the door, as Silas set to examining the cuff’s mechanism, and Dominic pulled a sheet over himself, with some relief.
“So, Silas boy. You brought the hounds to my house?” Zoë said.
“Why were they pursuing you?” Dominic put in.
“Don’t know. No idea. Didn’t know they were, any more than usual. Maybe to have a seditionist plucked and ready if the bills pass. Jack Cade, ripe for transportation.”
Dominic couldn’t help but glance at Zoë. She gave him a wry look. “Yes, I knew that. And so did you, Mr. Frey.” She’d never used his name before, always the anonymous “sir.” “So…” She glanced between them.
“What?” growled Silas, crossing to the drawer of toys.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said to Dominic. “But I don’t want you meeting here no more.”
“Why not?” Silas fished out a slim piece of metal that doubtless had some painful purpose and went back to work at the faulty cuff.
“Because I can’t be raided again. They might come for the radicals, but they’ll take the gentlemen if they get ’em. This house is nothing if it ain’t safe. We usually pay ’em off, sir, but it seems like your lot wouldn’t be paid. So if Silas is bringing your boys here, Mr. Frey, and you can’t stop that, well, I’ve other clients to think about. And there’s another thing.” She folded her arms, bringing her chin up in defiance. “Foxy David.”
“Who?” Dominic asked.
“Your pal Richard’s flashman.” Silas bent his strength against the clasp and gave a grunt of triumph as it opened at last, freeing Dominic’s ankle. “What about him?”
“I don’t want to lose this place, and I don’t want Will and Jon to lose theirs,” Zoë said. “And we’ve had our instructions from Foxy, which is as much as to say from his lordship, and they’re not to be crossed.” She glanced at Dominic, then raised a brow. “You do know that?”
“I am at a loss as to your meaning,” Dominic said, swinging off the bed to grab his clothes. “Or…By this Foxy, do you happen to mean a redheaded man, of slim build?”
“Hold on,” Silas said. “Foxy David, the flashman, he’s Lord Richard’s valet as well?”
“Cyprian. He really does get everywhere,” Dominic muttered. He did not like Richard’s sly, silent henchman. The valet was a spymaster who put Sir Francis Walsingham in the shade and served Richard with the same single-minded intensity that Walsingham had given his queen. Dominic had often thought the man would adorn the Home Office, but he appeared to be satisfied to black Richard’s boots, which were, admittedly, among the best in London. Dominic had long felt an irrational but deep-seated mistrust of the valet’s amoral devotion. “What has he to do with it?”
“The first rule of this house or Quex’s,” Zoë said. “No harm to Mr. Frey.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lord Richard’s orders, via Foxy. Games are games, Silas boy, but if you bring him down, Foxy will take it out of my skin and Jon’s too.”
“My affairs are none of Richard’s business, nor his concern,” Dominic said furiously. “None. His opinion is not relevant.”