Luck Is No Lady(96)

He would have liked to return to the dowager countess’s town house and share what he had learned with Emma in the hope that it might ease some of her concern. But he had one more stop to make first.

Mason Hale was a ruthless and hardened man. A bare-knuckle boxer from the age of nineteen, he had taken more men down to the mats than anyone since, and he brought the same fierce determination to running the stakes. He was not a man to cross in any fashion.

Roderick did not know him very well, but their paths had intersected a time or two over the years. Like many men in the business of bets and wagers, Hale was motivated by money, something Roderick had in abundance.

The hackney reached Hale’s address and came to a stop. Roderick leaped to the ground, and after he paid the driver to wait, his long strides ate up the pavement to the door of the building that served as Hale’s office and residence. A light from the upper windows suggested Hale had not yet found his bed.

After knocking sharply on the door, Roderick waited with fragile patience as he heard a scuffle and some plaintive cursing beyond. Then the door opened just a crack to show the face of a thin, scraggly-looking man with a recently bloodied nose—swollen and turning a dark shade of purple. A man who was clearly not the former prizefighter.

“I am here to see Hale.”

“Doesn’t anyone come about at reasonable hours anymore?” the man complained. “Hale’s indisposed.”

Roderick reached out to prevent the man from closing the door in his face. “I insist.”

The servant backed quickly away, letting Roderick enter unheeded. “Damn me, but I ain’t one to make the same mistake twice. No amount of wages is worth this kind of abuse.”

And with a wary glance, the man turned and scurried down a narrow hall leading to the back of the building.

Roderick didn’t know if Hale had been the one to batter the man’s face and didn’t much care just then, especially if the servant had any hand in Lily Chadwick’s abduction. He took the steps two at a time to the second level. The single door at the top of the stairs was open. He walked in boldly, his instincts tuned to every nuance of his surroundings, his awareness on high alert for any sense of danger.

It was a large, open space that appeared to serve as office, sitting room, dining room, and whatever else all at once.

Roderick spotted Hale immediately. He was seated at his desk with his elbows propped on the surface, his head in his hands, and his spine curved forward. There was no mistaking the thick breadth of the man’s shoulders or the roped muscles in his forearms, visible under his rolled-up shirtsleeves.

“I told you I didn’t want any interruptions,” Hale said in a vicious snarl without raising his head.

Roderick had come to a stop a few steps into the room. He relaxed the tension along his spine and allowed his intuition to guide him. As he stared at Hale, he experienced a guarded wariness, a sort of heightened caution, but no ringing alarm to indicate danger.

Even when the larger man lifted his head to pin Roderick with a hard glare, he did not feel himself in any particular peril, though the experienced ex-fighter certainly looked as though he could still take a man down with his signature left jab.

Continuing into the room, he said, “I am Roderick Bentley. We have met on a few occasions.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn who you are. Get out.”

Undaunted, Roderick approached the desk with an unhurried stride until he was close enough to see the scattered pile of charcoal sketches strewn across the surface and the black smudges on Hale’s fingers. He got only a brief impression of the sketches—portraits of some sort—before Hale noticed the direction of his gaze and quickly swiped the drawings into a pile and flipped them over.

Ignoring a spark of curiosity, Roderick met the man’s angry gaze. “Trust me, Hale. You want to hear what I have to say.”

“No,” Hale growled. “I don’t.”

The man was growing angry, and if the empty liquor bottle on the desk was any indication, it was likely he was also quite drunk.

None of that mattered. Roderick was not leaving until he got what he came for.

“You kidnapped a young lady tonight and sold her to a house of ill repute.”

Hale did not respond, just glared at Roderick with violence in his bloodshot gaze.

“She was auctioned from that house. Do you know where she is now?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

Roderick hadn’t expected any differently. It had been worth a shot, but it was not the reason he was here.

“Now, this is where you will start to see things differently. You will care about the young lady’s fate, Hale, because if she comes to any harm, you will be held responsible. You realize your crimes are worthy of hanging.”