Persuasion in the Pantry [Maid for More #1]

Chapter 28- Part 2: Tea and Brawls

Jay left the Bexley Manor with footsteps that quickened increasingly as the distance grew. He did not even stop to seek out a certain Bexley maid with bread crumbs in her hair. Instead, the more he was allowed to ponder on his meeting with the Duchess the greater his frustration rose. She had plunged him into a task that was in all probability dangerous with no information, and to make it worse she had weaved a cryptic mystery around his new ward. He hated mysteries. No, he corrected. He hated mysteries that he was forbidden to solve. The Duchess may have simply been performing a similar service to his new ward as she had to his mother, but that did not explain her secrecy or need for his participation.

Jay's thoughts pulled at him with the concentration of picking a lock and instead of making his way to his London townhouse, he diverted to the Lamb and Flag pub, flexing his fists in preparation. Despite the distance, he preferred to walk through the alleyways and for the first time he hoped that those ludicrous thugs that were attacking Agents all over the city would dare to try it with him. Someone out there was still selling off the identity of Agents and swift justice was demanded, however this particular morning they would have to share his irritation with a certain Duchess.

He had always suspected that there was more to Cain's mother than met the eye but every inquiry into her background and ventures had proved fruitless. Not to say that they bore no fruit, just that she seemed by all accounts to be a perfectly respectable, if normal fruit tree. He didn't even know why he was equating her with a tree.

He closed his eyes for a brief second.

Yes he did.

It had been over a week since his liaison in the garden with a particular maid and she had the unfortunate habit of flitting through his mind as nimbly as she did branches.

He wondered what she would make of all this drama. It certainly didn't fit into her ideal lifestyle, sitting somewhere in a field painting pansies. His life was not fit for a portrait, it was full of danger and death and now the Duchess was attempting to bring in a ward. She was committing him to keeping another being alive and there were some days that he struggled just to keep himself alive.

Jay grimaced.

There was a certain hesitancy in the Duchesses air that worried him. Perhaps she was not accomplished at secrecy, for he could discern a dubiousness to her manner which he usually saw reserved for traitors and it bothered him like little else could. In one hand he had trusted her word since he was a boy and in the other he watched her with the wary eyes of a man. He was so often pushed and prodded into a corner by his stepmother that the gesture from a woman he respected and admired seemed all the more disturbing. Not that she had really pushed, but she did stare in that maternal way that made him feel childishly contrite.

The Duke still had not unravelled his mysterious morning when he pushed open the wooden planks which formed the unsteady door of the disreputable pub. The force of his frustration flung it backwards with a resounding thud and the small brass bell which hung at the top shuddered and fell uselessly to the floor. Jay did not pause to note its passing and proceeded to the back bar with all the restraint of a bull.

The Bucket of Blood, situated at the back of the Lamb and Flag, was not particularly overflowing with patrons but a few regulars were scattered around the dank, dark room. Despite the access to free light, the windows were boarded up and covered with thick black grime. Instead, lanterns burned in the four corners offering a host of shadowed pockets for nefarious dealings. Overturned chairs lined the tables on the edge of the room in anticipation of the crowd that formed in the late evenings. If the staff had used the opportunity to sweep the floor in the interim it had gone unnoticed by the clientele. In the centre of the modest room lay a square of decent proportions lined by three rows of rope on all sides. The ground there appeared even darker and patchy with the thick stains of blood, sweat and no doubt, tears. It was a site that even Figg would have been proud of.