Word had gotten around that Camden Keene had stabbed a wealthy debtor who owed his family money. Many of the people I'd spent a week visiting only to find excuses for lack of payment or promises to pool some money together for me in the future began showing up at my home unannounced, bags of bills and coins extended as an offering. Some paid their debts in full, some only paid in part and made fervent promises to retrieve the rest by some self-imposed deadline. I took the money that was owed to me and said nothing in return.

I understood it, then, the temptation to threaten people, to harm them, to get what you were owed. They had come the next day to offer payment they had lied to me about before, they had claimed they hadn't had before. How many of them had lied to my father too before he had created a reputation of a man not to trifle with? I understood why he might turn to violence, how much easier it was for retrieval, but I wouldn't stray from my course. So, by the early afternoon, I'd begun to apologize, telling the debtors who came that I had lost my temper, that it wasn't my intention to harm them, but that I would not hesitate to seek legal action if they refused payment again. They just stared at me in stunned disbelief, a man threatening them with a lawsuit after having stabbed one of them through the hand. It was like threatening a jail sentence to a man you'd just beheaded.

But they shuffled away, having made their payment to me already, confused and muttering to one another.

Unfortunately, word had gotten around to more than just my debtors and, by the time I opened my door just past lunch time, Chief Detective Ryland was standing in the threshold, that same scowl on his face that I was beginning to learn was an ever-present feature.

"Chief Detective," I muttered in greeting, stepping away from the door but leaving it open so that he could come inside.

He did, closing the door behind him with a sigh.

"I warned you, Camden," he told me in the same dreary tone as an exhausted nursemaid. "I told you we would be watching you."

"You've come to arrest me, then?" I asked, affecting the same calm as ever.

"No. Frustratingly, Douglas Fowler is refusing to press charges."

I nodded, taking a seat on my new couch. A work of black leather from Italy and far more to my tastes.

"So you've come to warn me again, then?" I said, raising a brow as I examined the Chief Detective with a slow, lazy glance over his person.

"Apparently, it bears repeating since you refused to heed it the first time," he barked, annoyed.

"I lost my temper," I confessed, keeping my tone even but lowering it slightly so that Ryland might know I was letting him in on a secret. "It wasn't intentional. And it will not happen again."

"Give me a reason to trust you."

"Time. I can only give you time. Watch and see. I am not my father."

Ryland's frown returned in earnest and he gave a nod before turning toward the door again.

"If I hear of another stabbing, Camden Keene, I will arrest you myself, complaining witness or no," he vowed.

I nodded in understanding, allowing him the empty threat. He might actually follow through with it. He might place cuffs on my wrists and drag me out of my home, parading me before the neighbors that already whispered about my presence, but we both knew he'd be forced to release me within twenty four hours. Still, as hollow as his vow was, I believed he would do it, if just to teach me a lesson. And that, at least, was a reason to respect the man.

Reinvigorated, I left my men at home, commanding them to attend to whatever debtors dropped by and to count whatever valuables they offered in payment, and made my way into town.

It was the first time I'd walked freely in society again, not taking side streets to avoid the main thoroughfares on my way home from the seedier side of London, and people noticed. I saw the looks they gave me as I passed, the way they held their hands over their mouths to whisper about me to whomever they were with. I passed my sister's favorite little cafe, the one she was always spending an unconscionable amount of the family money at, drinking tea and having pastries with the monstrous women she called her friends. The women inside stared as I passed, eyes wide and jaws agape as they whispered my name and pointed.

I hadn't formulated the plan fully in my mind before I was standing in front of the door I had been journeying towards. I took a breath and read the lettering on the frosted glass pane. Mr. Nathaniel Harrison. Bookkeeper and Financial Advisor. I sighed, flexing my fingers and taking deep, steadying breaths. This was a mistake to come here. He wouldn't be willing to see me, wouldn't even want to speak to me, let alone work with me. Still, I reached for the door. Just before I could grip the handle, however, the sound of a bell tinkling nearby distracted me and I turned to see a familiar young girl exiting Abbington's Jewelers.

I froze, my hand dropping back to my side as Liza Porter rushed by me on the sidewalk, her auburn hair trailing in the breeze behind her as she grinned broadly and crossed the street. I hesitated, curiosity getting the best of me. What was a poor man's daughter doing visiting a jewelry shop in the middle of the day? Could it have something to do with Charlotte? Was she here on behalf of Langley?

Despite myself, despite how pathetic it was, I found myself drawn into Abbingtons through a curiosity I had no right to.

"Good afternoon, sir," the cheery boy behind the counter greeted me the moment I entered the shop, that infernal bell ringing out behind me. "Anything I can help you with?"

I ignored the women in the corner who had begun whispering to one another at my entrance and examined the boy standing before me. Young, barely a man yet, but standing tall and beaming as if he owned the shop he stood in. I saw the thin frame, the wide set of his squared shoulders, the strong chin and bright eyes and understood exactly what little Liza had been doing visiting a jewelers on this side of town in the middle of the afternoon.

I smiled at him, stepping closer to the counter and feigning interest in the jewels displayed before me. The women in the back too the moment I had stepped away from the door to seize their opportunity to leave. The boy behind the counter didn't seem to notice that his new clientele was scaring away the old. He just kept his kind eyes firmly on me as I perused his selection as though I had any interest in his goods.

"How long have you sold jewels?" I asked him, keeping my eyes on the shining rubies and glowing amethyst as I spoke.

"My whole life, really," he answered conversationally, shrugging a shoulder. "My parents own the place so I grew up in it."

"Do you like selling jewels... what was your name?"

"Samuel. Samuel Abbington."

"Do you like selling jewels, Samuel?"

"It's a living."

I raised my gaze to meet his and found him still smiling back at me. I wasn't sure what came over me then, what, precisely, I was thinking, but I couldn't stop the words from spilling out of my mouth as I said them.

"Would you like to make more than a simple living?" I asked.

He blinked at me, that smile faltering only slightly in his shock.

"Sir?" he asked.

"Do you have a girl, Samuel? Is there a woman you're interested in marrying?" I asked and his cheeks tinged pink. That was answer enough. "Wouldn't you like to give her more than this shop and the tiny apartment above it? Wouldn't you like to provide her with finer things bought with money you earned yourself?"

"I- of course, I would love to provide a better life for Liza and I but–"

"I came into some money recently. I'm looking to start a trade business of my own. But I'm no salesman. I've no experience being a clerk. You maintain a fine establishment here, you deal with luxury goods, you appeal to a certain class of buyer–"

"It's my parent's business."

"Yes but you run it," I said, gesturing at the shop around us and how we were entirely alone. "With me, you could run something of your own."

The boy stared at me in shock and he was right to do so. What I was offering him was an advancement far above the class of merchant, a chance to break out of the middle class and rise to the upper, a chance to become wealthy, rich, to own a place of his own for himself and Liza and the family they might build. He was envisioning it all, I could tell by the way his eyes glazed over, his lips parted in complete surprise.

"Why-" he started, stuttering. "Why me? There are a dozen wealthy men that come into this shop every day with experience in trade, experience managing accounts."

"I don't particularly care for any of them. Old men in fancy suits telling me what to buy and where to spend my money and telling every other man in town the same advice. I need someone with fresh perspective, with passion and purpose, someone who needs to create something bigger than themselves just as badly as I do. Is that you, Samuel Abbington?"

I knew I had him by the way he smiled back at me over the counter between us.

"I'll have to speak with my parents," he started.

"You do that," I said, reaching into my pocket and retrieving a card with my information on it. I handed it to him and he took it, staring down in awe. "Come see me when you've made up your mind."

With that, I left the jewelry shop behind, bell tingling in my wake, and wondered if I had just made a very significant mistake.