Petunia Sinclair was an elitist, privileged, heartless harpy who delighted in her own absolute abhorrence of every other human being on the face of the earth. That included her husband and her youngest daughter. The Marchioness would most certainly disown Rose if she learned the true reason behind her daughter's presence in Manchester. She would likely do far worse than that. And she would enjoy every horrid moment of it.

The lump of ice in Rose's stomach was now attempting to shatter and slice up her insides. At this point she knew, without having to ask, exactly why Mr. Mercer had requested they meet. Entrapment. Although, he likely preferred the more common and straightforward term ‘blackmail.’

Her face must have revealed her comprehension, for Mr. Mercer nodded as though he were impressed by her wit.

“Unless I keep quiet about Dmitri, you will contact my parents,” she deduced. “You'll tell my mother about my work with the refugees.”

“As I said, you're clever,” Mr. Mercer remarked. “Now, if ya wouldn't mind confirmin' a bit o' information for me…”

With an expression of satisfaction, he retrieved a small slip of paper from the lapel pocket of his suit jacket, smoothed it, and slid it across the table to her.

Rose leaned forward to inspect the paper, and her insides twisted into a knot. There, in the haphazard scrawl of a man's handwriting, were the words:

Lord Hugh Sinclair
Lady Petunia Sinclair
Marquess and Marchioness of Huntsbury
Thornewood Park
North Yorkshire

Three children:
Donovan, 28 (married)
Daisy, 25 (married)
Rose, 23 (unmarried)

Scribbled beneath the names and titles was the telephone number that rang her parents' manor.

Rose made a helpless strangled sound. Her haunted gaze migrated from the paper back up to Mr. Mercer's face. In his eyes, she saw the gleam of triumph.

“All of that's correct, I take it?” he asked. With a smirk, he snatched the paper, folded it, and tucked it back inside his lapel pocket.

“Please don't ring that number,” Rose whispered. “My mother— She would— Just...please.”

Mr. Mercer folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. He studied her face, his eyebrows slightly elevated, a thin smile on his lips.

He was enjoying this.

“I'd prefer not to ring your parents,” he said. “But that all depends on you, Lady Rose.”

“Do not call me that!” Rose hissed.

Mr. Mercer cocked his head to the side. “Miss Sinclair, then?”

“Yes!”

“Alright. It all depends on you, Miss Sinclair,” he amended. “I won't have to make that call if I have your word you'll keep your mouth shut.”

It took Rose several seconds of agonizing inner turmoil before she found her voice.

“Keep my mouth shut?” she repeated, disgusted by the words. “My silence regarding Dmitri for my reputation among the peerage. Is that what you're offering?”

Mr. Mercer nodded. “Your silence for mine.”

“I'm not sure I believe you'll drop this at so simple an arrangement, Mr. Mercer,” Rose said. Her voice was tight. Pinched. Wobbling. The timbre of confidence had abandoned her. She swallowed and pushed on. “How can I be sure you won't use this threat over me in the future? I have no intention of giving up my work with the refugees. Even if I were to agree to your terms today, what's to stop you from telephoning my parents next week? Or the week after?”

“As of right now? Nothing,” Mr. Mercer said. His shoulders rose and fell in a nonchalant shrug and he reached for his glass. Taking a long pull of the whiskey, he licked his lips and set the glass back down. “However, I may have a solution that would be mutually beneficial.”

Rose involuntarily leaned forward in her seat. “I'm listening,” she said, askance.

“You come work for me.”

“I...beg your pardon?”

“You come work for me,” he repeated, slower this time.

Work for him..? Work for him?!

Rose gaped at Mr. Mercer with bulging eyes and a slackened jaw. Her situation had transformed from bad to worse to nightmare so quickly she could hardly keep up. This was absurd!

“Yes. I heard you.” Rose scoffed, then barked a laugh. Even to her own ears, she sounded delirious. “And that would be ‘mutually beneficial’ how?”

“Think on it, Miss Sinclair,” Mr. Mercer instructed. “A little quid pro quo of good faith. You help me, I hold my tongue for you. And I'd compensate you handsomely for any services rendered.”

Rose made a sound of disgust. “I'm not a whore, Mr. Mercer.”

“I made no implication or inference that ya were.”

“What else could you possibly mean by ‘services rendered’?” she challenged.

He blinked at her, seeming amused by her reaction. “Many things,” he answered, maddeningly vague. “But not that.”

“Oh, really? And I'm supposed to just take you at your word?”

“Yes,” he stated. “My word is next to sacred, Miss Sinclair.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I'm sure you think so.”

He picked up his glass and polished off the whiskey. “It's the truth. And while we're on the subject of the truth, I can get a fuck whenever and wherever I want, love. I don't need to pay you for it.”

Rose's skin flushed from her neck to the tips of her ears. “You're disgusting!” she spat.

He shrugged. “I'm an acquired taste.”

With wide, affronted eyes, she shook her head and looked away. How had her life become this...madness? She had transformed into Alice, and here she was, falling through the looking glass, and tumbling down, down, down the criminal rabbit-hole toward the King of No Heart and his guillotine.

“Why me?” she asked softly, her gaze on the far wall. “You know everyone in Manchester. What with your connections, and businesses, and gang. Why would you want me to work for you?”

Mr. Mercer was quiet for several beats before he answered her. “You're smart,” he said at last. “Inquisitive. Insightful. Ya seem to be able to sense when somethin's off. And ya look innocuous as a Sunday hat. Those are qualities that can't be taught or forged, Miss Sinclair. I want someone like that in business with me.”

His reply was oddly flattering, but she would not be deterred by pretty words. “I've never committed a crime,” she stated. “Nor will I ever.”

“Ya never purchased or drank bootlegged liquor while ya were in the States?” he baited.

“Splitting hairs. How quaint,” she retorted. “Fine. I've never committed a serious crime.”

“And I won't ask ya to,” Mr. Mercer said. “My businesses and dealings have been legitimate for quite some time, Miss Sinclair. Everythin' on the up and up.”

“On the surface, at any rate.”

Mr. Mercer tapped the side of his nose. “Y'see? There's that insight.”

“Humph. Say I agree to work for you. What then?”

“You work for me, and I never contact your parents,” Mr. Mercer said. “You'll be paid a considerable wage and given a large, comfortable room at me house.”

“A room at your house? Have you gone mad?” Rose hissed. “If I move into your house and my mother learns of it, I will be just as tarnished as I would be if you rang her about the refugees! Perhaps more! And how dare you insinuate generosity with that ridiculous offer? You want to sequester me in a gilded cage in order to keep me under your thumb. I'm not an imbecile, Mr. Mercer!”

“Yes. To keep ya under my thumb is exactly what I want,” he concurred. “Never said that I didn't.”

“I cannot stay in your house!” she cried. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep her voice down. Every sentence that came out of this man's mouth was more preposterous than the last. “I won't!”

“You will,” he argued softly, his eyes locked on hers. “You'll find I tend to get me own way, Miss Sinclair. So, you will. You've seen my house. The size, the luxury. I don't know what you've got to complain about. Has to be more appealing than that cramped little flat ya share with your cousin. Eh?”

Rose's skin prickled. “My— My cousin?”

He smiled then. The smile of a chess player who had just put his opponent in check. “Aye, your cousin. Daphne Lancaster. Works for the Manchester Daily Post, doesn't she?”

He knew about Daphne. And the location of her flat. And her place of work. He could get to her any time he liked.

Rose shot a desperate look at Mr. Mercer across the table, then lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap. Due to her distress, she'd been picking at a hangnail without realizing it. A small seam of blood had bloomed at the crease between the delicate skin and the nailbed.

She would get nowhere pleading her case. That much was clear. He was enjoying the turmoil he caused. It was sport to him. But perhaps if she made this about him rather than her, he would see reason.

“Yes, Daphne works for the Post,” Rose said. “And what about your family, Mr. Mercer? How will your family feel about some strange woman moving into your home out of the blue? You're quite involved with them, aren't you? Quite close? I highly doubt they will appreciate having an outsider loitering around.”

“If I choose to have a house guest or a new employee, that's my business, not theirs,” he replied. “No member of the Mercer family or the Deansgate Streeters will bother ya. I promise ya that.”

“And what about Daphne? Will she be exempt from ‘bother’?”

“Yes. Unless I say otherwise.”

Checkmate. He may as well have said the word aloud.

Rose frowned at the tabletop, at a complete loss. Never in her life had she felt more hopeless or trapped. She'd been defeated in the metaphorical game of chess by a man she had only met yesterday. How?

Much to her embarrassment, tears formed in her eyes.

“You're upset,” Mr. Mercer stated. It was a stoic observation, spoken in the tone of voice he might use to make an offhand comment about the weather. “Here.” From the lapel pocket of his suit jacket, he retrieved a handkerchief.

Her handkerchief.

Rose blanched as he handed her the familiar keepsake. A single tear broke free of her eye and snaked down her cheek. She quickly dabbed it away.

“Ya left it in my study,” Mr. Mercer said by way of explanation.

“I thought perhaps I had,” Rose murmured. Her finger stung where she'd picked at her hangnail, and she looked down at her hand, as much to assess the damage as to avoid Mr. Mercer's eye.

“Come work for me, Miss Sinclair,” he said. His tone was slightly softer and warmer than before, and it took her aback. “Anythin' you earn in pay you can give to the refugees. I'm guessin', since your parents don't know about them, they're not offerin' any assistance in the form of a monetary donation.”

“You guess correctly,” Rose confessed in a whisper. Money would help. The refugees could acquire homes. Be seen by doctors. Send funds to their loved ones. Any number of things. Money would mean the start of a new life.

“So? What d'ya say?”

Rose stared at him as desultory thoughts billowed through her mind. “This mystery source who told you my life story: may I have their name?”

“'Fraid not, love. Gotta protect the identities of my sources.”

“Of course you do,” Rose scoffed. “And what, exactly, do you suggest I tell my cousin?” She paused, taking a sip of her tea. The liquid was no longer hot, but it still managed to calm her nerves a bit. “She knows you and I are not well acquainted. What reason could I possibly give that would not pique her suspicions? She'll never believe me if I tell her I've taken a job as your maid.”

Mr. Mercer made a blasé gesture with his hand. “Tell her the truth,” he advised. “Tell her I've offered you a well-payin' job at my residence. Or you could come up with some elaborate ruse that'd raise her suspicions even more. It's up to you.”

In other words, it was her problem.

It angered her to admit it, even silently, but he was right about one thing: a vague telling of the truth was far more likely to go over with Daphne than any lie Rose could fabricate. Her cousin may even be intrigued. Enough to hold her tongue in regards to their families, at any rate.

Rose's posture deflated in defeat. Mr. Mercer had her surrounded and out-maneuvered. She was completely at his mercy and no closer to getting justice for Dmitri Kuragin.

However, there was something. A tiny thing. An old cliché haunting the back of her mind: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Perhaps being kept by Mr. Mercer was her best opportunity to keep an eye on him. If she was very patient, there was a small chance it would one day pay off.

She sighed in resignation. “When shall I move in?”

He blinked at her a few times before responding to her question. “Sooner the better, love. Eleanor always keeps the guest rooms ready. Why not tomorrow?”

Tomorrow seemed so soon. Too soon. Rose didn't have many possessions of her own at Daphne's flat. Her clothes, a few cosmetics, a handful of novels, her photographs... She sighed. It would likely only take her an hour or two to pack. Her life had become far more transient than she'd realized.

She crossed her arms and glared at Mr. Mercer. “Fine. Tomorrow evening, then. I trust you'll send a car around for me? You already know the address, I take it.”

“I do, yes.” He nodded his head. “A member of my staff will be at your cousin's flat to collect ya tomorrow evening. Make sure you're ready, eh? Half past six.”

“Half past six,” Rose begrudgingly agreed.

“Good.”

Mr. Mercer stood, brushed down his suit jacket, and pushed in his chair. He tossed a couple pound notes onto the table and gave Rose one final almost-smile before he turned on his heel and made for the door.

“I look forward to seein' ya tomorrow, Miss Sinclair,” he called to her over his shoulder.

“Yes!” Rose projected after his retreating back. “Should be a gas!”

Without a backwards glance, he strode through the restaurant's front door and vanished into the smog.

Rose scowled at his now-vacant chair. Oh, she would be ready. But would he? That was the real question.

The server suddenly appeared beside the table to collect the empty glass and teacup. “Mr. Mercer didn't want to stay for luncheon?” he asked. He sounded almost hurt.

“I'm afraid not,” Rose said. She stood from her chair and offered the slighted server a half-hearted smile. “As I'm sure you know, he's a very busy man.”

So many lives to ruin, so little time, she added silently to herself.

【♜】【♞】【♟】

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