Argent (Hundred Days Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to reckon with her at the bargaining table. Chas might live inside Silas’s grasp, but she was too old and too fed up to endure him any longer. He would not demolish what her family had worked so hard to build.
    Coming to England and meeting the Hastings was not the family reunion Chas had claimed to John. Mother had detested her father and eldest brother, the former Lord Hastings, and there was no love lost at the estrangement. Silas was convinced that England offered opportunity, and had sent Chas and Paulina to harvest it for him, exploiting family ties his idea from the start. Underhanded, but his scheme had offered Alix a convenient opportunity, too. Private shippers made top coin in contested waters, making England just the place to fatten her bankroll out from under at least one set of prying eyes.
                  A handsome stranger, plentiful investments, and now the intriguing Lord Reed. Alix hefted up her trunk, reveling in a bit of smugness. For a trip she hadn't been thrilled to make, a lot of good things were happening.
                  Trunk packed, a footman appeared on silent cue to drag it away, and Alix locked the door behind him. Settling in front of a deep oak vanity, she fished a tattered list from her apron pocket and rested it back against the mirror. She reached into the foot well, recovering the writing case she’d hidden there. She had pinched it from the small parlor, convinced that neither her nerves nor the frail desk could withstand another round of correspondence.
    Over the next hour, she penned the same brief letter to the last six names on her list; an offer to buy out their shares of Paton & Son at a generous price. At the foot of each she added the details of her father’s attorney, signed them ‘Alex Rowan’ and blew sand across the ink.
    When they were sealed, she crept out into the hallway and wound down the back staircase until she encountered a servant going up. Alix held out the bundle. “I have letters of introduction from Lady Hastings. Please see that they’re posted this afternoon.” Catching voices farther downstairs, from out in the main hall, she backed up a step. “If you encounter any trouble, you’re to come to me directly. Mrs. Paton is in an ill humor and is not to be bothered. Understood?”
    At Paulina’s name the young maid swallowed, green eyes wide with an obvious if unspoken question: Why had her mistress given letters to a guest, to be given to a servant? She worried her kerchief with anxious fingers, studying the bundle of post with the same trepidation as a live snake.
    Had Paulina already bullied the girl into the position of unwilling ally? Domestic staff could lose their place over the smallest complaint, and no one prodded with veiled threats as skillfully as Paulina. Alexandra’s nerves erupted in response to the maid, and she snatched the letters back and jammed them deep inside her pocket.
    “Never you mind. Do not trouble yourself.” She dug beneath the letters for a coin and pressed it into the maid’s limp hand. “No need mentioning this; I can settle the matter myself.”
    She didn’t wait for an answer or even a nod as the voices grew louder, their owners moving up the main staircase. One of them was distinctly Chas, and Alix wondered if the maid would rush her, reveal their exchange to him in a fearful confession. Turning, she raised her skirts and raced back up the way she’d come, relieved when no steps followed behind. Chas and Paulina were just coming into sight when she reached the landing.
                  “You’re making something out of nothing,” her brother whispered, glancing behind them.
                  “It’s only nothing until it occurs,” Paulina hissed back, her thick Dutch weighting each word into a blow against her husband. “Can you imagine if she does catch the eye of some rutting Englishman? Think of the scandal when people start asking who she is, where she