One Penny Surprise (Saved By Desire 1)

“You only wanted me to do it so you could steal money that isn’t yours,” Poppy countered. “That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it? Give your scoundrel here the money so you didn’t have to steal from me. If I had blindly handed it over that day, what then?”

“He was planning on getting this buffoon here to make sure you didn’t return to the hovel, weren’t you Clarence?” Luke drawled. He knew from the way that Clarence didn’t even look bothered by the notion that he was right.

Poppy turned her gaze to Clarence’s accomplice and knew now that he was the man who was supposed to meet her in the park.

“Where were you then?” she challenged. “I was in that park for a good hour and you didn’t show your face.” She looked at Clarence. “One of us made a mess of things that morning, but it wasn’t me.”

She began to wonder if Clarence’s cohort had the intelligence to do anything other than grunt and look blankly at Clarence, but when he did speak she rather wished he hadn’t. The husky timbre of his voice was nothing short of a deep growl. It heightened her fear when accompanied by blue eyes that were such a pale shade of blue they were almost translucent.

The man looked bashful. “I got the wrong park,” he murmured.

“Shut up Henry,” Clarence sighed. “You are a fool.”

Henry dutifully closed his mouth with an audible snap. Poppy had to wonder if Henry had limited understanding given that his manner of speech was more of a rolling of words.

“So you sent him to rob your own daughter?” Luke put every ounce of the disgust he felt into his voice.

“I am not robbing her. I am only getting what is mine.”

“So why send me to the park?” Poppy snapped.

“He was going to get his accomplice, Henry, here to do what he tried to do in the coaching yard the other day. In the quiet corner of the park Clarence sent you to so early in the morning there would be no witnesses to see you either fall into the river and drown, or be killed in some other way and left in the woods to be found long after these two have vanished. Nobody knows you are in London, my dear,” Luke reasoned.

He didn’t want to hurt her but reasoning everything out was his only way of warning her of just how much danger she was in right now. Her anger positively radiated off her, and that was incredibly dangerous with Henry so close. There was something all too innocent about the gaze that was docilely on Poppy at the moment that worried Luke. It was almost as though the man had no concept of what they were doing, and would kill without realising the enormity of what he had done.

“You were going to kill me?” She felt sick at the thought. “I was doing you a favour. You pretended that you were too scared to go out so you could set me up. There wasn’t a creditor, was there?” It wasn’t a question, and she could see the answer in Clarence’s eyes. From the malevolent look of glee in those hazel depths, she knew he would almost relish the opportunity to carry out his macabre intent himself if he had to.

“You sent her to the park where your accomplice here was going to kill her and then return the money to you in that dive. You then intended to start your new life with your mistress. Why Camden though?” Luke asked carefully.

“It’s the arse end of Hell. Nobody chooses to live there, they are dragged there by circumstance. It is a soulless pit where people die every single day and people are too busy thieving and lying to even notice,” Clarence snarled. “She wouldn’t survive two minutes there on her own if he bundled things, and she went back.”

“So why didn’t you answer the door when he called around after the meeting failed? You seemed almost scared Clarence,” Poppy demanded.

She frowned when Clarence looked awkward. She thought carefully about his reaction that morning. “When I told you about the body I found, you thought it was him,” she murmured with a nod toward Henry. “Is that why you didn’t answer the door? You thought it was Helena, your mistress, demanding to know where Henry was? You were scared about what she would say – or do, weren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Clarence snarled.

“She is right though,” Luke snorted. “You seem almost scared of Helena.”

“We both are,” Henry declared with a nod but then looked guilty when Clarence glared at him.

“Shut up,” Clarence snapped more loudly this time.

“You bought her to London where you could dump her body without any form of identification on it and nobody would know who she is, or where she came from. She would have a pauper’s funeral and an unmarked grave. You left Cumbria and told people you had gone to London, England’s largest city. Anyone who tried to find her would be looking for a needle in a haystack if they wanted to try to find either one of you wouldn’t they?”

Luke struggled to contain his fury at the man’s complete disregard for human life. Such selfish acts of callousness were the reason he was in the Star Elite in the first place. To protect the lives of people like Poppy, who were victims through circumstance not because of their poor choices in life.

“So what do you plan to do if you get this money you are demanding? Skip off into the sunset with your accomplice here? Strangely, I don’t think he is the liveliest of travelling companions. He seems a bit dim to me. I hope Helena is worth it, but I doubt it given how scared you are of her. Maybe your mistress is getting greedy?” he taunted

“Where I go and what I do now is nothing to do with you. Give me the cash. Now.”

“No.” She would rather die than give Clarence anything. “When your scheme in the park failed, you suspected I had the money on me but didn’t want to have him come into the house in case I realised how much danger I was in and ran with the money. You needed me there to begin with but then wanted me to leave so I was out on the streets where I was the most vulnerable. Your friend, Henry, here would be able to murder me without anyone any the wiser. God, you sicken me,” she added with a snarl as she realised just how much of her life she had wasted on this odious creature before her. “I should have left you in the bottom of a brandy bottle where you belong,” she added.

“He ain’t’,” Henry suddenly blurted. “Mama wouldn’t allow it.”

“Mama?”

“She is his missus, but she don’t want ‘er comin’ along,” Henry said to Luke, ignoring Clarence’s order to shut up.