Kathryn Smith by In The Night Read Free Book Online Page A

Wynthrope had looked up to this man; thought of him as more of a father than his own father had been. Of course, that had been the plan. Daniels knew exactly what to say to him, the things to do to make Wynthrope a willing participant in his illegal activities.
    And when Daniels hadn’t been able to give Wynthrope what he wanted to hear, what he wanted to see, he made it up—never to the point of actually lying, however. Daniels was a master of bending reality to his will.
    “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” the Irishman asked lightly, his tone as smooth and oily as the pomade in his salt-and-pepper hair.
    Folding his arms across his chest to ease the shaking in his muscles, Wynthrope leaned against the solid frame of his desk. “You will not be here that long.”
    That got a grin from the old man. “M’boy, you of anyone should know how fast I can toss back a whiskey.”
    How could he talk as if nothing had happened? Wynthrope had betrayed him after discovering the truth. Daniels was not a man to forget such a cross. “I know you will talk that much faster without one.”
    Daniels sighed, regarding Wynthrope as a father might a disappointing son. It was a look Wynthrope had received often enough from his real father. “You’ve become a hard man, Wyn.”
    “I wonder why.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice.
    “Ah, so it’s my fault, is it?”
    Was five minutes up yet? “What do you want, Daniels?”
    He tugged a crease from his sleeve. “I have a job for you.”
    That was it. This was the reason for the chummy attitude. Daniels needed him. He had humored the old man long enough. “Get out.”
    Daniels stayed where he was, an arrogant expression settling over his lamp-shadowed features. “I do not think you want to toss me out just yet.”
    “Yes, I do.” He wanted to do more than toss him out. He wanted to hit him, pummel him with his bare fists until Daniels couldn’t smile that mocking smile anymore. He wanted to make Daniels tell him why he had betrayed him as he had, why he had played him for a fool. But most of all—and most pathetically—he wanted to ask if Daniels had been lying when he told Wynthrope he thought of him as a son.
    “There is something I need,” the old man told him. “I want you to get it for me.”
    Wynthrope choked on bitter laughter. “There is no payment you could offer to make me work for you again.”
    Some of the old man’s pleasant façade faded. “No payment, boyo. You owe me.”
    Owe him? If either of them was owed anything, it was Wynthrope.
    A few years ago Wynthrope had been a thief, and a verygood one. He enjoyed the risk and danger of his job, and he had been still young enough that he enjoyed the approval Daniels lavished on him. But that was before he had found out that it was all a sham. North had come to him all grim and anxious. Did Wynthrope work for a man named William Daniels? Was he aware that William Daniels was little more than a high-class fence?
    Wynthrope hadn’t been aware. He had been told that Daniels worked for the government. He had been told that he too was working for the crown, that everything he stole, every intrigue he involved himself in, was to benefit England and the war effort against Napoleon. Daniels’s ruse had been elaborate and convincing, but that didn’t stop Wynthrope from feeling thoroughly stupid when the truth was finally revealed. He would not be so stupid again.
    Daniels’s gaze locked with his, dark and deadly. “I see your brother has taken up political ambitions.”
    Wynthrope said nothing, the blood in his veins turning to ice. He should have seen this coming.
    “It would be a right shame if his adorin’ public was to find out he purposely tampered with a Bow Street investigation to save his brother from a prison cell.”
    “Who would believe you?” It was more bravado than certainty, and Wynthrope despised himself for it.
    Daniels shrugged. “No one, most likely. They might believe the