With This Kiss by Victoria Lynne Read Free Book Online

for me.” She hesitated, fiddling for a moment with the scalloped edge of her saucer. “I am not being fickle, nor am I ungrateful. But I fear that in his haste to see me married off, my uncle does not have my best interests at heart.” Ashamed at the feelings she had expressed so freely, she glanced up at Morgan with a small, embarrassed smile. “It does me no honor to harbor thoughts like that, does it?”
    He returned her smile with a look of glacial indifference. “You say you have no dowry. Yet you were gambling tonight as though you had money to squander.”
    “That is exactly the point I was coming to. Contrary to what my uncle may believe, I am not without funds or resources. This warehouse, for example. It belonged to my father. Now Henry and I—”
    “Henry?”
    “Henry Maddox. My father’s former bosun. He rents the warehouse to ships in need of storage space for their cargo, and we split the profit between us. The enterprise has been quite successful.”
    “I see.”
    Julia drew a deep breath. Having dispensed with her background, it was time to address the issue at hand. “There is another matter with which I am involved,” she began, “one that has indirectly come to concern you. You see, for the past three years I’ve written an anonymous column for the
London
Review.
Perhaps you’ve seen it. ‘The Tattler’?”
    “Good God.”
    She set down her teacup. “I take it that’s a yes.”
    He looked utterly appalled. Then after a moment a smile of cynical satisfaction touched his lips. “So that’s you, is it?” he said. “London’s foremost gossip — and thrower of stones — is hiding a dark past of her own.”
    “I am not a gossip. Nor do I throw stones. The purpose of that column was, and still is, to educate London’s elite as to the social ills that infest this city. The workhouses, the slums, the factories where children labor from dawn to dusk, the fact that women are denied the right to vote, as well as the right to hold property in our own name, not to mention—”
    “Indeed,” he interrupted dryly, “how very noble.”
    “I would prefer not to include the gossip at all, but I found my column was neither read nor discussed without it. It has become, I’m afraid, a necessary evil.”
    Refusing to debate the point, he stated simply, “I believe you were eventually going to come to the subject of Lazarus?”
    “Yes. Of course.” She folded her hands in her lap and continued. “Shortly after I began the column, I started receiving letters from this Lazarus person. Initially they were merely praise and encouragement for my good work in exposing the evils of society. Then they began to grow darker, full of dire biblical references and vague threats of vengeance. Unfortunately I no longer have those early letters. They were so disturbing, I simply threw them away.”
    “How did the letters come to you?”
    “The same way all my correspondence with the paper is handled: through Mr. Randolph. He delivers my column once a week and picks up any letters that may have been sent to me in the interim. I’ve never set foot anywhere near the
Review’s
offices myself. As far as I’m aware, no one there has any knowledge of my identity.”
    “Yet Lazarus was able to deduce who you are.”
    “Apparently.” She drew her hands over her upper arms as though warding off a chill. Not only did he know who she was, but in recent weeks she had
felt
the man’s presence — watching, lurking, following her every movement. She did not say as much, however. No need to get overly dramatic.
    “When the fires began,” she continued, “Mr. Randolph took the letters directly to Mr. Chivers, the Home Secretary at Scotland Yard. Unfortunately they proved to be of little use. And once the fires stopped…” Her voice trailed off as she lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug.
    “Yes. The matter was put aside.” Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “Have you shown this latest letter to anyone