I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Paid in Full

Odalys slept in an inn on the Sennet quay, in a room over a fishmonger's, with Jorrin in a cot at the foot of her bed and the trunk against the door.

She lay awake for most of the night and did not cry.

At nine the next morning she climbed the steps of the Exchange for the second time in her life.

She wore her darned grey traveling dress, with a leather case under her arm and her brother at her elbow.

Halcourt was already there.

He stood on the top step with two secretaries and a knot of merchants, laughing at something, with his rings flashing and his coat brushed to a shine.

He saw her, and the laugh slowed down.

"Miss Marenne. I heard you'd left your position."

"I have."

"I am so sorry to hear it." He lowered his voice, a courteous man at a funeral. "The note falls due at Lady Day, you know. Without the Duke's protection I'm afraid I shall have to be very strict."

"Then it's lucky I came early."

She walked past him to the Registrar's table.

The thin man with ink on his cuffs was just sitting down.

He looked up, and he recognized her, and his whole face changed.

She opened the leather case.

She laid the bank drafts on his blotter one by one, in a row, so the whole front of the Exchange could see them.

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