Chapter 439 - 439: Ashworth House.

Kyle stared at the address for a long moment.

Belgravia. A townhouse. The Ashworth name in neat black letters.

"Don't sign anything. Don't owe them anything. Don't let that girl get comfortable thinking you need her."

Pike's warning was still fresh in his ears.

He could cancel. One text, and he could stay in the suite tonight, eat whatever ridiculous feast Jane ordered, and fall asleep on the couch with Ella's shark for a pillow.

But Eleanor's mother had sat in that masked ballroom months ago with her arm tucked through his like she owned him. Her family's name had turned up four times near crimes in thirty years and vanished every time. And her daughter had followed him across London.

If they wanted to look at him, Kyle wanted to look back.

He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket and walked out into the living room.

"Back before midnight," he told the room.

"Bring dessert," Ella called from the couch, without looking up.

"I'm not bringing dessert from a stranger's house."

"Then steal it."

"Of course your fat ass would want that... " Kyle mumbled.

"What did you say you shit head?" Ella called out and Kyle quickly said nothing.

-

The cab dropped him on a quiet street lined with white stucco townhouses, each one taller and more polished than the last. Black railings. Brass door knockers shaped like lions. Windows glowing amber behind heavy curtains.

The Ashworth house stood at the end of the row, a little larger than its neighbors, like it had been there first and wanted everyone to remember it.

Kyle had barely stepped onto the pavement when a camera flash went off.

He turned sharply.

A young man in a tweed jacket stood near the steps with a professional camera raised, already checking the screen. A press lanyard hung around his neck.

"Lovely," the photographer said brightly. "Mr Kyle, is it? Miss Ashworth said you'd be arriving. Just one more by the door, if you don't mind—"

"I do mind," Kyle said.

The photographer blinked. "Sorry?"

Kyle walked over to him calmly. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.

"How much is the memory card worth to you?"

"I... it's not really about money, sir, it's for the society pages—"

Kyle pulled out his wallet and counted out a stack of fifty-pound notes. He didn't stop counting until the photographer's eyes went wide.

"How about now?"

The photographer hesitated for exactly three seconds. Then he ejected the card and handed it over.

Kyle slipped it into his pocket. "Thank you. Enjoy your evening."

"I... yes. You too, sir."

The front door opened before Kyle could knock.

Eleanor stood in the doorway, framed by warm light from the hallway behind her. Tonight she wore deep emerald silk, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her red lips curved in a smile that looked almost apologetic.

"You just bribed my mother's favorite photographer," she said.

"You told me to wear something I didn't mind being photographed in. I minded."

Eleanor laughed. "God, you're difficult."

"You invited me."

"I did." Her smile faded slightly. She stepped out onto the top step and lowered her voice. "Kyle. Before you come in. I owe you an explanation."

"Go on."

"The doorman at the club." She grimaced. "He's known my mother for twenty years. He told her I had dinner with an American on Tuesday. She worked out the rest in about five minutes." Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder at the hallway. "She didn't ask me to bring you. She told me. There's a difference in this house."

Kyle studied her. Total recall replayed her voice, her posture, the tiny tension at the corner of her mouth.

She wasn't lying. Not this time.

"So this is an ambush," he said.

"It's a dinner party. Six guests. One photographer, now unemployed." Eleanor tilted her head. "In my family, that's practically the same thing."

-

The dining room looked like a museum someone had decided to eat in.

Portraits lined the walls. Three of them hung above the fireplace in heavy gilt frames, three generations of women with the same sharp eyes and the same knowing smile. A long table glittered with crystal and silver. The other guests were already seated. Two men in their sixties with the look of retired bankers. A woman with diamonds at her throat who stared at Kyle like she was pricing him. A young man who was clearly someone's nephew and clearly bored.

At the head of the table sat Eleanor II.

Kyle recognized her immediately, even without the tiger mask. The physical features.

The same glass of wine held lightly between two fingers.

Today she wore midnight-blue velvet, cut in a way that belonged to a costume drama.

She looked up as he entered, and her smile spread slowly.

"Kyle the first," she said.

Her voice was exactly as he remembered. Smooth. Warm. And completely free of any trace of an English accent, though she had told him at the party that she was from England.

"Eleanor II," Kyle replied, and inclined his head.

"You remember."

"I remember everyone who tries to make me their friend."

The woman with the diamonds let out a startled laugh. One of the retired bankers coughed into his napkin.

Eleanor II didn't flinch. If anything, she looked delighted.

"Sit," she said, gesturing to the empty chair at her right hand. "Next to me. My daughter can have the other side of you. That way neither of us has to share."

Eleanor III rolled her eyes and sat down on his left.

-

The first course was something delicate with lobster. The conversation was about nothing. The weather. A horse someone's cousin had bought. A scandal involving a minor royal that everyone pretended not to enjoy.

Kyle let it wash over him. He laughed in the right places. He answered questions with half-answers. Extreme Copycat let him mirror the easy, bored confidence of the men around him so perfectly that by the second course, the retired bankers were talking to him like he'd grown up on the same street.

Eleanor II watched all of it. She didn't say much. She didn't need to.

It wasn't until the plates were cleared and the dessert wine was poured that she finally turned her full attention to him.

"You turned me down," she said pleasantly. "At the party."

"I was taken."

"You still are, I hear." She swirled her glass. "Several times over, according to my daughter's very enthusiastic description of your shopping habits."

Eleanor III went faintly pink beside him. "Mummy."

"Hush, darling."

Kyle kept his expression mild. "Is that why I'm here? To be judged for my shopping?"

"You're here because you're a puzzle, Kyle." Eleanor II leaned back.

"Mr Nakamura brought you into that room as a novelty. A pretty young face to keep the old women and men distracted. And then the novelty walked out with half the room wanting to know his name." She smiled.

"And nobody could find it. No family. No school. No history. Just money. A great deal of money that appeared from nowhere."

"I'm self-made."

"Everyone says that." She tapped one manicured nail on the tablecloth. "Almost no one means it."

Kyle met her gaze and held it.

"I'm not here to explain myself, Mrs Ashworth."

"No," she agreed. "You're here because my daughter likes you. And because I wanted to see if you'd come." She raised her glass to him slightly. "You came. You bribed my photographer. And you haven't touched a drop of wine all night." Her smile widened. "You're careful. I like careful. Careful men don't embarrass the family."

"I'm not looking to join your family."

"Darling, nobody ever is. And yet." She gestured vaguely at the table, at the bankers, the diamonds, the bored nephew. "Here we all are."

The table laughed politely. Kyle didn't.

Under the table, very lightly, Eleanor III's knee pressed against his. Not flirtatious. A warning. Or maybe an apology.

-

It was nearly eleven when Eleanor walked him back to the front door.

The street outside was quiet. The photographer was long gone. A black cab idled at the corner, waiting.

"Well," Eleanor said, leaning against the doorframe. "You survived Mummy."

"Barely."

"You did better than barely. She liked you." Eleanor wrinkled her nose. "That's the worst thing that could have happened, by the way. Now she'll want to keep you."

"She can't."

"I know." Her voice softened. "That's what makes you interesting."

Kyle started down the steps.

"Kyle."

He turned.

Eleanor wasn't smiling anymore. She was looking at him with an expression he hadn't seen on her face before. Not playful. Not curious.

Careful.

"Can I ask you something?" she said. "Just between us. Not for Mummy."

"Depends on the question."

"On Tuesday afternoon." Eleanor folded her arms against the cold. "Before you texted me. I was across the road from Regent's Park."

Kyle went very still.

"I saw you go into that little café with the green door," she said quietly. "And I saw a girl come out of it about twenty minutes later. Grey coat. Dark hair. A boy waiting for her on a bench."

The street seemed to go silent around them.

"I didn't follow her," Eleanor added quickly. "I promise. I just... saw. And she looked like she'd just seen a ghost."

Kyle said nothing. He couldn't.

"Who is she, Kyle?"

He looked at her for a long, long moment. At the girl who appeared out of nowhere. Who had been standing across the road on the most important afternoon of his entire trip, and he had never once seen her.

Viktor had seen. Now Eleanor had seen.

How many others?

"Nobody," Kyle said finally. "Just someone I'm helping."

Eleanor searched his face. Then she nodded slowly, like she didn't believe him but had decided not to push.

"Then I'll forget I saw her," she said. "For you."

"Why?"

She smiled faintly and stepped back into the doorway, the warm light swallowing her.

"Because you bribed a photographer to keep your face out of a magazine," she said.

"A man who does that has something worth protecting. I'd rather not be the one who breaks it."

The door closed.

Kyle stood on the pavement for a long time, his hand resting on the memory card in his pocket.

Then he walked to the cab, climbed inside, and pulled out his phone.

He scrolled to the unknown number. Viktor's.

[[Kyle: Someone else saw her. On Tuesday. Across from the café. A girl named Eleanor Ashworth.]]

The reply came before the cab had even pulled away from the curb.

[[Unknown: Viktor knows. Viktor saw short girl too.]]

A pause. Then a second message.

[[Unknown: Viktor did not think she was important. Viktor vas wrong?]]

Kyle stared out of the window as Belgravia slid past, white house after white house, every curtain drawn.

He didn't know the answer to that.

And that frightened him more than anything that had happened at the dinner table.