Nareli never had the fortune of crossing paths with James Delaney in her youth. She crossed paths with Zilpha a few times whenever her mother took her to visit her father at the Chamber House. Brace preferred to keep their existence a secret from their masters because he feared they would catch the same madness that cursed nearly every Delaney in the end.

As far as she knew, James Delaney was assumed dead when he disappeared ten years ago and she never gave the man another thought until today.

Helga wasn't forthcoming with her questions about the undead man until she produced some coin. The madam gave her the bare bones of what she knew and feed her the rumors.

In his adolescence, James became a Corporal with the East Indian Company and he grew to become a shrouded enigma wrapped up in mystery in adulthood. The rumors say he went to Africa and came back irrevocably changed in the most savage of ways.

Some say, the man is a homicidal manic. People disappeared around him. Others say, he shared the same mental afflictions that drove his mother to an early grave. Many more say he is a cannibalistic barbarian who had an attraction for the morbid.

In other words, James Delaney was an oddity in the eyes of civilized society.

Nareli took all of this information with a grain of salt but she didn't doubt for a second the extent of James's rumored temper and violate nature. The man was an unpredictable explosion when he was provoked. She saw that first hand.

After Helga finished telling the tale of James Delaney, she asked Nareli her thoughts on the man and the gyspy artist surprised her with silence. She then told Helga not to touch her things while she moved out of the abandoned warehouse. Helga snorted at the suggestion and quite adamantly stated that she had no intentions of moving her business elsewhere.

Nareli smiled at the woman's backbone and left to see the gyspy clan that frequented the docks near Wapping. For a small price, she hired two men to help her transport her paintings from the warehouse. She wasn't taking any chances. With their assistance, she stored her completed works, somewhere dry in the lost catacombs of London. A series of underground passageways that only the true misfits of London knew about. It was a completely different world down there and the space had it's own power structure.

It was nightfall by the time they got the deed done and Nareli finally made her way back to the Chamber House. She had scarcely visited the place since her return to London. She preferred the nomad ways of her people and unlike other women of her age; Nareli was not caged by the expectations of marriage and her sex. But family bound her and her father was her last immediate relative alive. Her mother, Simza, only had one child.

Nareli was never one to prolong the inevitable unless she could. Horace Delaney's son was alive and this changed everything. It looked like she would be stuck in London a little longer than she liked.

People barely noticed her while she made her way through the streets and that was because she made it so. For her protection, she learned early on to dress as a poor peasant boy but she still carried weapons underneath her threadbare jacket, dark trousers and boots. She hid her long brown curls underneath her tunic and drawn cap. She also smudged her face with dirt.

The familiar cobblestone streets and oil street lamps led her to the Chamber House in no time. She walked briskly passed the aging front door with its unkempt garden beds. She never used the front door. The back door was the only entranceway she was allowed to use when Horace Delaney was alive. Old habits were hard to break. She slipped around to the back and climbed the metal fence when the coast was clear. Years ago, she was small enough to slip through the bars.

The manor was slowly sinking due to water damage and her boots, as always, squished through the mud while she walked to the back door. She spotted a few lights burning through the windows, along with the familiar silhouette of her aging father.

As a common courtesy to him because she knew who had to wash the floors, she kicked off her muddy boots and left them outside. This also gave her time to work out her strategy for keeping Brace here because deep down she knew; freedom would not suit her father. He wouldn't know what to do with it.

The thud of her boots hitting stone also gave Brace fair warning of her presence.

"You shouldn't be here, petal pie," Brace warned in a hush when she entered but Nareli dismissed his concern.

She hanged up her coat and hat and shook out her long curls. Brace looked up and stopped slicing bread at the kitchen table. Worry and fatherly concern flashed through his old blue eyes.

"When was the last time ye bathed?" He couldn't help but scold in a low voice when he spotted her dirty face and paint stained arms. Nareli rolled her eyes.

"I'll sneak ye upstairs and draw ye a bath and then you can go. Let me finish serving dinner, first," he continued to speak in low voice and again, Nareli stayed as silent as a mouse which was never a good sign in Brace's experience.

"Esther Nareli Badis-Thomas," he warned. She was on thin ice now. Her father only said her full name when she was in trouble.

With quick hands, Nareli reached for the plate of sliced bread and took the knife out of his hand. Brace didn't stop her, in fear of nicking her skin with the knife. He watched his hardheaded daughter pop a slice of bread into her mouth. She couldn't help but raise her eyebrows at the fine china he used to serve the bread; it was the best in the house and was scarcely used since Horace passed away.

"Nice china!" She gushed on purpose in a loud girlish manner and swallowed. Brace grimaced. There was no way; he could lie about her presence now. Nareli's voice carried.

With a twirl of her bare feet, she left the kitchen with the bread. Knowledge of the old house helped her find the dining room in record time and James Delaney made no visible reaction to her appearance except to take his socked feet off the table and sit up properly.

Nareli didn't say a word while she put the bread on the table and popped another slice into her mouth. She simply pulled out a chair and sat next to him at the table. James just watched her munch on the slice of bread with expressionless eyes but he did keep an eye on her hand with the knife.

He faintly heard his manservant enter the dining room.

"I thought your fascination with the gypsies ended years ago, Brace," James muttered and Nareli glanced at her father. The old coot looked like he had swallowed his tongue. He thought he kept his gyspy fornicating ways a well-kept secret.

"It did," Nareli spoke up for him and James glared her way. His natural intensity bleed through his blue eyes this time. It was like he knew everything about her already, she better keep her wits about her with this one. But at the same time, Nareli couldn't help but admire James's quick resourcefulness.

"A bread knife?" He drawled to her weapon of choice this time. "I feel insulted." Nareli's mouth twitched at the comment.

"You know who I am," she chose to ignore the comment and point out the obvious and James tilted his head to side, as if he was hearing things only he could hear.

"Tight tongues do tend to loosen."

The bastard bribed Helga for information, goddamit. She needed to have a serious talk with that madam and one of those talks will include the status of their business partnership.

There were many brothels in London. Thank goodness she knew to vacate the premises with her paintings before confronting him.

"Sir," Brace finally found his voice again and approached the table but James kept his piercing blue eyes on Nareli.

"You have nothing to worry about. Brace is a loyal and faithful servant. Always has and always will be. Will or not, I plan to look out for your father, regardless," James spoke solemnly but Nareli didn't believe him for one second. Not until the lawyers read out the will, would she trust a thing in regards to her father's agile future.

Thinking that was done with, James reached for his glass of brandy and Nareli stilled her breath. When he reached for the glass, the fabric of his greying shirt shifted for a few moments and that was enough time for her to see some of the tribal markings on his chest.

They were similar to the ones in her painting.

"Then you won't mind, Mr Delaney," she forced herself to speak once more. "That I stay to oversee this arrangement until I grow confident in your words."

James glared at her with hard eyes but Nareli didn't crumble under his intimidating gaze. He merely took a sip of his brandy and hummed low.

"I would expect nothing less from a concerned daughter."

He surprised her greatly by not calling her a bastard and he took great pride in knowing this with a subtle twitch of his lips.

"Brace, prepare a room upstairs," he ordered and glanced at Nareli once more.

"Pick one that is the most… paint friendly."