Elisabeth Fairchild (15 page)

Roger observed them from across the street, he and Felix’s cow’s leg. What did looters want from a blacksmith’s?

Kegs. Heavy kegs. It took two to carry each of the five to the wagon.

“Mind the cask! Damn you!” The driver shouted as the first was dropped into the wagon. “Would you blow us all to kingdom come?”

With an unintelligible word or two they rolled the remaining booty into the back and hastily covered it with a canvas sheet, but not before Roger saw what looked like a great coil of rope, already nabbed.

With a quick look around and a cluck of his tongue, the driver urged his brown nag into the street.

Roger followed, hobbling with the weight of the beef, slow to catch up, almost losing the wagon when it turned.  It had not occurred to him that they would find something to interest them at a tinsmith’s.

From the torch lit darkness they emerged, almost on top of him, sheets of metal booming thunder-like as it bent in their hands, spooking the nag. They lay the sheet flat in the bed of the wagon, and as if it were a puzzle piece, clicking into place, Roger knew what these men meant to do, just as certainly as he knew he must stop them.

Chapter Twenty

Lord Mayor’s Mansion, Threadneedle Street

Dulcie stood waiting on the Lord Mayor’s front steps, uncertain of her direction, a dairymaid spy whose usefulness had vanished as soon as her news was delivered.

Quietly she slipped into the crowd, swam against the tide in the sea of many who washed up against the steps of the Lord Mayor’s Mansion. Through the thickest of the crowd she pushed, searching, along Poultry, and into Cheapside. She sought only one figure, certain she would find his oasis of blue amid the dangerous flare of red and yellow.

Dizzy, panting, her fear growing, she had yet to single him out when vandalous purpose caught her in its whirl outside an apothecary’s shop. The wagon backed to the door, the flurry of movement within did not prepare her for the explosion of glass. It cascaded outward from the windows as she passed.

The Apothocary’s Shop

Roger saw Dulcie Selwyn sink to the pavement amid the deadly glitter. In the frantic, breathless, delay of time it took him to bound across the street, he believed her dead--and by his hand, for he had convinced her to accompany him on this mad, mad outing.

The blue-vested man shouted to those within the shop, so frantic to loot the place they had tossed a keg through the mullioned window, the keg splitting open, vomiting onto the pavement beside Dulcie, sticky brown peppermint scented fluid.

“You great git! Do ya’ mean to lame me harse? Throwin’ bloody barrels about as if they were buckets of slop? It is a wonder you did not see to toss a keg of gunpowder out the same way.”

His henchman within beat apart the leading, that the goods they wanted, a large glass jar full of yellow powder, rolls of gauze and sticking plaster, might the more easily be passed outside.

Roger shouted at them as he knelt beside Dulcie, fearing the worst. “Did you not see the gel you have likely killed with foolishness? Is the door not big enough for yer?”

The looters, fleeing the shop, ignored him.

“Here, you!” he shouted. “Give me a hand!  You’ve not quite killed the lass.”

“Are you mad, man?” the thief demanded. “Oi’ve more important business than a lass wiv’ a bump on her noodle.”

Roger lifted Dulcie, limp as a rag puppet, and slung her across his shoulders, the better to display to the man her bloodstained back. “She’s covered in glass, man, and you and your mates responsible. Now, make room and be quick about it. You are going to carry us to Christ’s Hospital in Newgate Street.”

His cohorts, leaping onto the wagon, urged him to “Set to, the horse.”

“A few blocks, sir, you need carry us no farther,” Roger said firmly.

“You’ll leave us that leg o’ beef as payment?”

“It’s yours,” Roger agreed. Felix must have a fresh leg.

“Damn you, then. Get in! Two of you--off! Time’s a wastin’!”

Two of the lads jumped off the cart, and Roger leapt aboard, clutching Dulcie.

Whip plied, the nag set off up the street.

Chapter Twenty-One

Polly’s Place, London

Together they lowered her, still clad in her chemise--he would not rob her of all modesty--into the steaming tin tub. Her skin gleamed damply, pale in the soapy water.

“Into one of your scrapes again, are you?” Poll scolded, voice soft, that they might not be overheard. “And dragging the lass with you. Something to do with the mob on the street like as not, is it?”

He ignored the question, attention focused on Dulcie. “Lean her forward, gently now.”

Polly obeyed, mindless of blood and water, easing Dulcie’s head onto the shelf of her silk clad shoulder, leaning forward that she might watch Roger’s hands. She let loose a gasp at sight of Dulcie’s back as he bared it with a rending of wet fabric.

“Good God! What’s this then? Been torturing the poor lass?”

He had glimpsed the scars before--at Carlton House.

“Surgeons. Damn them for their ignorance.” He lifted the lamp, the better to see, taking up Polly’s tweezers. Silvery round burn marks, marred the perfection of dewy skin, too many to count. They roughened her back and bloodied shoulders.

“Cupping scars!” Polly reaching out, awed, to trace one of the circles--circles on circles. “So many! Is she sick then?” Her hand flew from puckered flesh. She pushed Dulcie’s head away from the cradle of her shoulder.

“Not sick.” He held her steady, smote with desire and guilt for bringing her to this pass, to a house of ill-repute, and Poll, sweet, simple soul, the sort of female Dulcie Selwyn would never have met but for him. “She’s no threat to your blooming health, Poll.”

Polly studied Dulcie’s still face as she settled her once again like a baby for burping. “Too much vital humor, had she? Hard to imagine, looking at her, poor drowned puss.”

It pained Roger to see her lie so still, her blood staining the water pink, fresh blood bright on her back. It pained him to extract the occasional hard glitter of glass with the tweezers. It pained him most to see revealed in full lamplight, evidence of a child suffering again and again--years worth of the purging of man’s fear of the unknown--sad evidence of skeptics faced with the inexplicable.

Dulcie’s back hurt. She felt the wet sting of another hot cup placed against shrinking flesh, the hands, holding her down. Voices whispered. With a gasp, she rose from the black hole of forgetfulness, sat up, wide eyed, vision blurred, the scene before her senseless.

“No more!” a low, plaintive cry--from her own lips. A flash of pain from her head.

“We are almost finished.”

A man’s voice. The physician? And yet the room, the tub, the female who held her, made no sense. The woman’s face was thick with powder and rouge, her shoulders wrapped in a film of silk.

This room was not that of a physician. It was a woman’s, ill-kempt, the bed unmade, clothes tossed upon the furniture.

The voice . . . the hands at her back . . . something familiar there.

She turned her head with a groan, arms rising to clutch drenched linen draping her chest in a wholly inadequate manner, damp hair swinging lank and dripping from her cheek.

Freckles dusted the man’s hand at her shoulder. She recognized Roger at once in the shimmer of blue emanating from his fingertips.

“What happened?” she croaked, shrinking lower in the tub, memory returning--the streets leading from Spa Field, torches flaring, revealing looting and vandalism, the death of the gunsmith. She grabbed at the fabric floating in the water above her knees, further draping her breasts with the diaphanous shroud, exposing legs in the process.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, even as he inflicted a sharp, digging pain.

“Ow!” she yelped, jerking away from the worried female--a stranger. She looked like the sort of woman Dulcie had never dared examine closely before. A woman of ill repute.

“How do you think she feels?” the woman said dryly. “Gouging at her that way?”

“Bear with me,” he said.

“Ow! Ow!” she complained. “Is it glass?”

“You do not remember?”

He rose swiftly from the stool where he squatted, rounded the tub as she hastily yanked at drenched linen.

He ignored her bared legs, knelt beside the tub, clasped her head between his palms and with unveiled concern stared fixedly into her eyes. “Dizzy?”

She could see guilt and worry in a blue-green cloud, about his mouth and eyes. He blamed himself for her injuries. His touch, his gaze, so intently focused, dizzied her.

“Yes,” she said.

“You were struck in the head. Broken window.” His mouth tightened.

She nodded, regretting the movement. Pain lanced across her back and shoulders. “I remember.” And because she wished to ease the weight of his concern, she said lightly. “What a relief. I thought you were a quack, cupping me.”

His mouth eased. His gaze strayed to the danger of wet linen draping her breasts. “No physician. Merely the fool who almost got you killed.”

She leaned forward, heart aching, disappointed to have disappointed him--embarrassed that he examined her in such an exposed state. “As you can see, they would seem intent on disfiguring me.”

“They have made a mess of your back,” the woman agreed. “But, never fear dearie, many a man will overlook such a thing do you only make pretty noises when lights is out.”

Dulcie blinked at her in dismay.

Roger barked a laugh, and settled himself once again behind her. “Bethany, this is Polly. Poll, say hello to Beth and hold on. This may hurt. There’s a stitch or two to take.”

The man of stone went to work with painstaking sensitivity, wincing every time she flinched. His lip and brow beaded with the sweat of his regret. He knew he hurt her and yet she refused to cry out even as he took the stitches.

There were tears on her cheeks when he finished. Tears burned in his own eyes, unshed. He blinked them away. Did she forgive him? Could he forgive himself? What would he say to her father?

How had he the gall to risk this young woman’s life? And yet, England demanded it. An
agent provocateur’s
vow to protect king and country overshadowed all else.

“I am finished,” he told her quietly while within his head his mind screamed invective at his foolishness. “I shall give you privacy now, to dress.”

Polly went to fetch a robe.

Never again would he put another life in jeopardy. Best he worked alone, best for all concerned. Too dangerous, this life he led.

“Do you mind terribly?” she said as he rose.

“I do,” he said swiftly, surprised she should ask, voice vehement with feeling. “I mind a great deal. I would not have you injured for the world.”

She huddled in the inadequate confines of the tub, head cocked to one side as if his reply shocked her.

“Do you mind terribly if we do not tell my father of my injuries?” she went on as if he had never spoken. “It would only worry him.”

He rubbed his eyes with fingers gone pruney. “Of course,” he agreed ruefully. “If you think it best.”

The Gargoyle took his wounded dove home in a charged silence, by way of a hired carriage. And with every bump in the road he felt responsible for her added pain. He did not know what to say, could not begin to think how to apologize for risking her life. Every time he caught sight of her lamp lit face, drawn and tired, head thrown back against the squabs, he blamed himself again for her mishap.

She did not trouble him with chatter, nor question where he took her, merely closed her eyes and sat wordless until the hack pulled to a stop outside her doorstep. Then, in a voice that faltered, it was she who apologized.

“I am sorry to have botched the thing.” Her hand clutched the door latch. “I thought I could help.” She clicked it open. “It grieves me to no more than get in the way.”

Before she could swing wide the door, before she could leap to the street and scurry away belabored by such a misconception, he gently caught her shoulder.

“I cannot accept your apologies.”

“Please.” Distraught, she shook herself free.

Catching her chin in his palm, he forced her to look at him, whispering, “You’ve no reason to apologize. You created the most important encounter of the evening.”

The halted horses shifted, jingling harness. The coachman knew better than to intrude.

Pained and disappointed, her eyes searched his. “You must not fabricate stories to make me feel better, sir.”

His lips twisted. He leaned into the meager light that came though the window. “What do your eyes tell you?”

She stared intently, shook her head. “It is too dark to read you.”

He leaned closer. “What do my eyes tell you?”

She met his eyes directly, looked long and deep. Her gaze drew him nearer, shifting to his mouth and back to his eyes, as if she read his inclination to kiss her. Lashes fluttering, she looked away, but not before he caught the faint lifting of her lips.

“What did I miss?”

He smiled. “My sleeping beauty, I should never have gained opportunity to speak to the men I believe responsible for the worst of the night’s looting, had it not been for you.”

“Would you have me believe it a good thing I was knocked out?”

He nodded. “Great good does come out of the greatest evil, if we but allow it.”

She considered this, and said, “Is that why you asked me to work with you? Would you make good the evil of my knowing who you are and what you do?”

He shrugged. “That is not the only reason.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He laughed, cut off the sound, eyes sparkling. “You intrigue me. From the start I could not get you and your knowing ways out of my mind. There are few I have trusted with the knowledge you possess.”

She blushed.

He wanted to take her in his arms, his innocent angel, to kiss her until she melted into his arms. He wished to languidly remove what clothing he had not already stripped with dispassionate haste from her bleeding back. He would soothe the pain.