Elisabeth Fairchild (36 page)

“Clean linen!” the Captain with the torn uniform roared. “And hot water, if you please! I’ve an injured man here!

“No more than a scratch, Captain,” professed the sergeant with the bloodied sleeve.

“That scratch saved my life, Legge. Now sit you down and let me bind the arm.”

The tapman ordered a table cleared, the body borne to it. He hastened to bring clean linen and hot water, his eyes gleaming with importance and curiosity. “Anything else?”

The Sergeant begged assistance in the careful removal of his stained and flap-sleeved uniform. “Ruined the coat, he did.” He winced with the pain of moving his injured arm. 

“Thank God only the sleeve is destroyed and not what you had in it,” the tapman said heartily.

The captain concurred.

Legge laughed. “We seemed to have an angel watching over us this evening, sir. Not once, but a dozen times I was sure that Captain Fitzclarence, here, was done for.”

The Captain examined intently the wound. He laughed ruefully as he washed away the blood. “I cannot remember the last time I stared down the barrels of so many different guns, and all of them wont to misfire.”

“Who would have thought, with so much shooting it would be a sword thrust put an end to Smithers.”

Dulcie had no desire to look, and yet her gaze was drawn as if to a magnet, by the brilliance of the blood, the pale, waxen face, the fog of silvered white that hung in the rafters above, as if the young man’s soul dallied, observing the odd state of his own body. Thirtyish, stout of limb, peaceful of expression, he might have been sleeping off a bout with too much ale atop the table, but for the blood that soaked his shirtfront and the halo of light that hung among the beams above.

It might have been Roger. He lived a life of just such dangers.

“Biggest damn sword I have ever seen,” one of the men said with a strange sort of glee, his color intensely yellow. “Both edges sharpened.”

The Captain finished binding the Lieutenant’s arm and rose to examine the body. The light of him grayed, diminished as he looked upon death.

“Neat work,” he said. “Our agent said Thistlewood is a master swordsman, that he fought as a lieutenant in the militia.”

Agent? Did he mean Roger? Had he spoken to Roger, today?

“Pity to see a good swordsman put his talents to such execrable use. But Smithers did not suffer,” the Captain said. “A mortal thrust, that.”

Adding a chill to this coldly voiced truth, an intrusive gust of wind sending candle and lamps flickering, as a matronly woman, wild-eyed, her hair as winded as her breath, flung wide the door. “Is it true?” she cried. “My brother is dead?”

The men fell back, out of her way.

The body on the table filled her gaze. Her face crumpled. She ran to clutch at the still face, to recoil in horror from the bloody wound.

It might have been Roger, this woman’s grief hers.

“Oh Richard! Look what you’ve gone and done to yourself,” she scolded softly, voice breaking into a sob, the cry rising as she wrapped him in her arms, in the deep green light of her love. His blood streaked her cheek when she bent to kiss him. She rocked him like a baby, eyes awash, her mouth opening on an uncontrolled howl, a cry from the depths of her. It filled the room, echoing against the ceiling.

As if the faded light of Richard Smithers tried to wrap arms about her, the silvered haze descended, clung, glowing, to her head and shoulders. She knew it not. She was not comforted.

Choking back a sob, Dulcie pushed her way out of the pub, tears streaming, the street a blur, the ache in her gut, her heart, bending her double.

She was not alone in her exodus. Guards and Runners fled the heart twisting power of the woman’s grief.

“Poor Anne,” one murmured. “If the sister takes it so hard only think how his poor wife will be.”

“Three children left fatherless.”

“I cannot help but imagine how hard it would be on my own Bess.”

“Aye,” they said, heads anod. “Aye.”

At a stumbling run, Dulcie distanced herself from death’s contemplation. As never before, she understood why Roger Ramsay did not profess his love to her, why he did not stand in the way of her marriage to another. Today was the reason. A day like today. A death like this. Small wonder he would not commit to a wife, to children. What future, after all, had a man in his line of work to offer?

Chapter Forty-Four

Little Moorfields

Roger followed Thistlewood almost three miles, feet aching, body weary.

Thistlewood turned often to scan the street. Cunning, he took a circuitous route. Roger remained vigilant, careful not to follow too close, nor to fall behind or scuff the cobbles with his heels. He clung to shadows when Thistlewood stopped to look.

To Little Moorfields they went thus, north of St. Paul’s. There, at last, the cunning old fox went to ground. The clock had yet to strike eleven.

Fatigued, Roger returned to his Fleet Street room for a change of clothes and emerged wearing a frizzled brown wig and the respectable padded garb of an overweight merchant.

The lights at the Bow Street offices yet glowed, though it neared midnight. Inside, a small furor brewed in the arraignment of the prisoners.

He looked first for Dulcie. Easy to determine that no female had been arrested, that the only reported dead was Smithers. The injured were all men, Runners and guardsmen.

His relief knew no bounds, filling him like warm spirits, making light the burden of his fear. She must be safely home by now. He hoped so.

The job was all but done and everyone who had a part in the saving of the kingdom--its ministers, its future--were happy, celebrating, healths toasted and pats on the back for a “job well done.” Guards, Runners, ministers, gaol keepers and barristers--all but the prisoners--celebrated the catching of the Cato Street gang, the halt of their conspiracy.

He stood on the periphery, the unidentified fulcrum around which everything spun, and yet none knew--none but Dulcie--his name, his part, his importance--all were as naught. None shared his joy, certainly none thanked him.

A magistrate processed the prisoners. Ings, Wilson, Bradburn, Gilchrist and Cooper had been heard. Tidd, Monument, Shaw and Davidson had yet to say their piece. They did not recognize Roger as he passed. Ings, hands still bloody, glared at him, glared at everyone. Davidson sang beneath his breath, passages from the popular air, “
Scots wha ha’e
.” Monument’s long face looked longer than usual.

The curious gathered: neighbors from Cato Street, anxious to get an eyeful of the traitorous snakes they had unknowingly harbored. Dozens had chased the coaches bearing the prisoners, all the way to Bow Street.

“Northmore! Mrs. Northmore.” A woman shouted at one of the officers, a saber in her hand, clasped like a viper by the neck. “I live behind the stables in Cato Street,” she professed. “Someone dropped this nasty thing in my back garden.”

Journalists, smelling a story for early morning release, had joined those assembled. Ten of the Coldstream guard were giving statements.

A privy council had gathered, decision makers and note takers from the government to hasten the processing.

The runners remained, all who had participated in the taking of the prisoners. Smithers death added spice to the tales told. Desperate men had been captured, a barrage of shots survived by most, lives at risk and only the one man down.

An officer held his hat to the light. Three neat, round holes pierced its crown. “Would you call this misfire or miracle?” he asked his fellows. “My coat’s done for as well.” He twisted, grabbed a frayed coat-tail and held it out for examination. A great patch of dark wool had been blown away. “Angels watched over us, lads,” he said.

Roger found himself tempted to tell the man, “Not angels but the Gargoyle,” for he had sabotaged the guns, the powder. They were heroes, and he had made them, and no one knew.

Not that he wanted recognition. It did not pay to be recognized in his business. He skirted the tongue-waggers, listening, studying them. He chose a taciturn fellow who indulged himself somewhat less than the others in braggadocio and back patting. Quietly he sat down across the desk from the gentleman, patiently waiting until he looked up from his paperwork.

“There are two who have yet to be taken,” he said.

“Two what, sir?”

“Two of the conspirators yet elude the law, and I know where you can find them, Officer, uhm?”

“Lavander, sir.” Brows raised, the man supplied his name, his focus unwavering. “And who might you be? To know such a thing?”

“Beg pardon.” Roger handed him a card. “I am Wards, of Windsor.”

“Sheriff Rothwell’s spy?” Lavander dropped his pen.

Roger leaned forward, voice low. “You will need warrants for the arrest of Arthur Thistlewood and John Thomas Brunt.”

Lavander scrambled for the pen, wrote down the names.

“They should be taken before dawn, while their guard is still down.” Roger consulted his watch as he rose. “Shall we say, in two hours time?”

Lavander frowned. A trace of panic touched his features.

“You mean to leave?”

“Yes. I’ve an errand to run.”

“Errand, sir? This time of night?”

Roger sighed. “Indeed, I have put it off too long already.”

Midnight. The clock in the stairwell sounded muted chimes, reminding Dulcie of the hour’s lateness, the depths of her exhaustion and the need to be fresh and rested for tomorrow.

But Dulcie did not sleep. Too much weighed heavy on her heart.

The evening’s conclusion had been grueling, her flight from Cato Street a difficult matter. Once away from the gunfire, from the dangers of conspiracy and ultra radicals, she had discovered it nigh impossible for a young woman alone, eyes swollen with tears, to hail a hack in that part of town.

A seedy, old man took her up at last, in a rickety old barouche, their pace slowed by the age and spavined hocks of his sway-backed nag. An uncomfortable ride, but at last the streets were navigated, the familiar safety of Wellclose Square met.

Up the steps and in the door she had raced. Payment on delivery she had promised the driver, coins to be found in the drawing room. There, before the fire, his head between his hands, face haggard with despair, her father sat. He started up from his chair, open-mouthed, eyes wide, as if she were a ghost. Then, complexion gone livid with rage, he unleashed on her two day’s worth of worry.

“Where in God’s name have you been, Dulcie? How dare you go off like that without a word. No note! No idea where you might be, or with whom. Never again, Dulcie Selwyn, never again. I will keep you under lock and key rather than relive such a terrible two days. So close I have come to calling in a constable, and yet I knew that horrible outfit gone.” He pointed at her dress, finger shaking. “You would not have worn it but for some Gargoyle’s errand, and my fault you were ever mixed up with him in the first place.”

The tirade that followed was born of love, of relief that she yet lived and anger that he had not been informed of her intentions. He delivered the weight of his worries in a lengthy, finger-wagging lecture, a breathless, red-faced rant.

Guilty, repentant, ashamed, neither stilled him, nor raised the matter of the man waiting in the street for his money, until he wound down, ire spent, hands and voice shaking.

She said then, quiet and contrite, afraid to set him off again, “There is a hackney cab in the street father, awaiting payment for bringing me safely home. I had no coin.”

Her father, surprised, insisted that he would take care of the business, that she must warm herself by the fire. While he called for a bath to be drawn, food and wine to be brought, the fatted calf to be killed, she plucked up a shawl and sat, spent, by the fire, wrapped in the comfort of home, in the angry warmth of her father’s love.

She talked for two hours when he returned, eager to explain an evening more fraught with danger and intrigue than anything he might have imagined--herself taken hostage by armed radicals, the government threatened, a Bow Street Runner rescue.

He sat open-mouthed, attending, breath catching in his throat, eyes wide with shock. He shook his head when she finished, and asked her to repeat a good bit of it, the truth too strange to absorb. Questions poured forth then, until he could think of no more, and his mouth wagged on air. He paced the room with a dazed look.

There followed another angry outburst.

“You might have been killed. At the very least, ruined! You risked spoiling all chance of your marrying Captain Stapleton. I have had to explain away your absence. To lie! To the Captain. His mother. To Lydia Oswald. I dared not tell them you were gone, dared not suggest the ball needed to be postponed. And the servants! There has been a great deal of whispered speculation among their ranks you may be sure.”

“I am so very sorry to have worried you,” she said over and over, guilt mounting, a crushing weight of it. “I wronged you in leaving without telling you my intentions. I thought my errand a brief one.”

At last they made an end of it, both exhausted, both remembering how much must be done on the morrow.

“You will tell Stapleton,” he insisted as he helped her from the chair. “Promise me you will tell him.”

She quailed at the thought.

“Come, come. No keeping secrets from the man you mean to spend the rest of your life with. No way to start a marriage.”

Dulcie sighed, said nothing. No way to start a marriage, indeed.

Chapter Forty-Five

London

Loneliness echoed within the hollow of him like boot heels on cobblestone. As he walked, Roger felt bonded with the darkness, quick with the skulk of stray cats, quicker with the skitter of the rats they chased. Creatures of the night, hunting, as he did in the fog-teased moonlight.

He took no joy in what he had done, in the certain deaths of the men with whom he had worked so hard to ingratiate himself, men into whose homes he had been invited, at whose boards he had been asked to sup. Their Judas, the traitor among them, his job to betray.