My Favorite Thief (32 page)

“I've seen what he did to your face the other night, Charlotte,” he countered. “I've seen what he did to your leg. I believe I know exactly what he's capable of. And I'm going to make goddamn sure he never comes anywhere near you, or Flynn, or anyone else in your family ever again.”

“You have to let me go with you,” Charlotte insisted. “He's my father, Harrison, and Flynn is my responsibility. I believe Flynn's best chance of being returned safely to me is if my father sees that I am there to bring him his money. That's what he has demanded, and that is what he is expecting. If I'm not there, he will be furious. And when he is angry he is capable of terrible things.”

Harrison regarded her helplessly. He didn't want Charlotte to go with him. He wanted her somewhere safe until he and her brothers had confronted Boney Buchan and brought Flynn home. He did not want her exposed to any more violence or threats or abuse by her father, or anyone else, for that matter.

Nor did he want her to witness the thrashing Harrison planned to give the old bastard, to ensure that he never harassed Charlotte again.

He regarded her seriously, about to tell her that a criminal-infested sewer like St. Giles was no place for a woman like her. But she returned his gaze with the same extraordinary determination that she had shown him on the night they met. She had refused to abandon him then, and she was refusing to abandon him now, or Flynn, or Oliver and her brothers. That was the way it was with Charlotte, he realized. Within her slender, feminine, unassuming frame beat the heart and soul of a fighter. She didn't give a damn if she was a woman, or that she limped, or was supposedly weaker than most of the world around her. Charlotte had endured a childhood of unspeakable deprivation and abuse. Instead of being defeated by it, she had become strong and determined and relentless. He could see fear glimmering in the soft jade and gold of her eyes, but not for an instant did he think that fear was for herself. Her fear was for Flynn, and Oliver, and Simon, and Jamie.

And maybe even for him, although he would have liked to think that she had enough faith in him to believe he could handle himself against a common brute like Boney Buchan.

“If I say you can't come, will you listen to me and stay put?”

“No,” Charlotte promptly returned. “But I'd much prefer to go with you instead of wandering about St. Giles on my own. I don't usually go there at night, and I always take Oliver with me.”

Harrison sighed. “Very well then. But you are to remain in the carriage with Oliver—is that clear?”

Charlotte looped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his, kissing him with fervent tenderness. He growled and pulled her closer, his tongue sweeping into the moist dark heat of her mouth, his body instantly hardening beneath the sensual spell of her scent and softness and touch.

“I'll just go tell Oliver, Jamie, and Simon that we're leaving,” Charlotte murmured, breaking the kiss suddenly and limping toward the door.

Harrison groaned and fought to overcome the desire now surging through him.

And then shook his head in exasperation as he realized she had not given him an answer to his ultimatum.

Chapter Sixteen

F
OR
C
HRIST'S SAKE,
S
AL, WOULD YE QUIT THAT
noise?” grumbled Archie, his tongue thick with gin. He turned over on the creaking bed and smacked her hard on the rump.

“It ain't me,” Sal protested, her words equally slurred. “Must be the lad.” She buried her face further into the stale dampness of her pillow and resumed snoring.

“Quit yet racket, ye scraggy whelp, or I'll crack yer napper,” Archie snarled.

“It ain't me,” Flynn returned from where he lay bound upon the floor. “Someone's bangin' on the door.”

“What the hell—” Archie sat up and ground his fists into his eyes, trying to clear his head. “Who the Christ is it?” he shouted furiously.

“It's me.” A woman's voice, soft and tentative. “I've brought your money.”

Archie stopped pummeling his eyeballs and blinked, confused. “Lottie?”

“Let me in,” Charlotte urged. “Hurry.”

“Open the door, quick,” Sal hissed, elbowing Archie in the ribs. “Before someone grabs her an' nicks the whack.”

“I'm goin',” Archie snapped, heaving his legs over the edge of the bed. Staggering through the leaden gloom, he banged into the edge of the table. Cursing, he stumbled to the door and twisted the lock, struggling to remember when exactly he had told Lottie where he lived.

The door smashed against him, knocking him back. Powerful hands wrapped around his neck and jerked him off his feet, cutting off both air and sound.

“Good evening,” drawled Harrison. “Boney Buchan, I presume?”

Struggling wildly, Archie clawed at Harrison's hands.

“I'll take that as a yes.” Harrison heaved him hard against the wall while still gripping him by the throat.

“Leave 'im be!” Sal shrieked, clamoring from the bed. She grabbed an empty gin bottle off the floor and raised it over her head. “Set 'im down or I'll smash yer friggin' napper!”

“That won't be necessary, madam,” Simon assured her, entering the room and pointing his pistol at her. “Why don't you just put down your bottle, light that lamp over there, and sit down, and this will all go much faster.”

“Your friend is perfectly all right,” added Jamie reassuringly, barely casting a glance at Archie as he entered. “I'm studying to be a doctor—I know for a fact that you don't need to start worrying until his eyes pop from his skull.”

“Oliver! Miss Kent!” Flynn exclaimed as they entered the room. “What are ye doin' here?”

“Lookin' for ye, lad,” Oliver told him, squinting against the thin veil of light coming from the lamp Sal had lit. “An' 'tis quite the time we've had of it, too.”

“Are you all right, Flynn?” demanded Charlotte anxiously as she limped over to where he was lying on the floor. “Did they hurt you?”

“I'm fine, Miss Kent—just a bit stiff an' hungry is all.” Flynn closed his eyes and inhaled her summery clean fragrance, letting it wash through him.

“Sweet Saint Columba!” Oliver swore, seeing that Flynn's ankles and wrists were bound. “What kind of devil are ye,” he demanded fiercely, turning to Sal, “that ye'd bind a wee lad so tight even while he was tryin' to sleep?”

“We had to bind him so he wouldn't run off,” Sal retorted, defensive. “If he tried to run off, Archie would've beaten him. Better to bind 'im tight and let 'im lie still.”

Oliver shook his head in disgust as he saw where the bindings had bitten into the tender skin at Flynn's wrists and ankles. “Here, lad, hold steady,” he said gruffly, sawing through the rope with his dirk. “I'll have this off soon.”

“I'm sorry, Flynn.” Tears welled in Charlotte's eyes as she gently stroked his bruised face. “I'm so terribly sorry.”

“Weren't yer fault, Miss Kent,” Flynn assured her, troubled by her stricken expression. “This old shanker's gone off his head.” His arms free, he sat up and cast a look of pure loathing at Archie while Oliver cut the rope binding his ankles. “The old soaker thinks he's yer da.”

“He does, does he?” Having strangled most of the fight out of Archie, Harrison eased his grip a little, still holding him pinned against the wall. “That's where he and I have a difference of opinion.”

Archie coughed and gasped, fighting to replenish his lungs.

“He
is
her da,” Sal insisted, feeling bolder now that she sensed the men around her did not intend to actually kill either her or Archie. “He quiffed some doxy up in Scotland.”

“If I were you I'd hold my tongue,” Jamie warned, fighting to keep his own temper in check.

“It's true,” Archie managed, his voice a defiant rasp. “Looked after her from the time she was a squallin' bairn, an' now that's she's flush in the pocket all I asks is that she spare a few quid for her poor ol' da—an' what's she do? Sends you bell swaggers over to baste me.”

“I told ye so.” Flynn shook his head in disbelief. “Gone completely off his pate.”

“You never looked after me.” Charlotte's voice was low and raw as she held fast to Flynn. “You only used me—just like you use everybody.”

“Used you?” Archie regarded her incredulously. “Ye was nothin' but a scraggy wee lass, always sick, an' afraid of yer own shadow. How the devil was I to use ye?”

“You made me go out and steal before I was five years old,” Charlotte answered. “You turned me into a pickpocket and a thief, and if you didn't think whatever I managed to nick was valuable enough, you beat me.”

“I was only tryin' to teach ye how to survive,” Archie protested. He looked at Oliver, sensing the old Scotsman might understand better than any of the other men in the room. “We had nothin'—not even a spare coin to pay for a wee drop of medicine when Lottie needed it, an' she was sick all the time. I knew she'd have to learn a trade right quick if we was to keep a roof over our heads, so I figured she'd better learn the only thing I knew, which was fleecin'. That way if anythin' happened to me, I knew she'd be able to get on all right.”

“You made me steal because it meant there was more for you to drink.” Anger was pulsing through Charlotte now, anger and a powerful resentment. “That's all you really cared about. You didn't care whether I had food to eat or clothes to wear—it was always just about you. I was a burden to you, nothing more. And when it became apparent that I was not going to be the clever little shaver you had hoped, you decided the only way to make any decent money off me was to turn me into a whore. But then one night you heaved me into a table and broke my leg, leaving me with this—” She gestured furiously at her injured leg. “And suddenly I was a cripple, and no longer able to become the little child-whore you had hoped I would be.”

“I never wanted ye to whore, Lottie,” Archie protested, feeling Harrison's grip tighten. “I just didna know what else was to be done with ye. If ye didna have me around, ye needed somethin' ye could do all right to make a coin or two. Lots of lasses do it,” he added defensively to Harrison. “It puts bread in their mouth an' a roof over their head—that's all I wanted for my Lottie.”

“Your concern for her welfare is most touching.” It was only by the most vigorous self-control that Harrison was able to keep from strangling him.

“I saved her life!” Archie mewled, cowering. “Surely I deserve somethin' for that!”

“You never saved my life,” Charlotte retorted. “You never cared what happened to me.”

“That ain't true! Who do ye think it was shot that gotch-gutted nob the night ye was taken by the Dark Shadow? Me!”

She regarded him incredulously.

“Aye—an' a good thing I did, too, what with the way he was wavin' his pistol about. I knew he had just as good a chance of puttin' a hole in my Lottie as he did the Shadow,” he continued desperately, talking to Harrison now, “an' since the Shadow weren't man enough to take care of 'im, I did. She'd 'ave snuffed it for sure but for me, and that's the honest truth.”

There was some truth to what Boney Buchan was saying, Harrison realized reluctantly. Lord Haywood had already shot Harrison once. If Harrison had shifted even slightly, the next shot might have hit Charlotte instead. Apparently her father had been astute enough to realize that.

“Even if you did shoot Lord Haywood, you were only doing it because you wanted to blackmail Charlotte,” he pointed out. “You saw her as an easy source of money, and you didn't want anything to interfere with that.”

“That ain't true!” Archie objected vehemently. “I ain't sayin' I'm above givin' her a clout or two,” he conceded, realizing Harrison obviously knew about the beatings he had inflicted, “but when it comes to her very life, that's different. She's my lass, after all. A man's got to protect 'is own—an' that's what I did. I protected her.”

“If you were so concerned for my welfare, then why did you let me be abducted?” demanded Charlotte, unconvinced. “You saw a dangerous thief taking me hostage. Why not shoot him, too?”

“He wasna dangerous,” Archie scoffed. “I seen 'im wrap himself around ye the minute that jingle-brains come runnin' out o' the house—that's when I knew he'd nae let ye come to harm. Whatever he was about, my Lottie could handle herself against the likes of him.” He regarded her steadily, his eyes filled with something akin to pride. “I also knew ye'd be more like to take 'im home an' fix 'im up than turn 'im over to the peelers—an' I was right. Ye may have lived with nobs for years, but ye ain't forgotten yer roots. Doesna matter what fancy airs ye get for yerself—deep down ye're Lottie Buchan from Devil's Den, an' that's who ye'll always be.”

Charlotte stared at him, a storm of emotions roiling within her.

For as long as she could remember, she had despised and feared her father. She had hated him for his violence and his cruelty, and feared him because he controlled her life. Even after they were separated by their arrests, his power over her continued. The ugly memories of her childhood and the possibility that he might one day find her had haunted her into adulthood, leaving her timorous and afraid. And then there was the constant, unforgiving reality of her leg, which never let her forget her life as Lottie Buchan.

Yet somehow, as he stood cowering beneath Harrison's grip, desperately defending himself as a simple but caring father who only wanted to teach his daughter to survive, her fear and hate begin to crumble beneath the weight of overwhelming weariness. She no longer had any desire to sustain her anger toward Boney Buchan, despite everything he had done. Her father believed he had taught her to survive. Maybe he had. He also believed he had saved her life. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to that as well, although it pained her deeply to think Lord Haywood had inadvertently died because of her. His flawed attempt to protect her did not change the fact that her father was an abusive, selfish brute. But it did intimate that somewhere, deep within the recesses of his selfish soul, there was a kernel of something good.

She hoped so.

“I don't want to ever see you again,” she said quietly. “If you ever try to come near me or any one of my family or friends again, I promise you I will go straight to the police and post such an enormous reward for your capture that every whore, thief, street urchin, and coster in all of London will be fighting amongst themselves to turn you in. Even Sal here will be quick to turn stag on you and become rich,” she predicted, noting how Sal's eyes had rounded at the talk of a big reward.

“Ye'd nae send me back to prison, Lottie.” Archie stared at her in disbelief. “I'm yer father!”

“No.” Her voice was hollow. “You're not.”

“Ye canna change what God planned,” he challenged, growing angry. “God gave ye to me.”

“And then he took me away from you and gave me to Lord and Lady Redmond.” She clenched her fists, willing herself to be strong as she stood before him. Her voice was small but steady as she finished, “And they loved me and helped me to overcome everything you did to me.”

“Why, ye ungrateful wee bitch—”

“Quiet!” barked Oliver, outraged. “Mind yer scabby tongue or I'll twist it from yer head!”

“Good-bye.” Holding fast to Flynn, Charlotte limped across the gloomy chamber to the door, with Oliver following protectively behind her.

“Ye canna change what ye are, Lottie!” Archie shouted, furious. “Ye've my blood runnin' through those coddled veins—nothin' will ever change that! Ye'll always be a beggar an' a thief, do ye hear? Always!”

“I think we've heard enough from you.” Harrison tightened his grip on Archie's throat, cutting off any possibility of further speech. “And now I'd like to add my piece. You're going to leave London today, and you're not going to return. You've been given eight hundred pounds. That should be more than enough to get you and your friend Sal here decent lodgings in almost any town you could think of. If you're smart, you'll invest the money in a business—I'd suggest something along the lines of a tavern or an inn, given your obvious expertise in drinking and sleeping. I don't really give a damn, as long as you stay the hell away from Charlotte. Which I'm sure you will do, if you at all value your life. Because if you ever go near her or her family again, I promise you I won't bother with the police. I'll find you myself.” His voice was deadly soft. “And when I do, I'll make you wish you had listened to my very reasonable suggestions. Do you understand?”