Suzanne Robinson (2 page)

Rubbing her hands on her apron, Maudie eyed the tall shadow. “Inigo Ware’s men is here. You know him, always ready to do you a mischief since—”

“A curse on his head and black death on his heart. Inigo Ware’s of no interest to me.”

At last Nightshade moved out of the shadows, and it was as if a sorcerer had fashioned an incubus from the blackest void. Maudie’s senses sharpened as he drew alongside her. She felt the tug of his physical presence, the pain of meeting a gaze that captured, mastered, and commanded in the length of a sigh. Then he was past her, and she was released from that glinting prison of the soul. Maudie cursed herself as always, irritated that a woman of her years could let a younger man turn her into a slack-jawed twit.

She watched Nightshade drift like mist into the crowded room. His name hissed its way around the tavern, but was soon given tongue by Gin Ginny, the first woman to catch sight of him.

“Nightshade, my love!”

“Choke me dead, it’s Ginny,” Nightshade said with a grin.

Ginny shrieked and hurtled at him, throwing herself into his arms and planting a gin-soaked kiss on his lips. In an instant he was surrounded by women. One or two of Inigo Ware’s men scuttled into the shadows and vanished. Badger Scoggins trotted over to the shrieking group of women surrounding Nightshade. He was followed by Prigg and most of the sailors. Nightshade called for a round of ale for all, and a shout of approval rose throughout the tavern. Revelry erupted, fed by Nightshade’s liberal use of his purse, and not many hours passed before Maudie had an establishment full of stumbling, befuddled customers. Then the moment came for which she’d been watching. Nightshade untangled himself from Ha’penny Hazel and Alice Treacle and strolled over to her.

“Same room as always, Maudie?”

“Right.”

Without looking back, Nightshade vanished into the back room that led to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Badger trotted after him, then Prigg. When she’d made certain that their leaving hadn’t been noted, Maudie left the bar in Mayhew’s charge, went through to the kitchen and up the back stair. In the last room down a dark hall, Nightshade was sprawled on a rickety bed, his legs crossed at the ankles on the footboard, his gaze fixed on the tips of his boots. His head was propped on his arms, which rested on a pile of her best pillows. Her only good pillows. She scowled at Badger and Prigg, who scuttled to the other side of the room.

Maudie shut the door, put her back to it, and crossed her thick arms over her chest. “Why are you back, Nightshade?”

“Dear Maudie,” Nightshade said without looking at her. “As subtle as pig’s dung. I’ve missed you, too.”

“You only come back to make trouble for the rest of us. So I don’t see no reason to make merry. Last time you showed your pretty face, Chokey got his throat slit for you.”

“Chokey went with me for his own interest.”

“He went with you for the same reason poor old Badger here does, and Prigg, and the rest of your followers. You twist them and beguile them until they don’t know day from night, and then you use them. You’re the worst of the leaders, Nightshade. You use us like you use your boots.”

Nightshade sat up so swiftly that Maudie would have backed away if she hadn’t been against the door already. He swung his long legs off the bed, rose, and drew near her. Fixed on his mobile, dark lips was a smile of little-boy sweetness. He stopped in front of Maudie and cocked his head to the side.

“Usefulness is a virtue.” He bent and whispered, “And since you profit the most from this virtue, you’ll keep your complaints to yourself or I’ll give you better reasons to reproach me.”

Maudie’s palms began to sweat, and she nodded. But Nightshade had already turned, with that swiftness of movement that recalled the acrobatics of a hawk in flight. He walked to the center of the room, raised his arms, and uttered a chimelike laugh.

“Good news, my perverse imps. There’s blunt to be made. Easy, quick and lots of it.”

Badger knocked his knees together in his eagerness to join Nightshade. “How much, governor? More than a quid?”

Nightshade ruffled Badger’s ginger hair. “Much, much more.”

Prigg joined them at this news.

“How much?” he asked with breathless anticipation.

“Ah,” breathed Nightshade, “that’s my greedy fellow. You’d sell your infant sister to a brothel for a quid, wouldn’t you, Prigg?”

Prigg scowled at him. “You’re a born devil, Nightshade. How much?”

“If you’re quick and silent, ten pounds each.”

“Ten!” Badger began to dance from one foot to the other.

Maudie interrupted. “What’s the line of work? It can’t be a crack, or we’d get a share of the loot. And it’s got to be dangerous, for the price speaks of peril.”

“You’re good at selling watered ale, Maudie, but never think you’re flash at the better sort of crime.” Nightshade resumed his pose on the bed and surveyed the group with malicious benevolence. “An easy style of work, my imps. All we got to do is find a lady what’s got lost in the rookeries.”

His listeners exchanged glances. Then Badger spoke.

“Some toff’s lady’s got herself lost in St. Giles or Whitechapel, and we’re to find her?”

“You’re looking sharp,” Nightshade replied as he fluffed his pillows.

Maudie shrugged. “If she’s been gone for more than a day, she’s either dead or in some brothel.”

In one smooth movement Nightshade sat up and twisted around to face her with a nasty grin. “Not this one.”

“Why not this one?” Maudie demanded.

“Because, my fine mistress of spirits and drunkards, she’s a spinster, an old maid, plain, fussy, timid, and dowdy. Depend upon it. She’s hiding in some dark, quiet hole of a place, quivering and whimpering.”

Prigg snapped his fingers. “Wait. I heard tell that Mortimer Fleet and his dogs is looking for some woman. This her?”

“I doubt it,” Nightshade said. “What would Fleet want with an old spinster lady? He’s probably looking for one of his harlots what’s took her wages without giving him his toll.”

Prigg exchanged uneasy glances with Big Maudie, who turned a suspicious gaze on their leader. “You certain about this?”

Nightshade tossed his hair back from his face and laughed a soft laugh with all the sympathy of a viper. “It will be easy profit, my hounds. How difficult can it be to hunt down an old maid?”

Eight nights later, the old maid scurried from a butcher’s shop in Whitechapel. She was carrying a basket laden with food, tightly packed with its lid tied down. Glancing up and down the road as if fearful of being seen, the lady slipped into the blackness of
Knife Lane. She hurried past rows of neglected, once-elegant houses, and turned into an alley between the lane and a mews. There she set down the basket, stooped, and searched through yards of skirt for her back hem.

Had she not been wearing a threadbare, hooded cloak and been concerned with secrecy, Primrose Victoria Dane would have attracted attention from the street vendors, harlots, dock laborers, and charwomen of east London. Few charwomen appeared distracted or had a distant gaze that seemed fixed on a dream just out of everyone else’s sight; fewer still wore fashionable silk dresses.

Beyond her dress, Primrose would have caught the notice of anyone who appreciated hair with as many shades of blond as a bird has feathers and merry eyes whose gray-green depths were ringed with teal. Her refined appearance gave an impression of meekness not often met in Whitechapel. This impression was supported by the delicacy of her carriage, the fluidity of her walk, and the air of apologetic hesitation Prim often wore in company. Certainly none of her acquaintance or the inhabitants of east London would expect Miss Primrose Victoria Dane’s soft hands, with slim fingers that ended in pink, rounded tips, to be employed in the tasks they’d undertaken lately in order to survive.

Those pink fingertips finally found the hem of her gown and pulled it up between her legs. Prim stuffed it into her front waistband. Now she could move and climb without tripping over her skirt. Picking up her basket, she hooked it on one arm and got into a
wagon with a broken spoke that had been left in the alley beside the mews. Balancing on the seat, she gripped a window ledge and began to climb.

Prim wasn’t nearly so frightened as she had been two weeks ago when she’d first run away. Not that she’d meant to run away, but that’s what one did when one witnessed a murder and the killer chased one into the rookeries of St. Giles. She had been on her way to teach the poor Kettle children their weekly lesson, and she’d been late because Lady Freshwell had once again objected to her “going about in the company of rude persons,” meaning little Alice Kettle, who had come all the way across London by herself for the honor of accompanying Prim. Lady Dorothy Freshwell, whom Prim had secretly christened “the hedgehog” for her unfortunate resemblance to that snout-nosed and prickly creature, was her aunt.

Prim had finally escaped the hedgehog, and she and Alice had taken the Freshwell carriage. But the delay had brought them into St. Giles at dusk. Since Aunt Freshwell needed the carriage back at once, Prim got out a few blocks from her destination and sent it back. Alice knew a shortcut to the house where the informal school was held.

They were hurrying through the darkening streets when they turned down a narrow passageway beside a tavern. Prim didn’t know what made her stop; perhaps it was the men’s voices—meat-grinder hard and vicious. She saw three people ahead, clutched Alice, and shrank against a wall. Slowly, so as not to attract
the attention of the group, she slipped behind a stack of crates that came up to her chin.

Why had she stayed? In those moments of hesitation, when she could have retraced her steps, she’d glimpsed the face of the woman. Cheeks red with garish rouge, lips a gash of crimson, the woman’s features contorted as she saw the first man raise the knife over her head. Frozen in horror and disbelief, Prim had opened her mouth to cry a warning, when the second man grabbed the woman. Nothing came out of her mouth, and the knife plunged.

Prim paused in her climbing. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought the return of images. What came to her instead was the vision of the second man, a man she never expected to see in St. Giles. She heard his words again: “Do it, Fleet.” Three words that had wrought such evil. Why hadn’t she left the alley at once? If she had, she would never have heard the second man give the order to kill, would never have seen how he watched the murder he’d ordered with the placid expression of a visitor to an art gallery.

She knew his name, the one who had caused murder with three calm words. He had attended her aunt’s ball only last month. He should have been in some silk-draped drawing room or on a bench in Parliament. Prim bit her lower lip and made herself forget the man’s face for the moment. Her object was to get back to the Kettles’ bare apartment alive and unnoticed.

She gripped the top of the wall and climbed up to balance on the gutter of the mews. Alice Kettle’s younger brothers, the twins Hal and Hugh, had taught her the art of roof traveling. Prim inched her
way across the mews. Reaching the next building, she stepped up to a window, climbed to a higher roof, and crossed its flat expanse. Prim almost smiled as she wondered what Lady Dorothy Freshwell would say of this activity, if indeed she could even recognize her charge. No doubt she would turn prickly and lament the demise of the real Primrose, that retiring, bookish dreamer who gave no trouble and seldom put herself forward. Her dire situation had occasioned the change. She had managed to adapt in order to survive, but Prim was certain Lady Freshwell would rather see her dead than climbing roofs and living with the Kettles.

She continued her progress for some minutes without having to descend, but eventually was forced to use a crooked passage that would take her past a street full of taverns, a music hall, and a brothel—the existence of which she had recently learned from the twins. She hurried to cross an intersection with an alley off the main road, for it contained a gaslight. As she stepped into the open, a man smoking a pipe and wearing an ugly green-and-red-checked waistcoast passed the light.

Prim suppressed a gasp and shrank back into the shadows of the passageway. The man paused in the yellow glow to tamp down some tobacco in the bowl of his pipe and light it. His face was grimy, as if he worked in a coal mine, and his hair, which might have been blond, was greasy and clung to his head and ears. When he drew on his pipe, Prim could see that his front teeth were brown near the gums. She knew this man.

Jowett was one of the ruffians sent to hunt her
down. The two murderers had seen her in that alley. They’d chased her, lost her, and now had sent their hirelings to find her. Which was why Prim couldn’t go home. She’d never reach the West End of London alive. It was difficult enough to fetch food for the Kettles, who had taken her in and hidden her, but she was determined to succeed. Betty Kettle had just given birth to her ninth child. The poor woman was exhausted and undernourished. She needed the mutton and fresh milk Prim had purchased; she wasn’t likely to get help from her husband, who drank most of his wages.