Thick As Thieves (17 page)

"We'll see if we can tilt the carriage upright and have them pull it out," Richard said.

"Would someone mind pulling me out!" I shouted crossly.

Richard reached down and gave my sore arm a yank. I howled. "Careful! You nearly broke my arm when you fell on it."

I reached up with my good arm, knocking over the pitcher of coffee, spilling the entire contents into my lap. And it was quite hot, too. "Help! I'm scalded!"

Richard gave a mighty heave, and I came sailing up through the door in the ceiling, dripping with hot coffee, and cursing almost as proficiently as Richard had done. "For God's sake, watch what you are about! Between my broken arm and my dislocated shoulder from that yank and scalding coffee—"

"Sorry." He reached out and daubed at my sodden gown. "It doesn't feel so very hot," he said apologetically.

"Well, it is, and furthermore, both arms hurt like Hades."

Richard swooped me up in his arm and handed me down to John Groom, who was standing on the ground. "Put her over there," Richard said, as if I were a sack of grain. He tossed his head toward a clump of trees, to indicate my resting place. He had at least the courtesy to accompany me, and take off his jacket to form a bed on what felt like a patch of nettles.

As soon as he determined that I was not in actual danger of expiring, he and John Groom went to tend to the carriage. I just sat, watching. My fuming anger turned to amusement as they struggled. First they tried to do it by sheer manpower. After a deal of grunting and heaving, they unhooked the team to get a better grasp at the carriage. When this effort failed, they unsuccessfully endeavored to harness up the team in some new manner that gave them greater "leverage." There was a deal of talk of "leverage." Nothing worked. That carriage was there to stay until a team of stout bullocks came to rescue it.

Eventually I became bored with the show, and decided to be well again. I put on Richard's coat, as the wind on my wet gown made me chilly, and joined them.

"I daresay Tom has come and gone by now," I said. I do believe Richard had forgotten all about him. There is something about a gentleman's horses and carriage that take precedence over everything else. "If you had taken the curricle as I suggested . . . I wager it really could turn on a penny."

"The team could have done it. It is the demmed dark that caused the problem."

"Did you think the sun would be shining at midnight?"

"It is only ten-thirty."

"We have been gone at least an hour. Let us hope Ketchen is more effectual than—" He turned an icy stare on me. His face looked like an angry gargoyle, carved in stone.

"You are only a mile from town," John Groom said. "You could hoof it back, and send help from Brighton. I'll stay with the rig."

Richard thought about that for a moment. "Are you able to walk, or would you rather sit in the carriage?" he asked me.

"I don't usually walk on my hands. There is nothing wrong with my legs. The sooner I see a doctor, the better. I can hardly sit in a carriage when the seats are at right angles to the floor. I believe there is some law to that effect—the Law of Gravity, I believe they call it."

"What you might do," the groom suggested, "is stop at the first inn and ask them to send help."

Richard nodded. "Take good care of my cattle. There is a pitcher of coffee in—"

"On my gown, actually," I reminded him, and turned to walk down the road alone.

Richard caught up with me after a moment. The first hundred or so paces were taken in utter silence, as we mentally nursed our grievances. I cradled my right elbow in my left hand. The elbow was not broken, but it truly was sore.

"How is the arm?" he asked, in a suitably apologetic tone.

"The doctor will know whether it is broken."

"I am sorry, Eve. Here, I'll make a sling from my cravat."

"That is not necessary."

He insisted on doing it. He yanked off his cravat and tied a great white strip of muslin around my neck, gently inserting my arm in it. "There, that will hold you till we can get you to a sawbones."

"Careful, Richard. If you hurt any other part of my anatomy, you will be stark naked by the time we get home. I have already got your jacket and cravat."

"Serves me right. It is all my fault. I should have brought the curricle."

"Or at least driven forward until you found a proper place to turn around."

"Did the coffee burn you very badly?"

"The blisters won't show. They are on my—torso," I said vaguely.

He looked at me in alarm. "Are you sure you should be walking? I could run ahead to the inn—"

"And leave me here alone? The way our luck is running, I would be set upon by Black Bart." Bart was the most infamous highwayman that year.

We trudged on a little farther. "I wish I had worn walking shoes. I feel every pebble in these thin-soled slippers."

"I fear my Hessians would be too large. Would you prefer to walk through the fields?"

"No. Thank you."

After another little silence he said, rather sheepishly, "I daresay we will look back on this one day and laugh."

"I daresay. I wonder what I will find more hilarious: rolling in the ditch, your appalling language, or being dumped under the tree like a sack of potatoes."

Richard gave over trying to lure me back into a good humor and said bluntly that in future he would be wary of lemons wearing the rind of sweet oranges. I was obliged to retaliate that I would be on the alert for Greeks bearing gifts of real estate.

Eventually we came to an elegant inn that catered to the gentry. "Thank God it is a decent place," he said, as we approached the door. The hostler in the yard gave us a very squinty look.

The patrons in the lobby did more than squint. They said quite audibly to the clerk, "I thought this was a decent inn!"

The uppity little clerk treated us like the commoners we resembled. "You are in the wrong place, folks. The Pig and Whistle down the road caters to your sort."

It was difficult to maintain any countenance when I caught our reflection in a mirror: me in my old, stained gown with the brim of my bonnet mashed out of shape, and Richard sans jacket and cravat, with his hair all tousled about. His boots were dust-laden, and his shirt covered with grease from the carriage. Even our faces were dirty.

Richard assumed his angry gargoyle expression and said, "Shut your face or I'll remove your teeth. I want to hire a rig to take us to Brighton."

"We don't hire out dog carts," the uppity clerk said, tossing his nose in the air.

Richard drew his purse out of his pocket and emptied a wad of bills on the counter. A scattering of gold coins clattered noisily after. Then he reached across the counter and lifted the clerk up by his shoulder pads until his feet dangled in the air. "Are you familiar with the name Black Bart?" he growled, glaring into the man's frightened eyes. The clerk swallowed a couple of times and nodded his head. "Then you'll have a story to tell your kiddies, if you're man enough to sire any kids, and if you live that long. I'm Black Bart, and you're going to get me a rig from your stable.
Now!"

This speech emptied the lobby faster than if he had shouted, "The Black Plague!" Customers flew in all directions.

The clerk reached out and hit a bell that rested on the counter. Richard let go of his jacket, and the man fell to the floor with a thump. A page boy darted forward in response to the bell.

"This gentleman would like a rig to go to Brighton," the clerk said, in a strangled voice. "Right away." Behind Richard's back, I saw him mouth the words "Black Bart!" The page boy goggled in delight. It is really a shame that these youngsters make heroes of common criminals.

"And a team to draw my carriage out of the ditch," Richard said. "You'll find it half a mile north." He picked up a gold coin and nipped it at the page boy, who snatched it out of the air and disappeared, grinning from cheek to cheek.

"How much do I owe you?" Richard asked the clerk.

"No charge, sir. A pleasure to serve you, sir."

Richard shoved a bill of an inordinately large denomination at him and took me by the arm to leave. "He'll have a constable after us, Ri—Bart," I warned.

Richard turned back to the clerk. "You wouldn't be fool enough to go doing that, lad?"

"No, sir. No, sir!" I think he crossed his heart, but perhaps he was just clutching at it. Certainly he looked as if he might have a stroke at any moment.

"Good lad." Richard grinned menacingly, and we left.

"Did you ever consider a life on the stage, Richard?" I asked in a weak voice when we were out the door.

"It was easier than trying to convince him we're respectable."

"Yes. It makes one realize clothes do make the man. Perhaps we should spend the reward money on new jackets for the poor children. Except that there will probably be no reward."

He drew out his watch. "It is only a quarter past eleven. We might still catch Tom."

The ostler brought forth a spanking whiskey drawn by a pony.

"I paid enough for a proper carriage!" Richard objected.

"Never mind, Bart. It is good enough."

He assisted me into the whiskey, hopped into the driver's seat himself, and we were off. "He did not believe you were Black Bart, or he would have provided a better rig," I said. "He probably thought you were just a dangerous lunatic."

"I wonder what he thought of you," Richard retaliated.

Chapter Eighteen

We reached Brighton without incident. As we could not drive up to the house in the whiskey, Richard left it a block away and we walked via the back road to my house. At some point during our absence, Ketchen had had all the lights put out, which made good sense. Tom would not try to enter until everyone was in bed.

We crept from bush to bush through the garden without encountering Richard's watchman. It seemed impossible it was only hours ago I had entertained society here. Now all was dark and quiet.

When we reached the house, our trials continued. The back door was locked, and we disliked to make any racket, in case Tom was waiting in the shadows, or in the house itself.

"How can we get in?" I whispered. "I did not bring my key with me."

"I wonder if Aunt Grieve's key is still on the ledge over the door." He reached up and, amazingly, found it.

"You should have told me it was there! Anyone might have found it."

"No one did, so there is no harm done," he said blandly.

He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. With so little moonlight, the kitchen looked like a cave, save for the glimmer of pots hanging on the wall. We crept along quietly, heading for the stairs that would take us up to the house proper.

Richard's elbow bumped against a bowl on the table and sent it flying. It was Cook's bread, set out to rise. The wad of dough flew out and hit me in the face. It felt like a huge, soft hand. I stifled a scream and pulled it off. It was nothing short of a miracle that the bowl landed silently in a basket of laundry.

We reached the door, and Richard pushed it open. He took just one step into the darkness beyond, before he was felled by a stunning blow. All I could see was a shadow moving above him, then he disappeared.

Naturally I assumed Tom had got in, had heard us, and struck Richard down. I stepped back, feeling around for a weapon. You would think in a kitchen equipped with all manner of cleavers and knives, one could come up with a better weapon than a teapot. In the darkness, and in my haste and fear, however, it was the teapot that my fingers encountered, and it was the teapot that I raised to go after Tom. I swung blindly into the doorway, and connected forcefully with a head. A hollow one, to judge by the echoing sound.

A grunting noise was heard, not from my victim, but from the floor, where Richard lay. Concerned though I was to see whether he was alive or dead, instinct led me to ensure my own life first. I swung again. A strong hand reached out and seized my arm. The teapot fell with a clatter.

"I arrest you in the name of the law," Ketchen declared.

"For God's sake, Ketchen, let me go," I said, and wrenched my wrist free. "If you have killed Richard ..." I flew to him, just as he rose up from the floor, shaking his head. "It's all right, Richard. It is only Ketchen," I said.

Richard struggled to his feet. "If I die of a fractured skull, I will die happy, knowing I was killed by Bow Street."

"Let us have some light," I declared.

Ketchen carried a dark lantern. He allowed us one quick peek to see there were no impediments in our way. We stepped around the teapot and the puddle oozing from it, found the stairs, and mounted to the saloon.

"There's only one room where we may safely have a light," he told us. "That wee bit of a parlor off the dining room."

I said brusquely, "I don't know about you, Richard, but I am ready to forget Tom for tonight, and light the saloon."

"Now you see an officer's duty is not all cracking heads and chasing murderers and shooting thieves. There is a deal of work to it as well," Ketchen informed us. "After waiting here for two hours,
I
am much of a mind to sit it out and have done with Tom Cat once and for all."

With this lure to sustain us, we went to the wee bit of a parlor off the dining room and allowed ourselves the luxury of a lamp. "My eyes tell me you have had a tumble," Ketchen remarked, when the light revealed our condition.

I adjusted my arm sling, which had come loose. "It is reassuring to know Bow Street is awake on all suits, Mr. Ketchen. We have been bruised to the backbone and marrow."

He gave Richard a wire-drawn smile in appreciation of my temper. Richard suggested I would be better off in bed, while he and Ketchen stood guard, but I elected to remain below. There followed a few of the most stultifyingly boring hours ever endured by humankind. First we listened, and we occasionally imagined we heard a sound outside, but it invariably came to naught. No private conversation was possible with Ketchen playing propriety between us. The talk was all of Tom.

Ketchen asked for a description of the picture Tom had stolen from my London house, and I described it. "It was a portrayal of an old man's head. I believe he had a cravat at his neck, although he was not wearing a jacket."