Wilful Impropriety (51 page)

The boy headed for a dark blotch in the distance, one that grew distinctive as Lind ran. Another dock, one so dilapidated, like a carcass picked clean at the dinner table, the askew pilings might have been rib bones of some great beast.

Cold air was quick to constrict Lind’s lungs, and he had to catch his breath at the first piling. With the sun set, there was little light to see by. So he blinked in disbelief when a weak flame answered his need. Where the black water lapped the shore, a bedraggled figure held aloft a candle lantern. A mudlark? They searched the Thames muck for rubbish that washed ashore. But where was her hamper? And why would she be out so late?

“Lost boy.” The mudlark spoke with a country accent, with hints of lush green grass that bent beside the river. The image of gentle ripples on the water filled his head, and, despite the cold, he began to relax against the piling. “Come, let me take you home,” she said.

The harsh wind brought to Lind the smell of something dredged from the dark bottom of the filthy Thames, and he fought the urge to retch. Then he glimpsed the mudlark’s face. Wet hair clung to gaunt features and empty eye sockets; the squat green teeth within her long jaws belonged to a drowned mule, not any woman. Fear overtook the bile in his throat. It seeped out through the pores of his skin on rivulets of sweat. He
knew
her. He shivered and slipped around the piling so she could not see him. “Jenny,” he whispered.

Months ago, after some mishaps that nearly ended with him being caught, Lind had stopped robbing houses. Why risk the noose? That was when he started stealing from the Folk. The small ones. Goblins, mostly. A cobbler with odd ears. What harm could they do to him? And they would never talk to a human magistrate and risk revealing their presence in the city. It was all so easy.

Until he made a terrible mistake. From the safety of a rooftop, Lind had watched one of the Folk sink a net fashioned from rags down an old well. While she looked hideous, he never thought her truly dangerous. So after she’d left, he climbed down the slimy walls and recovered a silver hand mirror and matching hairbrush. The find made him laugh—why would something so ugly keep mementos belonging to a lady, not a frow? Even dry, the handles kept her stink, so Kapel, his favorite fence, had refused to offer a fair price for either.

But when he started working with the sprite Tupp, selling recovered glamour to the Folk so they could survive the pains that living in London brought—all that smoke, all that worked iron—Lind discovered that goblins talked, that word had spread of a brazen human stealing from them. And that Green Jenny liked to drown her victims. Before she ate them.

Lind glanced around the rotting wooden piling. He saw the sweep stepping out from under the dock toward Jenny. The boy wore a smile, which chilled Lind worse than Jenny’s terrible face. Glamour hid her true visage from the boy. Lind could not see the lacquer, whatever beauty and cheer she masked herself with. He was a child when soot dislodged by a brownie had fallen into his eyes and cursed him with the Sight.

No one deserved Jenny’s fatal embrace, but Lind didn’t dare risk his own life to save the poor bloke. He imagined her sharp fingers clutching at his coat’s sleeve as they dragged him toward the water. The Thames would be so icy and dark, blinding him to everything but her face as he choked on the river water.

No, not even the promise of a hundred shillings in the sweep’s pockets could move Lind. He pressed his back to the piling and told himself that cowards live longer than heroes. In his head Lind said the only prayer he knew, a Hebrew one for blessing wine that Kapel had taught him.

Perhaps the Thames was so cold that it would stop the boy’s heart before Jenny began stroking his hair. Lind caught a weak voice calling out, “Mum?” He hoped he misheard and the sound was just the wind.

•   •   •

Few tapmen in London pour a charity mug for a stranger, so Lind, desperate to get good and drunk, had to be watchful at Boniface’s tavern, where he always met Tupp. When he saw an old man slouch beside his drink, he came close. There was more than enough gin left in the cup to swallow, and it was the proper duty of every Englishman to see that nothing went to waste in the Empire. When the bloke’s trembling eyelids shut, Lind lifted the tin cup from the scarred table.

Lind scraped the mud from his shoes on the bulldog-shaped andirons set in the fireplace. A fire had consumed much of the log. He couldn’t rid his soul of the cold left from seeing Jenny. Before he could finish off that sip of gin, a pearl-gray top hat, a bit battered, landed over the cup’s mouth.

“There’s no more welcome sign of winter than a trio of hags roastin’ chestnuts.” With a grin tight between ruddy and round cheeks, Tupp scampered up and onto the mantelpiece.

The handsome sprite wore a fustian coat the shade of caked mustard, and a loose blue cravat that drooped around his neck. A child clown would envy those clothes, but no one in Boniface’s laughed at Tupp. Grains of glamour kept the crowd from noticing the odd outfit, not to mention Tupp’s crescent-shaped ears and the six slender fingers on both hands. “Mind you, only buy them from the youngest, the maiden, as the meat’s the sweeter.” Tupp reached over and lifted his hat up. Somehow, in doing so, he stole the tin cup from Lind’s hand. He drained its contents quickly, then tossed it into the fireplace where it made embers rise and dance a while.

“If you’re so happy for winter, let’s toast to it. Buy us a drink.” Lind wished he could laugh then and there at Tupp, who often acted as mad as a spoon. A cherished, heirloom spoon.

“And the nuts in the crone’s pan might be a touch . . . morbose.” Tupp started pressing out the many dents in the brim of his hat.

Lind rubbed at his throat and coughed. “Some drink to fend off the ague I feel risin’—”

Tupp bit down on the brim a moment, then seemed satisfied. To Lind, the hat still looked to be in the same sorry shape. Tupp placed it atop his auburn curls with a rakish slant. “Why are your pockets empty? Didn’t you see your Hebrew?”

“I—I . . . No. I’ll go tomorrow.”

“Just as well. We will have something else for him. Tonight.”

Lind wanted to stay with the drunks—the elbow-crookers, he liked to call them—at Boniface’s until he was thoroughly pissed. He did not want another glimpse through the strange keyhole of weird. “Could we not stay here? Or, fine, somewhere else. Just the two of us.” He put a hand over Tupp’s. “There’s mischief we can share rather than work another night.” But Lind could not bring himself to ask Tupp to indulge in the real mischief he truly wanted to share with the sprite.

He hoped that Tupp would see in his eyes that Lind wanted no more selling powdered glamour to the scrambling child with sharp claws that clung beneath the eaves of St. Giles’s Ragged School. No more silent women laundering mounds of bloody clothes in the dark at the Poplar Hospital for Accidents. Once it had been exciting, as if he had learned the greatest cheat in all the world, but now the wonder turned to horror.

Tupp frowned. “If only we could. But I have debts to pay.”

“One night? They won’t forgive one night?”

Tupp dropped to his feet. “A brisk walk will do us well.”

Lind rubbed the disappointment from his face. He understood how avoiding debts only brought misery . . . that, and he did not trust most of the Folk Tupp dealt with. On his own, they would cheat the sprite out of glamour without a second thought.

No matter how fresh the snow, the cobblestones of London turned it filthy. Nimble Tupp walked atop the ashen broth. Lind never saw him slip, and envied the sprite’s dry feet. By the time they had walked several blocks, Lind was shivering, his feet soaked. He asked Tupp if they could hire a cab.

But Tupp refused to spare even a farthing. “Nonsense demands.”

Lind groaned. Why did only mortals suffer from nonsense?

They came to a corner with a coffee stall flickering light and warmth from its lit firepan. The smell rising from the pot tugged at Lind’s empty stomach. “A mug would warm the insides,” he said. “Please, Tupp.”

“That it would,” said the stallkeeper. “Best thing for you now.”

Then Lind spied a set of scrawny limbs covered in ragged clothing move in the shadows of the doorway just behind the stall. He felt the flush of panic seize him. Had Jenny ventured out of the frigid Thames for him? But then he saw the faces of the women who stepped into the firepan’s glow. Weak-eyed and wan, but decidedly human.

“Lind, we don’t want to keep this one waiting long,” Tupp said. “He’s a most sallow fellow.”

Lind thought all of the Folk were sallow. ’Cept Tupp, who possessed a grin and a wink.

The taller of the women moved next to Lind. Her sunken cheeks told of too many hungry nights. “Spare a penny for me and my sister to warm ourselves? Terrible cold out.”

A soft chime sounded from Tupp’s waistcoat. Tupp muttered as he consulted one of his many pocket watches.

Lind didn’t put much weight on education. How’d reading ever save a man’s life? But he knew that the queer markings on the watch’s face didn’t match any English numbers or letters. Didn’t look Hebrew either.

“A pretty,” said the second woman, who leaned down to dislodge Tupp’s hat and finger his copper curls. “’Ave time for me, ’an’some?”

Lind wondered how she noticed Tupp. He should have been dusted with glamour and hidden from sight, as he had been at the pub. Had the sprite become careless? Had the pinch worn off?

Tupp ignored the woman. “I smell currant cake.” He slipped the watch back into a pocket and retrieved his hat from the ground.

Lind saw the greed in the woman’s eyes. He understood the promise of gold, the promise of trouble. But it would not end well for the women. Tupp might curse them to wander all night long till they dropped from the cold. Not that Lind had ever seen the sprite do so, but he had overheard Tupp threaten others he
could
.

“Let’s be going,” Lind said.

“A bit o’ that cake would be nice.”

“Like sweets?” The one woman stopped down to rub at Tupp’s belly. She whispered in his ear while her fingers slipped toward the waistcoat pocket with the watch.

“I prefer cakes to tarts.” Tupp’s elbow struck her in the chest. She shrieked and fell into the snowbroth.

“’Ere now,” called out the stallkeeper. First his pockmarked cheeks and then his chest puffed in readiness, like rising hackles on an angry mutt.

“No,” Lind shouted, and reached for the firepan’s handle. Pulled loose of the stall, it fell to the wet cobblestones and rolled, spilling hot coals that steamed and hissed as they died.

The women screamed, the stallkeeper cursed, but Lind grabbed Tupp by his collar and pulled him down the street at a run. When the cold air burned inside Lind’s chest, they took refuge in an alley. Lind gasped for breath. “No more,” he panted to Tupp, who leaned against the opposite brick wall and regarded him with curiosity.

“But you haven’t had a taste yet.” Tupp held up a stolen currant cake.

“What next?”

“Hmmm?”

Lind rubbed both palms against his watery eyes, wishing he could wipe away the Sight. He wanted nothing more to do with the Folk. Even Tupp was too dangerous to associate with . . . and yet he did not want to abandon the sprite.

When he looked up, he saw that Tupp had grown a foot taller and stood beside him. Tupp blew hard over the cake before breaking it in half. “You asked me to be partners. Now you have regrets?”

“Every day, every hour, I feel as if I’m risking everything, but I have nothing to show for it.”

“Nothing? You’re with me,” Tupp said.

“And you’re the only thing keeping me from going mad.”

“Shhhh,” Tupp whispered. “I’d not say that. The Folk like their mortals mad.”

The cake smelled like spring, like how gold should smell. Spit filled Lind’s mouth. He took the offered half, noted how it was warm to the touch as if baked within the half-hour. Grit met his teeth at the first bite, and then such sweetness overcame his tongue. Lighter than treacle. Lighter than honey. He couldn’t bring himself to chew fast enough, so he swallowed fast as fever spread through him. He felt a bead of sweat start at his temple—or perhaps it was a tear traveling down his cheek—drifting down, along the path to the scar at his chin, where it was damned to freeze. He didn’t know why he’d be crying. He didn’t have a worry to his name.

The currants cradled in his five fingers went from wine-red to glittering amber. No, gold, like Tupp’s watches. Lind started chuckling like some fresh-faced sot. Treasure had been within those women’s reach all the time—all they needed to do was pull apart the cake.

“Laughter’s better than melancholy,” offered Tupp, staring at him while nibbling his share.

Lind nodded, though he didn’t understand what Tupp meant. He stuffed the rest of the cake into his mouth, and then wiped the grease from his fingers onto his coat. Reckless thoughts murmured in the corners of his head. Break into some fancy’s tall house and steal a billiards table. Or climb a gaslight pole and wait for the first carriage to pass beneath and jump down into the coachman’s bench. Or remain in the alley and brush the crumbs from Tupp’s lips.

He took a step closer to the sprite. Kissing one of the Folk would be the most enchanting thing. And so he did. Press his lips against Tupp’s. He curled his fingers around Tupp’s lapels, opened his mouth to compare the sweetness of cake to that of sprite.