Authors: Elizabeth Essex
She sorted out the sounds—the more distant mull of the river, but now she could pick out the clack of a pot or pan or two, the slam of a door, the splash of a pail being emptied.
He seemed satisfied by the ordinariness of the sounds, and started off. “Stay close,” he urged, and she tried to keep close, filling her hands with her skirts to lift the lace and silk of her ball gown well clear of the dirt while trying keep her grip on the gun, and to emulate his posture, crouching low, close up against the alley walls.
When he darted to the side for no reason, but Claire could see nothing, and so kept to her path, with one elbow touching along the wall for guidance, until she promptly stepped ankle deep into a chilly puddle that instantly soaked her thin dancing slipper through.
“Ooh, bloody hell—”
“Not a sound.” His low whisper whipped at her through the dark. And then his hand found her, and pulled her up hard against his side, holding her still against him and the wall as two fellows with lanterns crossed the far end of the alley.
He had clearly put Carter’s body down, because Claire felt both his hands on her shoulders holding her still. When the lantern light at the end of the alley winked out, she released the breath she did not know she had been holding.
But His Grace was not at all relieved. He muttered another blue oath before he whispered low, “Stay here. And no matter what, don’t say a word.”
He moved no more than a few feet away before a lantern suddenly shone in her eyes. She put up a hand to shield her gaze, and saw two men—one large and bald, and another one larger still—smiling from behind the beam of the light.
Every part of her felt stripped cold.
“Show me your hand, Your Lordship. And I’d advise you to fill it with guineas.”
His Lordship did indeed show his hand, stretching his long, articulate fingers out in what Claire assumed would be an attitude of beseechment. But one moment his hand was empty, and in the next it held the haft of a deadly-looking blade that winked wickedly in the moonlight.
“Filled it with something else entire, haven’t I? Something you’d better mind, Robertson, you buggering bungler.”
The miscreant couldn’t hide his startlement—which was second only to Claire’s—or his amusement. His head jerked back before he narrowed his eyes and peered more closely into the misty murk. “Jesus God. Tanner? That you?”
“It is.”
Claire could hear the sly smile in His Grace’s voice, even as his hands reached back to herd her into the shelter of his height.
“Well, fuck me blind.” The miscreant gave a wheezy chuckle. “Look at you all toffed up like a flash cully. Why did you not cry beef?”
“Didn’t ask, did you?” His Grace’s cool, amused baritone eased over the top of his crooked smile. But the duke’s voice was different. Less smooth. Rough around the edges.
“Didn’t, did I?” Claire saw the yellowy glint of the footpad’s grinning teeth flash in the watery light. “What in seven hells are you doing out on a night like this? Though fuck me, it’s good to see you again. And yer lovely dolly mort there, as well.” The footpad canted a wiry eyebrow in her direction, before he reached a meaty paw out to His Grace, who actually took it.
“I’d rather not fuck you, if it’s all the same to you. And neither would my lass.” The cadence of his voice was sliding into the same dockside gurgle as that of his strange acquaintance.
“Your lass, eh?” The bald footpad wagged his shaggy eyebrow at her admiringly. “She looks like she could butter a man’s parsnips nicely with—”
“Shut it.” His Grace pointed that wicked blade at the miscreant’s heart. “
My
lass. So treat her gentleman-like.”
Astonishment
was a pale description of what Claire felt at His Grace’s words. She felt strange and tingly again, not with cold, but with warming heat—that lovely feeling of safety.
“Oh, easy, lad. That’s the lay o’ that land, is it?” The miscreant nodded his head respectfully toward her. “I wish you joy, missus.”
“Thank you,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say.
“Listen to that. Quality she is, Tanner. She’ll do the governess for you nice. Hain’t seen no one do a governess like yer sister, and old Nan herself, back in the day.” The bald man seemed to think this was a remarkable accolade he was bestowing upon Claire. “Yer man’s a dab hand—a damn good knuckler, missus. Best there is. You stick with ’em. The Tanner’ll see you right in the end, he will. Even if they hang ’em in his fancy togs at the end. Hang us all, won’t they, Tanner?”
“Not if they don’t catch us.”
“Ha-ha,” the miscreant barked. “Too true. Too bloody true. Stay on our toes, then, won’t we? On our toes.”
“Will do. Now off with you, before you ruin my rig with all your palaver.”
“Ha-ha!” the man chuckled again before he shuttered the lantern. “Good to see you in the old roads, Tanner. Good to see you.” And then he and his silent partner shuffled off down the alley.
In the moment after they were gone, Claire realized that His Grace had come to stand so close, she could register his heat and solidity through the material of his evening coat.
“You weren’t supposed to speak,” he admonished.
As if
her
speaking had been the strange thing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, because she was brought up with manners, and politeness was always her first refuge.
He nodded sharply, accepting her apology. And then if the confounded man didn’t smile and toss her a wink. “Not to worry,” he whispered directly into her ear. “It’s all sorted now.”
And then he patted her back, and was off again, slinking as sure-footed as a cat down the rutted, foggy way.
By the time she caught up with him two houses down, he had laid poor Carter’s body on the ground, and was vaulting over the top of an ivy-covered wall in one single, agile leap.
And he was gone.
And Claire had no refuge left at all.
Chapter Five
Claire waited what felt like forever for him to reappear, but he did not. There was no sight, no sound. Nothing. Nothing but the empty alley, the pitch darkness, and the hard hammering of her heart in her ears. He had left her.
Claire’s palms went damp and clammy. Heat prickled and then chilled her skin. Her breath sounded short and harsh in her ears.
Without His strange Grace of Fenmore, she was completely on her own. And entirely out of her depth. She did not dare to call out to him after he had cautioned her to quiet.
But she did not want to be alone. Already the hot clutch of panic was closing in around her.
No. No, she would not be a girl who needed to be petted and cosseted and attended by others every minute of every day. She would
not
. If he thought she could scale a six-foot wall, she could. She
would
. She would have courage, and take care of herself.
Claire abandoned all pretense to ladylike sophistication, and wadded up the muslin skirts of her silk-embroidered ball gown, hiking her petticoats and rucking the hems into her garters without care for the cost or fineness of the material. Nothing mattered but that she get over that wall and find His Grace.
She gripped the gun as tight as she could in her fear-slick hand and scrambled for a toehold in the ivy. She made it halfway over, landing hard on her belly on the slightly rounded crest of the wall, but the force of her landing knocked the wind out of her.
Bloody heavens, but it had been a long time since she had scrambled over a wall. Only a few years ago she had eagerly followed her brothers on rambles around Downpark, fording streams, climbing trees, and clambering over stiles. But for the past four summers such meanderings had been replaced with harvest balls and tight laces. With proper deportment and politeness. With smiles for marquesses’ unworthy sons.
Smiles and proper deportment be damned. It was nearly impossible to scale a wall while wearing stays. And carrying a gun.
But the evening seemed to be one for impossibilities. And for courage.
She repeated the word to herself as she got her wind back and searched the dark garden on the other side of the wall for a sign of His Grace.
“Why, Lady Claire. Whatever are you doing? Did you think I wasn’t coming to get you?”
She twisted atop the wall to find His Grace of Fenmore with his arms stretched over his head, leaning on the top of the frame of the deviously silent, well-oiled gate. The pose made the linen of his shirt draw tight against the sinewy muscles of his forearms. But it was his smile that pinned her to the wall—full across his face now, curving from one dimple to the other, making his chin look long and pointy and entirely boyish.
“Forgive me for taking too long. Not that I don’t excessively admire the view.” He was frowning and looking at her as if she were a particularly puzzling thing he had just chanced to discover. “You look the veriest romping girl.”
Heat streaked across her cheeks. Claire attempted to yank her skirts down over her ankles. “That does not sound like a good thing.”
“But it is a very good thing. At least from my admittedly askew point of view.” His voice was low and off-kilter enough to insinuate itself inside her. But there was also something honest and just blunt enough in his tone to be boyish and somehow unthreatening.
But she still felt quite silly on her ungainly perch atop the wall. “My point of view is not much sounder. Would you be so kind as to take this?” She held out the gun. “I’m as like to shoot myself and anyone else.”
He made a shallow bow and put out his hand. “Of course,” he said in that agreeably terse, obvious way of his. “My apologies. I am sorry I did not open the gate with more alacrity.” But he did not look sorry. A slow curve slid across one side of his face—a smile full of complicit, confederate charm. “I am also sorry I arrived too late. I would have liked to see you assay it. Though it seems to have ruined your pretty skirts.”
“Bother the skirts.” Thank goodness the darkness hid the flame in her face. “I hope you do not think I am so helpless and vain as all that.”
“No. Not vain. Not at all. You mistake me. Again, my apologies.”
“I thought I was meant to scale the wall after you.”
“No, I meant to come get you. But you seem to have done the job right, with no help from me.”
Something that had to be pride replaced the heat in Claire’s cheeks. “Thank you.”
But she waited until he had turned away before she slithered down the wall and landed knee-deep in overgrown grass. Her shoes, as well as her white muslin skirts, would certainly be ruined beyond all repair. Her mother was going to have her head.
Claire pushed the uncomfortable thought of mothers, and fathers as well, away and set her skirts and petticoats to rights before she followed His Grace across the length of the overgrown garden, and down a short set of stairs to the low kitchen door.
He looked as if he were about to put poor Carter down again, so Claire hurried forward. “Shall I knock?”
That made him smile. “Shouldn’t think that’ll be necessary.”
And as if he had clapped his hands and said, “Open sesame,” the door did open.
A creaking voice floated out of the dark interior. “Well, would ya look at what the cat drug in.” A small, pixieish old fellow stuck his head out into the moonlight, and then quickly gestured them inside.
His Grace led the way, shifting Carter’s body sideways, so he might pass through the door. “Evening, Jinks.”
“Speak of the devil, and up he crops.” The little man’s accent was Irish, all fey dips and feints. “Look like yer coming back down in the world this evening, Tanner.”
“That I am,” His Grace admitted, with that same ironic, conspiratorial half smile that he had just given Claire. “Looking in the low places for my friends.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place and all.” The Irishman locked the bolts behind them. And then his sharp eyes found her. “Who is that there with ye?”
“A friend,” Fenmore said. “And a body.”
The little Irishman didn’t blink an eye. “Not much profit in either. What game’s afoot, now?”
“Don’t ken yet.” His Grace and the Irishman plunged down a dark hallway, and disappeared from view, but presently a lantern was turned up, and a growing halo of light revealed a spacious, well-scrubbed kitchen at the end of the corridor.
His Grace seemed to know his way around, and went immediately to the long deal table, where he laid Carter out, like a queen upon a tomb at Westminster. “We’ll be needing more glims, Jinks. And coffee. Strong and hot. And send for Pervis.”
The Irishman hung a second lantern from the rack of pots above the table, and took a long look at the pale, inert body laid out there. “Left it too late for a sawbones, haven’t ye?”
“Send for him anyway. We’ll need his particular expertise. I’m wanting this one as tight and tied as Newgate.”
“Ah.” The little man’s eyes seemed to turn up like a lantern. “Murder, is it? Ye thinkin’ to make someone dance for it?”
Claire could only vaguely follow the little man’s broguish cant. But the duke seemed to understand fully. He answered in his emphatic way, “Yes. I mean for the killer to hang.”
The Irishman proved himself to be curious about live women as well as dead. He turned his beady black eyes on Claire. “And ’oo’s she when she’s at ’ome? Quality at least—that much I can see. And what’s happened to ’er?”
Claire’s hand flew to her flushed face. She had almost forgotten. Almost. In the brighter light from the lamps the injuries to her face must be much more apparent. His Grace had said she was likely to bruise. And those friendly miscreants in the alley—advising her that the Tanner would treat her right in the end. Did they think that
he
had done this to her? Did
he
think they thought that?
But His Grace’s level gaze steadied her. He said in his even, factual way, “She had a run-in with a Beau Nasty, whose brains were in his ballocks.”
In the light from the lantern she discovered Fenmore’s eyes were lighter—the dark blue-green of the deep sea. She had never noticed the vibrant color of his eyes across the ballrooms, or in the shelter of the dark.