Maggie MacKeever (24 page)

Julie handed him a scone liberated from the Ashcroft kitchens. “How blows the wind tonight?”

The scone disappeared into one of his waistcoats. “North-northwest. It is not, nor it cannot come to good. Take yourself along home, young Jules. The mouses are astir.”

Orator was as quick to quote the Bible as Shakespeare and whatever else might take his fancy. Still, his current preference for Hamlet caused Julie’s unease to ratchet up a notch. She wished she could indeed take herself along home — wherever ‘home’ might be — instead of prowling through the night like a cat in the gutters, looking for intrigue.

Through a gateway into Ivy Lane, then along a path that led to the center of St Giles’s. Rat’s Castle stood on the foundations of a leper hospital built by Queen Matilda in the eleventh century. More recently, the large dirty building had been the spot where condemned felons, on their way from Newgate Gaol to be hanged at Tyburn, had stopped for a bowl of ale. Now it was occupied by pickpockets and prostitutes and other members of the thieving fraternity. In the taproom, Tweaguey Tom would be playing his fiddle, while ten or a dozen lads and lasses enjoyed the dance, and smoked and snickered over glasses of gin and water, more or less plentiful according to the proceeds of a night passed in the pilfering of watches and money from drink-addled swells foolish enough to frequent cockfights and low gaming halls.

Julie’s footsteps slowed. Once she would have joined the revelry without a second thought, a thumb to her nose for jingle-brains like Tony, who spent more on wine each year than his lowliest servant would earn in a lifetime, and gambled away his own future in a single night of play. Now instead of black-and-white, she was seeing shades of gray.

It was her that was betwixt and between. Julie was no lady, even if she’d gotten used to going about in petticoats and stays and walking like a girl. But neither was she the street urchin who had dropped by the Castle for gossip and a pint. It was all the fault of a certain earl, who didn’t act like he should. Who’d
sat her on his lap and had his hand up her skirts and taken her to Astley’s where more than all the spectacle she’d enjoyed sitting close to him.

After all his soldiering, Ned found it dull to be an earl. Julie would have given all she owned to be dull for a while. Especially in this moment, because she’d stopping paying attention to her surroundings and now stood smack in the middle of a bleak alley with a hulking brute looming up in front of her.

He smiled, revealing missing teeth. “Here’s our little pullet, come home to roost.”

Julie twisted her wrist and her knife slid into her hand. So much for pretending she was an ordinary person with an ordinary life.

This was what Orator had meant. Carbuncle-faced Mick with his malmsey nose had been expecting her. And Mick had found out that ‘Jules’ was a girl.

She’d pretend it didn’t matter. That she wasn’t afraid. When he came close enough, she’d ram her blade into his belly. “Move out of my way.”

Mick didn’t budge an inch. “Word is, chick-a-biddy, you’ve got above yourself.”

Came a snicker from behind her. Julie spun round to see another of the persons she would most rather have not. “I’ll get above you, missy,” Pego leered. “Like it bread-and-butter style meself.”

One knife. Two thugs. Her odds were worse than Tony’s. “Mother Yarwood sent for me,” Julie said, in the tone Georgiana used to scold her servants. “Let me pass.”

“It’s us as have come to fetch you. Make sure you arrived all in one—” Mick snickered. “Piece.”

He advanced. Julie retreated. Pego followed as if they were doing some intricate ballroom dance.

“And it’s us that’ll be kept waiting, ’cause someone else is to have you first.” Pego grabbed his genitals and provided additional, graphic detail. If Julie wasn’t certain of all the things he mentioned, ‘wearing your muff’ and ‘suck my sugar stick’ were clear.

“You may kiss my arse, lobcock.” She gripped her blade.

“Uppish, ain’t she?” marveled Pego.

“Rightly needs a lesson.” Julie glanced in Mick’s direction, and he threw a handful of dirt in her eyes. Blinded, she struck out, felt the knife wrenched from her hand.

She was heaved over someone’s shoulder. Cruel fingers pinched and pawed. Julie shrieked; kicked and twisted; jabbed her elbow into her captor’s throat and her teeth into his arm.

He cursed. A fist slammed into her jaw. Julie’s head snapped back so hard rockets burst before her eyes.

A shot rang out. Mick jerked and cursed. His grip on Julie eased and she flung herself aside, landing in an awkward tangle, her left arm twisted beneath her, the air knocked out of her lungs. She scooted backwards through foul-smelling rubbish until her back rested against what felt like a wall. Her entire body throbbed like a bruise. She’d had worse, Julie told herself, as she struggled to catch her breath. Her eyes were watering furiously.

All around were sounds of struggle. When her vision cleared,
Julie saw Mick sprawled senseless on the pavement, blood streaming from a bullet wound to his thigh. Pego was putting up a good fight. Bates planted a muzzler that sent him to the ground.

Ned knelt in front of her. He looked much less an earl than one of the more successful sort of criminals, a gentleman of the road or a master thief, decked out in a long many-caped coat and jaunty beaver hat. “Are you all right?”

“Just dandy,” growled Julie, because she was frightened and her arm hurt and it was her who wanted what she couldn’t have. “What took you so long? I thought for certain you’d got lost.”

“I’m sorry, buttercup.” Ned inspected her cheek, felt her tender jaw. “The night is so dark, and you’re so quick, and we had to lag behind so no one realized we were there. I lost several years off my life when I heard you scream.”

Julie
had
screamed, hadn’t she? Like a simpering debutante at sight of a mouse. She was growing soft.

Mick groaned and began to stir. Bates silenced him with a well-aimed blow. Disaster had been averted, for the moment. Julie turned her head and vomited.

Ned handed her his handkerchief. Bates cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, sir. Street fights are common enough hereabouts that no one’s likely to come looking, but it might be a good idea to make ourselves scarce.”

“Right you are
.
” Ned tucked away his pistol, took Julie’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

It hurt like blazes. She yelped. Ned let loose a string of oaths more colorful than any Julie had heard in all her time in the streets.

“You should have said that you were hurt.” His hands moved over her. “I don’t think anything is broken. Take a deep breath.” As she did so, he lifted her into his arms. Bates paced alertly alongside his master as they headed back toward the more civilized part of town.

Every footstep hurt. Julie didn’t mind. The earl had proved himself a good man to have at one’s back. Or front. Or anywhere in between. “I’m ruining your coat. You’ll never get it clean.”

“The devil with my coat. Who were those men?”

“Mick and Pego. They’re Mother Yarwood’s bully-backs.” Who provided whatever services might be needed regarding unruly whores and customers alike.

Ned swore again, this time in a foreign language. She wondered if it was Portuguese.

Why had Mother Yarwood turned against her? Julie had done nothing to rouse the woman’s wrath. Unless Cap’n Jack knew she’d blabbed.

One thing was certain: Julie wouldn’t soon be visiting the Holy Land again any time soon. “Where are you taking me?”

“To Wakely Court. You can hardly return to Lady Georgiana smelling like a sewer rat. And I want to have a closer look at that arm.”

She
was
a trifle fragrant. Ned didn’t seem to mind. Julie thought of Rose. Dangling at her slipper-strings, indeed.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Show me a lover with self-control, and I’ll give you his weight in gold
.
— Plautus

James the footman sleepily opened the front door, gaped at sight of his master carrying a ragamuffin
. “Hot water, and lots of it,” said Ned. “Liniment and bandages. Bring them to my room.”

Tidcombe hurried into the hallway, a robe thrown on over his nightshirt, a voluminous nightcap perched on his head. Unlike the footman, he was not deceived as to the ragamuffin’s sex. “The young person will need other clothing. Perhaps Mistress Clea
. . .
”

“No.” Ned was already halfway up the stair.

“Mayhap the stable boy has a spare rig,” suggested Bates.

And mayhap the cook wouldn’t burn the porridge, so that Tidcombe might enjoy his breakfast for a change. Tidcombe sent the footman to inquire of the stable boy if he had extra set of clothes. Meanwhile Bates set out for the kitchen to oversee boiling water and bandages, behind Tidcombe’s back as it were, thereby putting the butler’s nose further out of joint.

Julie was very quiet. Ned recognized excitement’s aftermath. He’d witnessed the phenomenon before, had felt it himself. One braced to face danger, and when the danger passed, experienced a letdown of the nerves.

What might have happened had she not shown him that note, had she not been persuaded that they should follow her? Julie hadn’t thought it fitting for an earl to traipse through the Holy Land in the wake of someone like herself. Didn’t understand that Ned would happily traipse after her anywhere. “Trust me,” he said.

“Don’t have much choice, do I?” Julie buried her face against his chest. Only when Ned kicked open the door to his bedroom did she raise her head.

He tried to see the chamber through her eyes. It was luxurious, as befit the master of this venerable pile, with Turkey carpets on the floor, and ancient tapestries on the walls. The stone fireplace’s arched opening was spanned by a simple mantle with two elegant rosettes on either side. The formidable four-post bedstead was carved within an inch of its existence, headboard and footboard alike. The room was additionally furnished with chairs upholstered in silks and velvet, a number of chests used for various
purposes, a writing desk with two pedestal cabinets of exquisite silversmith’s work.

Julie leaned back against him. “The Cap’n must know I told you.”

“That’s not likely,” Ned replied, thinking she must be frightened indeed if she wasn’t inspecting the room and noting what items might be easiest to filch. “Maybe he’s angry with you for some other reason. The codebook might not be what he expected.”

Julie stiffened. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“There’s another codebook, sunshine. Though not in this house.”

“You might’ve told me sooner,” she muttered.

He might, had Ned been sure of her. Bates came through the doorway, trailed by the Marys with buckets of hot water and James with a huge copper tub; followed in turn by Mrs. Scroggs with an armful of clothing and an air of curiosity. Tidcombe oversaw the preparation of the bath, his expression long-suffering, his nightcap tipsily askew. When the lot of them at last departed, Ned set Julie on her feet.

Her face was pale beneath its dirt. She attempted to remove her jacket, and winced. Ned took hold of the shabby garment and ripped it from neck to hem. The shirt followed. Julie clutched her damaged arm protectively to her chest.  Ned set her on a carved chair, pulled off her shoes and stockings. When he unfastened her breeches, Julie blushed bright pink.

This wasn’t the way he’d imagined disrobing her. Ned wanted her flushed not with embarrassment, but lust. “I will leave the rest to you.” He walked to the far side of the room and stood staring at a tapestry that depicted the hunt of the wild boar, listening to clothing rustle and water splash as Julie stepped — slipped, it sounded like — into the tub.

She cleared her throat. “It’s all right to turn around.”

Ned did so, and immediately wished he might climb into the bath with her. To distract himself, he gathered up her cast-off clothing, and his greatcoat, and dumped the lot out into the hall.

He shouldn’t watch her, Ned told himself; but couldn’t look away. Not much of Julie was visible above the edge of the deep tub. A glimpse of her bare arms and shoulders made him desperate to see the rest.

Ned leaned against the wall. He must think of something less provocative than the naked young female in his bath. Such as what use ‘Cap’n Jack’ meant to make of his codebook. Had meant to make, unless Ned missed his guess, of a certain French diplomat.

Codebooks. Diplomats. Matters of national importance. Ned decided reluctantly that he must mention Cap’n Jack to Kane.

Julie stole a glance at him. “This is very strange.”

Strange wasn’t the half of it. “Would you prefer I leave the room?”

She shook her head, to his relief. “I meant it’s strange that you’re an earl. You didn’t act like one tonight.”

“I was never meant to be one. There’s been a lot to learn. Fortunately, the estates rub on well enough without me doing much more than keeping a watchful eye out for neglect or waste.”

Awkwardly, Julie tried to apply a soapy cloth to her damaged arm. “I can’t imagine what it’s like.”

Definitely Ned was a nodcock, so set on doing nothing to alarm her that he’d forgotten she was hurt. He threw off his jacket and knelt by the tub.

Julie blinked as he rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I need to see for myself that you’re not badly damaged,” he said.

She didn’t argue with him, or protest as he searched for strained muscles, joints that might have been pushed out of place. He wasn’t caressing her, not really, Ned told himself, as the back of his hand brushed the underside of one soft breast.

Julie’s breath caught. Ned clenched his teeth. He could see her body clearly through the soapy water. If he didn’t move away from her soon he was like to spontaneously combust.

“You’re going to have a nasty bruise,” he said, finding this an excellent excuse to trail his fingers along her jaw. “And you’ll need to be careful of that arm.”