“I daren’t take my rig any farther, sir,” the cabby said as the horse drew up.
Dagonet leapt lightly from the cab, and pressing an extremely generous sum into the driver’s outstretched hand, gave him some rapid instructions. He then disappeared into the warren of lanes that earlier had swallowed up Catherine and her guide.
Thank God it was not unfamiliar ground. His weeks of tracking John Catchpole had made him familiar enough with the area, but Catherine’s life might depend on whether he had discovered the right house.
Many of the inhabitants of the noxious warren were now drunk on cheap gin, but if any of the footpads gave thought to interfering with the gentleman who was now striding through their midst, they soon decided to give it a miss. The cane carried in his left hand obviously housed a sword, and there was something about the easy athletic way he carried himself that said he probably knew very well how to use it.
Several of the women, however, approached the dashing young stranger and hung on his arm for a moment with offers and promises. He gave each one a smile and a joke that pleased and flattered, while relieving the doxy of both her grip and her hopes. They let him go on with a sigh.
Dagonet did not fool himself for a moment, however, that he would stand a chance should the mood of these denizens change. He would rather face a dozen of Boney’s soldiers than a London mob out for blood.
* * * *
Catherine sat silently in the attic room and contemplated her fate. It did no good now, of course, to wish she had not done something so impetuous. How could she have been so naive? It had seemed so simple an adventure when she had placed the advertisement. She was more convinced than ever that John Catchpole had something to tell and something to hide, but whatever chance there had been to discover it was ruined now.
Meanwhile, she was well and truly trapped, and she dreaded to discover what the ruffians in this terrifying house planned to do with her. The candle had burned almost to a stub, when a slight sound at the window made her spin around. She sprung to her feet. A man sat nonchalantly on the windowsill. His clothes were mired in soot and his shirt lay open at the neck, but there was no mistaking that air of insolence with which he was contemplating her.
“As you see, ma’am, I once again must visit you by way of the roof. Forgive my appearance, I pray. I was forced to use my cravat as a rope to allow me to drop onto the exceedingly narrow windowsill of your prison. I am, however, much indebted to you for again leaving the window open.”
“Dagonet! How did you get here, sir?” Her heart was pounding so hard she felt giddy.
He stepped into the room. “I believe I have more claim to ask that question of you: How dare you come here and place yourself in danger?”
Her chin went up, though her legs were shaking. “There has been enough of deceit and mystery, I believe. Too many people have suffered already. I came to talk with John Catchpole.”
“You have absolutely no right at all,” he replied coldly, “to interfere in my affairs. If I did seduce and murder a kitchen wench seven years ago, it is no earthly concern of yours. I am quite capable of investigating my own sordid history for myself.”
“Then without much success,” Catherine replied. “I, at least, have met and talked with Mr. Catchpole, which seems to be more than you were able to achieve.”
“And have, no doubt, caused him to bolt. What did you learn, I wonder? Anything?”
Catherine was silenced. She had never seen him like this before.
His eyes were as icy as a northern sea in winter. “Having spent the best part of the last several weeks discovering the existence of this house and carefully stalking my quarry so that he should not be alarmed, I find the trap sprung and the game gone. Even if I so wished, I don’t have the luxury of pursuing him, since I have you on my hands. The house is well guarded, and though I came in from the roof we cannot return that way. A distance I was able to drop to the windowsill is still more, I fear, than either of us can jump back up.”
“You have no need to rescue me, sir. I am certain I shall shortly be returned unharmed to Brooke House.” Since this was very far from what she was certain of, Catherine’s voice may have lacked a certain conviction, but it did not lack for emotion. For some unaccountable reason she was now very angry. How could he be so impossible? “Mr. Catchpole assured me of it himself.”
“Did he?” Dagonet raised an eyebrow in that infuriatingly insolent manner. “I very much doubt it. Nevertheless, however much you deserve to be left to your unkind fate, I owe more to Lord Brooke than to leave his wife’s sister unattended in Whitechapel. Thus, however unwelcome it may be to you, ma’am, I intend to remove you from this house. We shall have to leave through the door since, as I have explained, there is no other exit. So if you would be kind enough to rattle at the knob and call out in a distressed way, we shall endeavor to enlist your charming captors in our escape attempt.”
There was no more to be said. Catherine did as she was bid, hammering and screaming at the door. Before long, nailed boots could be heard ascending the stairs.
“What’s the racket for? Shut your trap in there!”
“I shall throw myself from the window,” Catherine cried. “You cannot stop me!”
Instantly the key turned in the lock and the door was thrust open. As a large ruffian burst into the room, Dagonet, who had placed himself behind the opening, gave the man a single blow to the back of the neck which felled him like a tree.
“Well done, Miss Hunter! First move to us. Knight takes rook.”
Dagonet seized Catherine by the hand and began to lead her down the narrow stair. Voices could be heard at the bottom of the passage. Dagonet paused for a moment to thrust Catherine firmly behind him, but she was able to see past his shoulder.
Two men clad in heavy wool coats were crouched over a card table in the room where the fat woman had stolen her money. The mob cap, however, was nowhere to be seen. There was another door at the far side of the room which stood partly ajar.
In absolute silence Dagonet took a pistol from his pocket. Catherine suppressed a gasp. Surely he wouldn’t risk firing the gun and bringing in the entire neighborhood? She grasped his sleeve, but he shook her off with a smile. She bit her lip as he unloaded a bullet from the chamber. Taking careful aim he threw the lead pellet against the door on the other side of the room. It swung open a little more and the bullet rattled into the room behind. The men leapt up from their cards and ran over to investigate.
Pulling Catherine by the hand, Dagonet crossed the now empty room. It was the work of a moment to open the beaten front door, enter the final passage, and emerge into the night.
“Second move! Knight takes two bishops,” he said quietly.
“Countermove,” Catherine replied urgently. “Red Queen threatens checkmate.”
Rapidly approaching them was the large form of a woman in a gray cap and dirt-stained apron. As Catherine tried to step deeper into the shadows, the woman saw her and let up a screech.
“Jenkins! Mullet! The girl’s getting away.”
There was the sound of nailed boots thudding down the stairs as Dagonet and Catherine took off running up the street, the fellows in the woolen coats in hot pursuit. In a matter of minutes, they had momentarily outrun the hounds, who were both heavier and older, but Dagonet suddenly pulled up.
“Damnation! We’re into a blind alley. Checkmate in two moves.”
Sure enough, the last turn they had taken had put them into a short entry passage for the doors to various questionable residences, from some of which the sound of drunken singing welled out into the night. Unlike many of the lanes through which they had come, it was well lit with smoking lanterns. A throng of merrymakers, including several inebriated gentlemen who rubbed careless shoulders with pickpockets and footpads, staggered over the cobbles. The light shone down on them all indiscriminately. If their pursuers looked down into the passage, they would certainly be discovered.
At that moment, a doorway opened and a girl stepped out. Her hair was a lurid bronze above her scarlet cloak, and the eyes that raked over Catherine were blurred with drink.
Dagonet caught her around the waist and she smiled up at him. “Here, darling,” he said. “This lady has taken a sudden shine to that pretty cloak of yours, but this will buy you twenty just as good.”
At the glint of gold, the woman stripped off her cloak willingly enough, before she reeled away into the street.
In another moment, Dagonet had flung the cloak around Catherine’s shoulders, and running his hands over her hair sent a shower of hair pins into the gutter.
“White Queen blocks check.” He laughed as her hair cascaded over her shoulders, completing her disguise. “You look like a perfect hussy.”
And with that he pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her ruthlessly on the lips. Her spine melted into butter.
As the ruffians arrived panting in the opening to the passage, all they could see was a crowd of drunkards and a gentleman entertaining himself with a local doxy. With a curse, they turned and went thudding away up the street.
As Dagonet released her, Catherine stumbled against him. Her eyes were blind with angry tears. Not because he had kissed her, but because she couldn’t keep herself from responding. How many women had fallen prey to that practiced embrace?
Gentle fingers wiped the tears away from her cheek. “Forgive me, sweet Kate. A simple ruse. Even I could not fight off our pursuers should their local friends flock to their aid.”
“Then a pretense would have been sufficient, sir!” Catherine snapped.
The laughter died from his eyes. He gave her a short bow. “Of course, I offer you my most humble apologies. However, perhaps we could postpone our quarrel until a little later? We are not yet out of the woods.”
Taking her again by the hand he led her out of the alley into the maze of streets. It had begun to drizzle. They ran together through a labyrinth of stone and brick, more than once slipping up and down flights of steps that ran in and out of filthy courtyards.
They had just passed through one of these when a muffled shape stepped from the shadows and a nail-studded cudgel whistled within inches of Dagonet’s shoulder. He whirled Catherine up against the wall and with a deadly whisper his sword sprung from its cane.
“You’ll have to aim better than that, my friend,” Dagonet said calmly. “Come, try again! You mean to gain my purse, perhaps, but you’ll have to sweat a little for the honor. This blade is an old companion.”
Catherine flattened herself against the wall, then saw to her horror another man springing toward them. As Dagonet fought off the first attacker, the second pulled a pistol from his pocket and took aim. Without hesitation, she picked up a loose cobble from the street and flung it with all her might. As it thudded into the man’s shoulder, the pistol shot flew wild.
Dagonet laughed aloud. “‘Fair maid, is’t thou wilt do these wondrous feats?’” he quoted lightly.
There was a flash of the blade and the first attacker’s belt was severed. As his trousers collapsed around his ankles, he tripped and went sprawling on the filthy stones. A quick blow from the cane and the man lay insensible.
Dagonet turned to face the second footpad. His breathing was barely disturbed, except by his laughter. “You don’t return my quote, Kate? Doesn’t Joan reply:
‘My courage try by combat if thou dar’st’
?”
“ . . ‘And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.’” Catherine felt a little unhinged, but the quote came easily enough to memory. “‘Resolve on this, — thou shalt be fortunate if thou receive me for thy warlike mate.’ King Henry VI, First Part? Oh God! Look out!”
The pistol had been raised again within three feet of Dagonet’s chest, but it suddenly flew from the ruffian’s hand and clattered to the ground. The man swore and raised his cut hand to his lip. As Dagonet presented the blade again, he spun around and took to his heels.
With a grin, Dagonet turned to Catherine. “You look like an Amazon, dear Kate. Would you be able to swing that ferocious weapon, do you think?”
Catherine looked with amazement at the cudgel in her hand. She did not remember picking it up. Instantly she dropped it.
“Saint Joan might have done. But I really don’t know, sir.” Her breath was coming in gasps, and she laughed. “I am not used to warfare. Don’t rely on me for a ‘warlike mate.’”
“You think I could not win such a partner?” His tone was perfectly serious, but he raised an eyebrow, and his eyes were like deep pools.
“You would receive nothing from Joan of Arc, sir. She goes on to say she
‘will not yield to any rites of love’
. Your quote may be better chosen than you know.”
“Checkmate, Miss Hunter.” He sheathed the sword and gave her a self-deprecating grin. “You are impervious to all my deadly charm and poetry. Now, let us get out of this stinking hell.”
If only it were true,
she thought ruefully, as she followed him around two more corners. There stood a horse and cab, patiently waiting by the curb. In a moment, they were trotting away and Whitechapel was left behind.
They did not, however, pull up before Brooke House in Grosvenor Square. Instead Dagonet led her into an unknown hallway and up to what had to be his own rooms.
“Where are you taking me, sir?” she asked stiffly. “I would prefer to be returned to my sister.”
“I think not, sweet Kate. You have not seen yourself, and Lady Brooke’s butler was starchy enough when I appeared at the door in the guise of an elegant gentleman. I do not think that at present he would suffer me to escort you into the hall.”
It was true. They were both mired from head to foot. The hem of Catherine’s gown was torn where she had caught it with her heel or on a nail, and it was thick with a crust of muck. Her damp hair curled in abandon around her face, and she had somehow cut her hand, perhaps on some projecting piece of masonry. She had not noticed it at the time.
Dagonet was equally besmirched, and his cravat, of course, had been left hanging from the rotten gutter of a house in Whitechapel. For the first time, Catherine recalled that yawning chasm below the window where she had been imprisoned. She shivered. Where had he found the courage to attempt to drop from the roof onto that minute windowsill? Had he no care at all for his own life?