The Winter Rose (53 page)

"I said get out."

"Bugger off, Freddie, will you?"

Freddie was across the room in a few quick strides. He hauled George
off the bed and threw him through the doorway. The girl followed,
clutching the sides of her blouse together. Freddie locked the door
behind them, then sat down on his bed and stared at the wall. The Red
Earl stared back.

There was a knock on the door, then pounding. His friends called his
name, one after another. The redheaded dancer wheedled prettily, but he
did not respond. He just sat motionless, staring at the painting. The
clock struck midnight. Then one. The music stopped playing. The voices
faded. And still Freddie sat.

In the dim, flickering lamplight, he had never looked more like his
an-cestor. There had been humor in his face, a readiness to smile, some
small shred of humanity. Now there was only a ruthless resolve.

When did you change, Freddie? India had asked, tears in her eyes.

When did I? he wondered. After my father? After Hugh?

He had deceived her cruelly. India. One of his oldest friends. The
girl who had cried for him one summer's day on the banks of a pond at
Black-wood. The only person who had ever cried for him. He had lied to
her, ma-nipulated her, bartered for her. He had cost her her livelihood,
her dreams of a clinic. He had killed two men whom she had loved
dearly. All in the hope of obtaining her money.

With Wish, Hugh, even with his father, Freddie had felt grief and
remorse over what he had done. Now he felt nothing. Nothing except a
cu-rious freedom. Once things like love, compassion, and conscience had
limited him. Now he knew that nothing would. Nothing could. Ever again.

He heard the earl's voice again: Would'st be king? First rip out thine own heart ...

No, he thought. You were wrong. First rip out someone else's heart.
Someone innocent and good. After that, everything else will be easy.

He pressed his palm to his chest.

He looked at the man in the painting.

"Done, old boy," he said. "At last."

The ancient hackney cab Fiona Bristow was riding in slowed to a halt.
"No, not here," she told the driver, leaning forward in her seat.
"Further up."

"Aye, missus, I know where the Bark is, but this is as far as I go."

"But we're still a good half mile away!"

The driver shrugged. "I'm happy to take you back west, but if you want to go down the Bark, you're walking from here."

"I'll pay you double the fare. Triple."

The cabbie snorted. "You don't have money enough to get me down there. Now, are we turning 'round or are you getting out?"

Fiona angrily slapped coins into the man's hand, opened the cab's
door, and stepped down onto the Ratcliff Highway, a dangerous stretch of
road lined with tumbledown pubs, cheap lodging houses, and chandlers'
shops. A lone gas lamp sputtered a few feet away, illuminating a wan
child scurrying out of a pub with a jar of gin, and a man carrying a
basket of rats. The cabbie cracked his whip. He urged his horse on,
rounded a corner, and was gone. Fiona stood where he'd left her, biting
her lip, until a man ap-proached her, hands behind his back, asking the
time.

"Sorry, I've no watch," she said, setting off before he got too close. "Stu-pid!" she hissed at herself.

She'd purposely dressed down, choosing an old skirt and mismatched
cotton jacket. She'd worn her hair as she had when she was a girl,
coiled and pinned. And yet she'd still managed to call attention to
herself, and that was a bad idea in Limehouse.

Go back, a voice inside urged as she hurried down the street. Now. While you still have a choice.

Fiona ignored it. There was no choice. Not for her. There never had
been. She'd known this day would come ever since she discovered her
brother was alive.

Charlie was hers. Hers. He belongs with me, with us, she said to
herself. He doesn't belong here, to these streets, these people, this
life. He belongs in our home. At our table. At every Sunday dinner. She
thought of all the things Charlie had never known. The years in New York
that she and Seamie had had with Michael and Mary Finnegan. Reuniting
with Uncle Roddy. Watching Seamie grow up. Standing beside her on the
day she mar-ried Joe. Welcoming Katie. They had been taken from him,
these things, because he had been taken from them. But she was going to
get him back. Somehow, she was going to get him back.

Fiona followed the highway until it turned into Narrow Street. She
could feel the river's damp breath on her skin, hear the mournful
clanging of the buoys. The walk down unfamiliar streets that were pitted
and pocked would have challenged anyone, never mind a woman who was
five months' pregnant, but Fiona persisted. Charlie was in danger--grave
danger.

Freddie Lytton was on the warpath. He was suddenly everywhere, doing
everything, all at once. Determined to hold on to the Tower Hamlets
seat, he had been visiting soup kitchens, the docks, and Whitechapel
pubs, shaking hands and kissing babies. He'd renewed his call for a
crackdown on crime north and south of the river. Police sweeps were
picking up beg-gars, vagrants, even truant children, and herding them
into jail cells already overflowing with thieves, ponces, and murderers.
Police officers had al-ready ransacked both the Taj and the Barkentine.
Fiona knew this because it was in all the papers.

She had paid a discreet visit to Michael Bennett earlier in the day
to find out what he knew. He'd told her that two days ago Lytton had
person-ally walked into every police station in his constituency--and a
few that were not--promising advancement to the man who helped him nab
Sid Malone. Every newly minted constable looking to make rank, and every
sergeant looking for a desk job at the Home office, was beating the
streets, leaning on informers, trying to get something--anything--on
Malone.

Fiona had left Bennett's office distraught. She'd decided then and
there that she must find Charlie immediately. Tonight. Joe was in Leeds
on busi-ness and wasn't due back until tomorrow. She knew his feelings
about her brother, and felt tremendous guilt over what she was about to
do, but Joe didn't understand: Charlie was family. As much a part of her
as he himself was, and Katie, and the new baby sleeping under her
heart.

As Fiona continued east, the gas lamps grew sparser and the ruts and
potholes more plentiful. She picked her way carefully down the street,
frightened of stumbling or wrenching her ankle, protective of her unborn
child. She had tried to find her brother at the Taj, but had had no
success. She'd also tried Ko's--Bennett had told her Charlie often put
in an appearance there--but had had no luck there, either. Bennett had
warned her away from the Bark, saying that unfamiliar faces were not
welcome there, but Fiona had assumed he'd meant male faces. She couldn't
imagine any of Charlie's crew, hard men all, would find a woman
threatening. She planned to find the publican and ask him to tell
Charlie that she was there. She was certain he'd see her. She wouldn't
leave until he did.

She was only about twenty yards from the Bark when she heard the
footsteps. Someone was following her; she was sure of it. She could see
the pub and knew that she'd be all right if she could only make it
there. She picked up her pace.

"Oi! Oi, missus," came a voice. "Wait!"

She didn't wait. She broke into a run, but it was too late. A hand closed on her arm, jerking her to a stop.

"Where's your manners, missus?" a rough voice said, spinning her
around. "Didn't you hear us calling? We was trying to make your
acquaintance."

"Let go of me!" Fiona said, trying to pry the fingers off her arm.
They belonged to a heavyset man. A lad of no more than sixteen was with
him.

"I'll have that," the man said, catching her left hand and pulling
her wedding ring off her finger. He thrust his filthy hand into her
skirt pocket, searching for money. Then he moved his hand inside the
pocket, groping between her legs.

"Stop it!" she cried.

The man leered. "You're a pretty one, ain't you?" He pushed her
against the wall of a dark, crumbling wharf and kissed her. His hands
traveled over her breasts.

Fiona wrenched her face away, sickened and terrified.

The man turned to his companion. "Billy, go on in without me," he
said. "Me and me new friend here are going to take a little stroll."

"Please!" Fiona screamed after the boy. "I'm pregnant. For God's sake, help me!"

Billy hesitated.

"Get out of here!" the other man shouted. Billy did as he was told, slinking off, head down.

Fiona screamed as loudly as she could, desperately hoping someone
would hear her. The man slapped her. He grabbed her arm, twisting it
behind her back until she cried out. "Any more noise and you'll get
worse. Understand?"

"Please, please let me go," she sobbed. "For decency's sake."

"Never heard of her," the man said. "Move," he ordered, pushing Fiona
toward a flight of wooden steps that hugged the Bark and led down to
the water.

Fiona walked, her legs trembling. Don't anger him, she told herself. Don't provoke him. He'd hit her once; he'd do it again.

Halfway down the rickety wooden steps, she stumbled. The man jerked
her upright by her twisted arm, sending another jolt of pain through her
body. She cried out again. The man fumbled in his pocket. He took out a
filthy handkerchief and gagged her.

Fiona's mind was racing, searching for a way out. Nobody knew where
she was. He could do anything to her and no one would know. Her free
hand slipped down protectively to her belly. No matter what, she had to
survive. She had to make sure her baby survived.

She reached the end of the stairs, stepped down into the mud, and
stopped. Still holding her arm, the man pushed her toward an old stone
building that seemed to be sinking into the mud. She realized it was the
Barkentine. He walked her to a narrow door at the far end of the
building, opened it, and dragged her in after him. It was dark inside.
He fumbled in his pocket. She heard him strike a match and then a
lantern hanging on the wall over her head was glowing.

With one swift, brutal motion, he tore open her jacket and blouse and
then his hands were on her, all over her. Fiona wanted to scream with
revulsion. She looked around as quickly as she could. She saw old,
moldering barrels, coils of rope, a shovel, and in the far corner a
flight of stairs. They led to the upper floors of the Bark, she was sure
of it. If only she could get to them.

The man turned her around roughly and bent her over a beer barrel.
She could feel the barrel's rim pressing into her belly. She tried to
beg for her baby, but her words were muffled by the gag. The man held
her wrists with one hand and lifted her skirts with the other. He tore
off her knickers, then kicked her legs apart. Hot tears scalded her
cheeks.

I'm sorry ...I'm sorry ... she sobbed wildly, thinking of her baby, of Katie, of Joe, but it was too late now.

The man unbuttoned his fly and pulled at himself, grunting. Fiona
felt him against her. There was a sudden stamp of feet above them and
the braying of an accordion. A mighty thump rattled the door at the top
of the stairs. The man raised his head and glared at the ceiling, his
small eyes nar-rowing. He grabbed Fiona's wrist and dragged her to the
middle of the room. With her free hand she tugged at the gag, trying to
pull it off, but he had knotted it tightly. Her fingers went to the
knot, scrabbling at it.

The man bent down, grabbed an iron ring in the floor, and pulled. A
trap-door opened. The lantern's flame cast just enough light for Fiona
to see the top of a set of iron steps leading down into a deep black
tunnel.

"Go on. Get down there," he said, motioning to the steps.

Fiona knew if she went into that tunnel she would never come back
out. He would rape her and when he was finished he would kill her. She
thought of her daughter, and her husband, of never seeing them again,
and then she lunged at the man, clawing at his eyes.

He fell backward and hit the floor hard, surprised by the suddenness
of her attack. Fiona fell with him, but his body broke her fall. She
quickly scrambled away, stood up, and used both hands to tear at the
gag. She got it loose, tossed it away, and ran for the staircase. The
man saw her and sprang to his feet, blocking her.

He nearly caught hold of her again but she was too quick for him. She
backed away, opened her mouth, and screamed, "Help! Help me! Please,
somebody!"

She stopped, waiting for the sound of footsteps, of voices. But there
was nothing, only more raucous laughter, music, feet pounding out a
hornpipe on the floorboards. No one was coming, no one would help her.

The man eyed her menacingly. "I'm not playing games. Get down those steps."

She screamed again and again, in fear, in an agony of remorse, in
sor-row. And then, wondrously, the door at the top of the stairs opened.

"Help me! Please!" she shouted.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairway, and then a male voice, deeply Cockney, bellowed, "What's going on down here?"

A young man emerged from the stairwell into the dim light. He was
thin and rangy-looking and Fiona was immediately afraid of him. She
tried to run past him and up the stairs, but he grabbed her wrist.

"Hold on a mo', missus," he said. "What happened?"

"Please let me go," she sobbed, terrifled and hurting.

"In good time. I asked you what happened."

"He...he grabbed me in the street. He robbed me and then he... he forced me to--"

"Is that you, Frankie?" the man quickly cut in. "We was just havin' a bit of fun, that's all."

Frankie squinted at him, then said, "Well, if it ain't Ollie the
nonce. Out of prison already?" His eyes went back to Fiona, taking in
her ripped clothing, the marks on her face. "What's the matter, Olls?
Can't find any kiddies to diddle?"