by L. C. Sharp
“Not like we did.”
True, he couldn’t deny that. Their mother had considered women particularly vulnerable to sin. And to stop them sinning, she took extreme steps. She’d married his sister to a harsh disciplinarian when she was sixteen, but Ash, involved in his studies, had assumed Silence had agreed to the marriage in order to escape. But two years later, after an abortive attempt to come home, Silence had run away from her husband, and her children.
She regretted the loss of her children every day. Ash knew that because he was the only person in the family who knew where she was and what she was doing.
Except for his wife. Juliana knew.
He returned to his paper, and reading out the account of the events.
“We can only speculate on the magnificence that awaits us when we view the event itself. Even those unfortunate enough to fail to obtain tickets will view the glories of the display. However, they will not have the felicity of enjoying the glorious music.”
“We heard precious little last night,” Juliana said. “But it did enhance the spectacle. The king demanded only martial instruments.”
“No strings,” Amelia observed. “Not martial enough.”
Ash shook the paper. “Hmm. I daresay Handel will add strings into the piece when the king isn’t looking. The old man tends to forget, and Handel likes strings.”
“So do I,” Juliana murmured, and reached for another slice of toast.
While breakfast remained far from the sedate, elegant affair it should be, Juliana’s presence had ameliorated the wildness that had prevailed before her arrival. At first, he and his brother and sister had watched Juliana eat, all carefully ensuring she had enough. Juliana had picked at her food like a bird.
Well, that would not happen under his roof. Juliana had been far too thin, exceeding fashionable slenderness by several pounds. These days she was a more healthy weight, a cozy armful, he supposed, if he was interested in that kind of thing.
With her, he had to admit that he was.
“Would you like to come with me to Bow Street this morning?” Ash asked her.
He got his reward. “Yes, thank you.” But the quiet words belied the sparkle in her eyes, and the bright smile she bestowed on him. She glanced at Gregory. “Your tutor will be arriving in an hour, and I believe Amelia has plans for the still-room.”
Not everyone had a still-room these days, when most things could be bought, but Amelia loved pottering around there. She made spirits like sloe gin, concoctions for them to take when they fell ill, and some noxious substances for cleaning or catching vermin. More a pastime than a necessity, but she loved it.
“Indeed I do,” Amelia confirmed. “But I will not be too busy if Mr. Williams needs my help.” Mr. Williams was Gregory’s tutor, a newly qualified clergyman who had yet to find a parish, but was earning a living teaching the young sprigs of the City of London. Occasionally Gregory shared his lessons with his friend Martin Canham, who lived farther up in the Square.
* * *
“We do not have to go to the duke’s ball if you don’t wish,” he murmured to Juliana. He put down the paper and gave her all his attention. A society ball, her first since their marriage, would no doubt be a strain for her. They had not tucked themselves away like hermits, but they had not attended any full-blown society events.
He could not detect any distress in her face, but she was good at tucking away the emotions she didn’t want anyone to see. “The ball could be the best way of testing the waters,” she said. “While I don’t want to resume my society life, I might want to attend the occasional event.” She gave a small smile. “It’s useful for your business, is it not?”
He supposed it was, and his wife had the entrée to the highest in the land. True, he could attend the duke’s balls, but he wasn’t such a regular member of society that invitations arrived by the ream every morning. “We never concerned ourselves with the duke’s balls before. A mere baronet with a modest living wasn’t the kind of man society mamas wanted for their daughters, and the season is nothing but a great marketplace, as near to Smithfield meat market as could be.”
“But you are no longer looking for a wife. And I’m not in need of a husband.” She laughed. “So I won’t be the center of attention. At least once they have recovered from the novelty of seeing me without face paint, and with you. That will give them scandal enough, but more than that, we will not give them. They might decide to ignore me. They’re unlikely to give us the cut direct, but they could choose to treat me as an interloper, not worthy of their attention.”
Ash would not stand for that. Social ostracism was extremely cruel and often unjustified. “They will not,” he promised. Even if he had to drag them over to greet her himself. “Meanwhile,” he went on, getting to his feet, “we should make haste. Time is getting on.”
Any more, and he’d find himself dragged into a discussion of gowns and fashion.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half hour, followed by the church bells nearby.
Juliana followed his example and stood. “If you’re good and attend to Mr. Williams, Gregory, I’ll ask Cook to make an apple pie.”
“Bribery is good,” Gregory told her. His second plateful of food had gone.
Ash left the room on a laugh.
Chapter Five
Ten minutes later, they were striding through the streets of London in the direction of Bow Street, having left the relative sanctity of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Ash preferred to walk, but he’d been prepared to call for a chair until Juliana said she preferred to walk, too.
He kept silent for the length of two streets, but it was the kind of pleasant, companionable silence that allowed them to observe and be comfortable. Very few women—very few people could enjoy simple quiet. He found Juliana deeply restful in that respect; he never felt compelled to speak for the sake of it. And he appreciated that more than he could say.
They watched urchins darting along the streets, jostling passersby, chairmen running along the road, without regard for anyone else, their burden the most important part of their day. Carriages took corners at breathtaking speeds; other more sedate vehicles attracting the insults and curses of other people on the road, just because of their prosperous appearance. Highbred horses with elegant riders vied with broken-down hacks, and skinny beasts dragged battered carriages.
All life was here, without barriers. Ash loved it all.
His wife watched with the fascinated gaze of someone kept apart all her life until last year. An observer, allowed nothing else. Brought up to consider herself superior by accident of birth. Apart, watching. Now he’d plunged her into reality, and she’d taken to it like a fish to water.
As he’d done, when he’d left the living tomb of his home in the countryside, first to get his degree in law in Oxford, then to study under his father to follow him in the legal profession. Ash had never forgotten that initial shock, mingled with delight, that nobody was watching him, nobody cared. The liberation of that feeling was hard to describe unless one met a fellow soul. He’d done so with Juliana. He’d recognized that eagerness, that joy in watching. It was something that was entirely her.
“Have you heard from your colorful friend?” she asked.
He knew she meant Cutty Jack. She had seen the liveliness in him, straight through to the heart of the man that was Jack. “Not yet, though he will do as I’ve asked him and watch Lady Coddington. He has colleagues, and he’ll give them a few pennies to take over for an hour or two.”
“A positive organization of rogues.” She smiled.
“Indeed. They do their best to make a decent living any way they can.”
“How old is Jack?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt he knows. He was born somewhere, he grew up on the streets. Nobody bothered to mark his birthday. I did ask him how many years he remembered, and for once he was fl
ummoxed. He had no idea, although he knew he was older than fifteen and probably younger than twenty-five.”
“Interesting. How did he know that?”
“He remembers events. No doubt last night will become part of his personal chronology.”
“That’s a long stretch of years. Ten years.”
“His actual age means nothing to him. He knows when he first cut a purse, and when he lay with a woman for the first time.” So freeing not to have to soften his words! “He remembers the death of Queen Caroline and the execution of Lord Lovell. He doesn’t remember the South Sea Bubble, although he recalls people talking about how a bubble destroyed them, which amused him greatly. I think he’s somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one, but we can’t know for sure. And it matters little. It’s remarkable that he’s survived this long.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said as they moved out of the way to allow another sedan chair to pass. “He’s a lively man, to be sure.”
“And very useful.” He could rely on Jack as he could few people.
They passed the old houses in Holborn, rare survivors of the Great Fire, their timbers showing the gray of age, but sturdy enough. One housed a tobacconist’s selling prime snuff, tobacco and fancy pipes, to everyone from dukes to city merchants. Few people under that rank could afford the wares. Although Ash chose not to indulge, he knew most of the mixtures the shop sold, and the various differences. He enjoyed researching that kind of thing. Sometimes that could give him the clue he needed to solve a case, particularly as some men insisted on unique mixtures made up to their specifications.
The scent of lavender mixed with pungent tobacco followed them as they passed the shop. Juliana spared a glance into the window, where a few pretty snuffboxes lay with simpler everyday models. “My father collects those,” she said. “He has one for every day of the week. Every day of the month, come to that. Diamonds and enamel and pretty women in provocative poses pretending to be classical goddesses.”
Ash laughed. “Yes, I know them. All studded with precious jewels. Frivolity at its height, but combined with the kind of workmanship that takes the breath away.”
“One of those could keep your boy Cutty Jack for years.”
“Indeed it could. Except that he’d have to fence it, and the fence makes much more money than he pays out. A snuffbox with diamonds can be stripped down and sold before the owner has missed it.”
They turned a corner. “Speaking of snuffboxes...” Ash murmured, and then he was gone, coat tails flying. He reached a couple of people gossiping in the street, and pushed past them, causing the woman to exclaim, “Really!”
He didn’t look back. Instead, he grabbed an urchin by his collar and dragged him around. “Hand it over,” he said.
“Wot? I dunno wot you’re talkin’ about. Ain’t a chap the right to go walkin’ anymore?”
“Not when that walk includes snaffling half a dozen handkerchiefs and assorted trinkets. Do you want to give them to me?”
He glanced up. A taller child was heading at a brisk pace to the corner of the street. Ash regretted that he couldn’t apprehend both of them. This one would do. “I’m waiting.”
The boy tried an experimental wiggle. It didn’t end well for him.
By this time, Juliana had caught up with him. “You saw this child steal something?”
“Yes I did. The gentleman over there is missing a snuffbox.”
“Oh.”
He liked that she didn’t doubt or contradict him. She spoke to the boy. “You’d better give it to him. He won’t let go until you do, and it’s more likely you’ll spend a night in there.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the magistrate’s court, which dominated this part of Bow Street.
The boy looked up at the soot-stained brick walls. That innocent gaze must have won him the advantage more than once. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Ash said grimly. “Give me what swag you have left, after you handed most of it to the boy who has, regrettably, just left at speed.”
“S’not a boy. It’s a girl.” The boy tried to fold his arms, but when the tightening of his coat threatened to strangle him, he gave up and dropped his arms to his sides.
“So you know her. Hand them over. Come on, I don’t have all morning to spare!”
The creature looked at him, eyes wide, then his gaze traveled to Juliana, who had casually taken her place on the other side of their quarry. “Then what?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” The boy was a drop in the bucket made up of hundreds, if not thousands of people who made their living in nefarious ways. The child was seriously distressed, so by some miracle he hadn’t been hardened yet.
“I don’t have nuffink.”
“Yes you do. You didn’t hand everything over.”
Ash’s behavior hadn’t gone unnoticed. A group of people had gathered at a distance, comfortable enough to watch, but not to help with the boy’s arrest. Ash couldn’t count on the bystanders to stop the child, should Ash be forced to shout, “Stop, thief!”
The boy pulled his hat lower over his forehead, then dipped his hand inside his coat and located an inner pocket. He drew out a brass snuffbox, engraved on the lid. A dent decorated the right side. “I found it,” he said, holding it out. “You can’t nab a bloke for finding lost property.”
“No, you’re right, I can’t. But I saw you take it.” Ash took the box before the boy had second thoughts.
“You must be good, then.” The boy sniffed then wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Got a penny for a poor beggar?”
“I might have.” Ash took a shilling out of his pocket and held it up. When the lad snatched for it, Ash was ready and lifted it out of his reach.
Ash glanced around the spectators, about a dozen of them. Ah yes, the couple he’d pushed his way past were here, watching.
“You’re the same as all of ’em. Temptin’ me an’ then taking it away. All men are the same, and that’s a fact.”
“Is it?” Ash said, brow quirked. “Who’s your master?”
“Nobody.”
Ash saw the flicker in the boy’s eyes when he said that. So the child had a master, did he?
“What’s your name?”
“Col,” the boy snapped back, as fast as Ash had asked him.
“Lemme go, guv’nor, me lord, and I promise I won’t do anything bad ever again. Swear to God.” The lad crossed his chest. He would have bowed again if Ash hadn’t held him up. Very theatrical. Far too much for his taste.
Ash brandished the shilling again. “Your master?”
The boy sucked in a hasty breath. “I don’t know what you mean. I ain’t got no master.”
So the boy would rather face the magistrates than admit he had a master. Interesting. If it weren’t that he had enough on his plate already, he’d have pursued that opening. “Yes you do. But you’ve given me all you’re going to for now, haven’t you? If you want more than this, ask for me at Bow Street. I might find some honest work for you. My name’s Ash.”
“Yes, sir.”
“For that you get five seconds.” He released the boy’s collar and spun the shilling high into the air. “One...two...”
The child snatched the coin out of the air and was off like a rocket, weaving his way through the crowd without losing speed, until he rounded the corner and Ash couldn’t see him anymore.
“Should you have done that?” his wife asked.
Ash tilted his head to one side. “Probably not. He’s bound to do it again. But being caught just might have shocked him into realizing he could be hanged for what he just did. These children think they can get away with thievery. They see it as a game. Their keepers encourage them to do that. He might think again.”
He glanced at her. “He said he had a master. There are plenty of thief-takers and bosses who run these gangs of children. Easier fo
r them to run about in a crowd. I stopped the boy before he reached his receiver after his second run, otherwise we’d have found nothing.”
He gave an affable smile as the couple the boy had jostled approached them. “Ah, good day, sir, madam.” He gave a perfunctory bow. “Sir Elsmore Cadman, I believe?”
“Why, how...” The man smiled back, much broader, which suited his broad face. “The box.”
“Indeed, sir, the box.” With a flourish, Ash held the snuffbox out on the palm of his hand. Sir Elsmore took it. “I don’t see what good an engraved box will do them.”
“Ah, but he didn’t know the box was engraved when he took it. Did he steal anything else?”
Sir Elsmore grimaced. “My handkerchief. I daresay you did not get that back?”
Ash shook his head. “Sadly, no.” Although he could have if he’d wanted to. He was far too kindhearted for his own good, but he’d had a feeling about that boy, a tingling right at the heart of him. He did not rely on his instinct, but sometimes it worked out. Although he firmly believed that what people called instinct was the result of experience. Whatever it was, this lad awoke it in him. He’d see Col again, he was sure of it.
“You gave him a coin,” Lady Cadman accused. She was a stout lady wearing far too many furbelows. And puce was not the right color for her. Ash took little notice of fashion, unless it was waved in his face.
“I thought it might help him turn from the paths of sin,” he said blandly.
“Ah.” The lady had evidently thought he would say something else. She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “How do we know you’re not in league with him?”
“You don’t.” Ash swept off his hat. “But if you have serious doubts about it, ask over there.” He indicated the doors of the magistrates’ court. “Or at the private residence of the magistrates, where my wife and I are bound. The name’s Sir Edmund Ashendon. Good day, sir, madam.”
Urging Juliana to move, he made for the doors. He had no instinctive tingle about those two.
