by C. J. Archer
“Uh…” She blinked rapidly. “I suppose so.” Her gaze flicked to Rafe then away. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“So soon? Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes, Lizzy, don’t worry.” James smiled but it looked like it took a lot of effort. Rafe remembered a boy who smiled all the time despite having a prick for a father. The sight of this thin, empty lad had taken him by surprise. Thank God Rafe had returned when he did. Not that he could do much for James, yet, but he could at least take the burden of Lizzy and her parents off his hands.
“Your good coat needed patching last time I saw it,” Lizzy said, frowning. “Did you repair it? And what about boots? You’ll need sturdy boots.”
“Lizzy,” James said. “Stop fretting, I have everything I need.” He sounded edgy, irritated. Rafe could have thumped him. Did he know how lucky he was to have someone like Lizzy? Someone to care enough to ask if he had the right clothing despite the burden of her own problems?
“You’d better go,” James said. “Your parents will be getting worried. When I return, we’ll discuss what to do next. You’ll know how long the troupe will be able to continue by then.”
She rose and gave Rafe a brief nod.
He stood and nodded back. “Let me know if the Gripp fellow causes you any problems.”
“Please, don’t concern yourself with Walter Gripp,” she said in a soft voice. “Style will take care of everything.”
His offer to kill Gripp had been meant as a jest but she must have taken him seriously. Yet she didn’t know what he used to do for a living right up until a few days ago. She couldn’t know. He hadn’t even told James.
Rafe left them alone as his brother walked her to the door. He couldn’t imagine James kissing her good-bye or whispering lovers’ words in her ear. Indeed, they displayed none of the symptoms of a young couple in love. There were no longing gazes, no stolen touches, no intimacy at all.
“That was some very fast thinking you did just now,” Rafe said when James returned. “She seemed to believe you.”
James flopped onto the chair where Lizzy had been sitting. “I hate lying to her.”
“Then you shouldn’t do it. A lie’s not a good base to build a friendship on, let alone a marriage.”
“We’re not getting married yet! Anyway, what would you know?” He sighed. “Lizzy can’t get me a job at the tiring house. You heard her. I’m going to prison, after all, so I had to think of something to explain my absence. You don’t mind looking after her while I’m away, do you?”
“Of course not. I’ll need something to do.”
“Thank you. That’s one less burden at least.”
“Come now, we need to eat,” Rafe said. “Is that cookshop still down in Thames Street, the one with the good pies?”
“I can’t afford a pie. I can’t even afford the crust.”
“I’m buying.” He held up his hand when James protested. “I have enough money.”
“Save it. You’ll need it to live on until your new job starts.”
“If you think I don’t know how to feed myself without money, then you don’t know me at all.”
James looked up at him from behind the ragged strands of his hair. “You’d steal?”
“If the alternative was to starve, yes.” He slapped James on the shoulder. “If I’d been around these last few years, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into this mess. The least I can do is buy you a pie so you can enjoy your last meal as a free man.”
James buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly. “I can’t believe it’s come to this. You will get me out, Rafe, won’t you?”
“I will. I promise. If I can’t get an advance from Lord Liddicoat, I’ll ask your creditors to accept an arrangement for when I do get paid. They’d be fools not to accept it.”
James’s smile was grim. “Thank you, Rafe. I mean it. I’ll pay you back when I can.”
“I know you will.” He gripped his brother’s arm and hoisted him out of the chair. “Let’s go get that pie before I die of hunger.”
On busy Gracechurch Street, shops were shutting for the day and people hurried home or into the nearby Swan Inn. Years ago Rafe had been to a performance put on in the inn’s yard by Lizzy’s theatre company back before they moved to the Rose. He’d enjoyed it. Perhaps he’d go see another of their productions in the big playhouse across the river when he could afford the entry fee.
That’s if Lizzy’s company was still operating.
“Why does this Gripp fellow have so much power over Lizzy’s theatre company?” he asked.
“It’s not her company.”
They dodged the carts and wagons rolling along Gracechurch Street, and made their way down to Thames Street where the cookshops did brisk trade with dockworkers and sailors hungry for pies and fruit tarts. Rafe followed the smell of smoke and roasting meat to his favorite cookshop, paid the keeper, and handed a capon pie to his brother. They ate outside in silence as London passed them by and the sun sank lower.
Rafe had forgotten how alive the city could be, even at dusk. It throbbed with enterprise from the docks right up to its heart at the junction of Three Needle, Cornhill, and Lombard Streets. Years ago, he’d wanted to get out. The constant hum of tens of thousands of people living almost on top of each other had felt suffocating, especially trapped as he was with his stepfather. The house had been a dead, cold heart in a city that was too busy to notice.
But now London felt alive and free, not cloying, and the house was full of memories of James and their mother and few of his stepfather.
“Thank you,” James said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve.
Rafe nodded. “It was a good pie. I haven’t eaten one like that since I left London.”
“I don’t mean just the pie.” James stared off down the street, his eyes unfocused. “I mean for taking care of the Crofts. They need me.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. “She needs me. Lizzy’s parents aren’t good company for her these days. Poor old Croft can hardly see and his wife’s feeble. Perhaps I should have agreed to marry Lizzy.”
“It wouldn’t be right with the debts hanging over your head. You did the most honorable thing in delaying her, although you should have told her why you couldn’t wed yet.”
James’s only reaction was to sigh.
“I’m not sure what I can do to help her,” Rafe said, steering the conversation away from marriage. “How am I supposed to look after her when she won’t even talk to me?”
“She will. Give her time. She just needs to get to know you. It can take her a while to feel comfortable around strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger.”
“You might as well be. What do you think of her, anyway?”
“I liked her.” She seemed gentle and good, just as James had described her. What he hadn’t described were her big eyes and tiny waist which emphasized the curves of hip and breast. Nor had he mentioned her lips. They were made for—
Whoa. She was his brother’s intended. Lizzy Croft was not available to fulfill Rafe’s fantasies.
Fortunately there were many other women who were. London was full of curvy young women. He watched one of them walk past, her swaying walk emphasizing those curves.
“You’re lucky to be betrothed to such a girl as that,” Rafe said. “I mean, such a girl as Lizzy.” He glanced at James but his brother didn’t seem to have noticed the woman or Rafe’s distraction.
“We’re not betrothed,” he said absently, almost as if he’d said it so many times it just slipped out.
“But you have an understanding.”
“She’s my very great friend. We’re meant to be together.”
Rafe watched his brother closely. He was wrong. James’s head might be turned to Rafe but his gaze, half-hidden beneath lowered lids, followed the woman down the street. “I see,” Rafe said slowly. “Glad to hear it.”
James frowned. “Oh? Why?”
> “She’s a nice girl, not the sort you can dangle your wick into then leave.”
“Don’t be such a barbarian. Of course she’s not like that. Anyway, what would you know? You’re nearly thirty. You should be settled by now with your own nice girl.”
“I’ve been busy earning a living.”
“Huh. Some way to earn it. A mercenary for hire, offering your services to the highest bidder, whoever that might be. No allegiance to any man or country.”
Lucky he didn’t know that Rafe had been working with a more elite group, a far more dangerous and less reputable band than the mercenaries he’d first joined seven years ago. There was already enough disdain in James’s tone, there was no need to fuel it by telling him he was an assassin.
“I’ll wager you killed people too,” James said, looking at Rafe sideways.
“Never Englishmen.” He tried to make it sound like a joke. It wasn’t. He was, however, lying about the Englishmen. He’d killed one only a week ago.
James threw up his hands. “Then don’t go around offering to do it!”
“Do you think this Gripp fellow will cause her any problems?”
“I don’t know.” James threw up his hands. “If she says he will then he will. But I can’t think about her problems right now. I have enough of my own.” He stalked off across the road, not looking left or right. The traffic had lessened and he made it safely to the other side of Thames Street but Rafe still caught him roughly by the arm and pulled him to a stop. James winced. “Leave me alone.”
Rafe let go. “I’m going for a walk.”
He strode down a lane so narrow, the upper levels of the buildings lining both sides jutted out so far they almost met overhead. Reach through the window on the third story of one and a man could shake the hand of someone standing at the window of the opposite house. The canopy blocked out what little daylight remained and darkness swallowed Rafe. He stilled, waited for his eyes to adjust, then walked off.
Someone followed him. Not James, the footsteps were too heavy. It could be a stranger with business in the street but he braced himself anyway and felt for the rapier hilt at his hip.
“No need for that,” came a light, familiar voice behind him, “unless you want me to run you through in self-defense.”
Rafe laughed and let go of the sword. “I’d like to see you try.” He turned and gripped his patron’s arm in a sturdy, friendly shake. No, not his patron. Not anymore.
“Ho, ho! Sounds like a challenge I’d like to take you up on. Shall we make a wager?” Lord Oxley asked. His white teeth flashed in the dark. “I win and you come back to us. You win and you still come back.”
Rafe grinned, shook his head. “Not today.”
“Coward.”
“I’m not returning, Hughe.”
Hughe St. Alban, the earl of Oxley, gripped Rafe’s shoulder and urged him to walk on. Rafe had no choice but to move forward. Despite appearances, Hughe was not a man easily shaken off. He was as tall and broad in the shoulders as Rafe and every part of him was packed with muscle, but he hid his physique well beneath a bombasted and heavily brocaded silk doublet. When at court or entertaining at his estate, he was a ridiculous sight, singing drunkenly late at night or shouting poetry from the landing.
To anyone who didn’t know him, he was an affected, gallant courtier. To anyone who truly did know him—and their number could be counted on one hand—he was a ruthless and highly capable killer. If Rafe wanted to get away from him, he would have a fight on his hands.
“What the devil are you doing strolling down a narrow, dark lane on your own?” Hughe asked with a click of his tongue. “Have you lost your wits already?”
“No one’s after me now,” Rafe said. “I’m not part of the guild anymore.”
“Doesn’t mean you should forget your training.” His grip tightened, halting Rafe. “Doesn’t mean people don’t want you dead.”
“No one alive knows I was part of your band except you and the others,” he said, voice low. “Barker is gone. I got to him before he could sell our names.”
Hughe’s grip became bruising. “We need to talk. But not here.” His ominous tone put Rafe on edge.
He nodded and Hughe let go. They walked side by side in silence until they reached the Old Swan waterstairs in the shadow of the bridge. The river was quiet, most of the watermen having tied up their wherries for the evening and gone home or to a tavern. On the other side of the bridge the larger ocean ships crowded together near the legal quays like giant swans keeping each other company.
Water lapped gently against the jetty’s posts beneath where they sat. From there they could see in all directions and could escape into the river if necessary.
It wouldn’t be necessary. As far as the world knew, they were simply a nobleman and a journeyman having a conversation in the fading light. Why Hughe had insisted on such a spot, Rafe didn’t know. But Hughe was like that. Despite outward appearances, he was always alert, always careful, always thinking like the leader of a band of assassins.
But something was wrong. Perhaps more than anyone alive, Rafe knew Hughe well enough to know that. After leaving England and joining a mercenary force on the Continent, Rafe had spiraled down a destructive path of needless violence. Hughe had pulled him out of it. He retrained Rafe, taught him control, showed him friendship until Rafe learned to focus his anger on others more deserving than his stepfather. In time, he had come to appreciate life again. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him—he was employed to end the lives of others.
“How’s your new beginning?” Hughe asked, voice light once more.
So he wanted to play it like that—find out the lay of the land before stating his business. Rafe could wait. It was all part of the game with Hughe.
Rafe stretched out his legs. “Slightly less dangerous, but not without intrigues of its own.”
“For example?”
“For example, I forgot I retired and offered to kill someone today.”
Hughe chuckled. He stretched his legs alongside Rafe’s and massaged his knee. “Should I be worried about your operating a rival band here in our fair city?”
“No. She turned me down.”
“She? That does sound intriguing. Care to elaborate?”
The image of Lizzy looking up at him with big, scared doe eyes lodged in his mind and he couldn’t shake it off. “There’s nothing to tell. She’s my brother’s…close friend.”
Hughe arched a brow. “A female friend?” he scoffed. “An impossibility.”
“Perhaps. I admit I don’t understand why he hasn’t secured her. He has lettuce leaves for brains.”
“Speaking of your brother, was that him with you outside the cookshop?”
“You’ve been following me that long?” Rafe shouldn’t be surprised. Hughe had a way of going unseen in a crowd, even with such an excessive ruff. “That was James,” he said. “He’s a tailor’s apprentice. Or was.” He sighed. “Got himself into some money problems and he’s off to the Marshalsea tomorrow morning until I can pay off the debts.”
That imperial brow forked higher. “What about your savings?”
Rafe caught his friend’s gaze and held it. “Who said I had savings?”
“You were paid excessively well and never spent more than you needed to. You obviously weren’t sending it back here or your brother wouldn’t have gotten himself into debt, so…where is it?”
Rafe said nothing.
“You gave it away, didn’t you?”
Several beats passed. Neither man so much as twitched a finger.
“To his sister?”
There was no need to mention a name. Rafe knew who he meant. His stomach rolled and his chest tightened like it always did when he thought of John Barker, of what he’d almost done. And of what Rafe had been forced to do to stop him. With Barker dead, his only kin, a young sister, was alone. Rafe had to give her all his savings. He couldn’t live with himself if he’d left her with nothing.
“I
don’t regret giving it to her,” Rafe said. “She no longer has anyone to support her. Will you lend me the money to pay off James’s debts? It’ll be better than relying on Liddicoat to advance my wages.”
“I’ll give you the money. On one condition.”
“Ah. Of course. You want me to return to the guild.”
“Just for one last commission.”
“I don’t know.”
“You are my trusted friend, Rafe. You never let any of us down. Ever,” Hughe said. “Don’t start now.”
Their gazes connected, held. The moment grew long, stretched, and thin. Hughe hadn’t understood why Rafe wanted to leave the guild, hadn’t understood that Rafe couldn’t follow orders anymore, not the sort that forced him to eliminate men he’d once called friend. Yet to save James quickly…
Hell.
“Who’s the target?”
“Barker. He’s still alive.”
CHAPTER 3
“What!” Rafe exploded. “How?”
“Quiet.” Hughe glanced around but there was no one nearby. Night had crept over the city. Lamplight flickered in the windows of the lodgings above the shops on the bridge and on board some of the ships beyond, but their immediate surroundings were dark, still. They would hear someone approaching.
Rafe’s heart felt dead in his chest. “I killed Barker in Cambridge. I can assure you, he’s not alive.”
“I can assure you he is,” Hughe said. “He’s been in contact, making the same old threats to expose us unless we pay him. Did you see the body?”
How could he? Barker had fallen into the Cam River during their fight. Rafe had waited for several minutes, but Barker didn’t come up for air. He’d drowned. Must have.
Unless he’d swum underwater to safety…
Rafe felt like he’d been punched in the throat. He stood and gripped the post until his fingers hurt. “No,” he finally said through his hard breathing. “I didn’t see his body.”
“You have to finish him,” Hughe said flatly.
