by C. J. Archer
If Rafe was going to start afresh in London, he needed to be honest. Well, a little bit honest. James wasn’t ready to hear the whole truth of his past. Nor was Lizzy for that matter, or her parents, or anyone. And Rafe was positive he wasn’t ready to tell them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I intended to come in every day, but…something happened.” He glanced at the ogre, who appeared to be sleeping again but Rafe suspected he was trying to listen.
“Something happened!” James echoed. “Something happened? I know what I’m about to say may sound selfish, but…what could possibly be more important than keeping me alive? Finding the right gown to match your eyes?”
James may have been Rafe’s brother but he could have benefited from a thumping to shut up that smart mouth of his. Rafe crooked his finger to get him to lean in close. With total trust, James did as he was told.
“I’m avoiding the authorities,” Rafe said.
“That explains the disguise. So what did you do?” He nodded at the empty basket. “Steal that food?”
“I know how to take food without getting caught. I also know how to kill someone without getting caught. The witness is lying.”
Rafe could see the moment his words sank in. His brother’s jaw went slack and his mouth swung open. “But…you mean…you’re wanted for murder?” He whispered the word, thank God. No reason to let the others know.
Rafe nodded. “I didn’t do it, but someone says I did. I have a suspicion who. When I find him this will all be cleared up.”
James looked at him for a long time. Just looked. Rafe knew what he was thinking—that he really would need to murder someone to clear his name, that someone being Barker.
It did seem like the best way. Perhaps the only way.
“Bloody hell.” James rubbed his stomach and closed his eyes.
“Do you feel sick? You shouldn’t have eaten so fast.”
“No, fool!” James’s eyes snapped open. “I’m worried about you. You can’t come back here, it’s too dangerous.”
Rafe twirled a strand of his dark wig. “Not if I wear this.”
“Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.” He nodded at the other prisoners. “They know who you really are and others might too. How long will it take the authorities to realize I’m in here? They only need to make a few inquiries and they’ll find out. And then how long will it take them to ask my friends over there some questions?”
Rafe had to hand it to him, James was thinking clearly at least. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.”
James clicked his tongue and sighed. He leaned his head back against the wall and Rafe thought the conversation at an end. He was wrong.
“Are you able to get word to Lizzy?” James asked.
“Ye-es,” Rafe hedged. “Why?”
“To tell her I’m in here. She can bring me supplies instead of you.”
“I thought you didn’t want her to know you were here. Your stubborn pride was stopping you, I believe.”
He sighed again. “I give you my permission to tell Lizzy now. There’s no one else.”
How could Rafe put this in a way that his brother would understand? “No.”
“No?” James shrugged, shook his head. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t think we should bother her.”
James’s eyes bulged. “You don’t think we should bother her? Rafe, this isn’t a trivial matter. I need to eat, but you can’t bring me food anymore.”
“I can.”
“And you think I’m the stubborn one.” James blew out a breath. “Rafe, I know I didn’t want her to know about me being in here. I was embarrassed, I admit it. I adore Lizzy. She’s so good, so perfect in every way that I was afraid…” Another sigh. “I was afraid she’d think me worthless, so much so that she’d not want to marry me.”
“You haven’t proposed yet.”
“No-o, but there’s an understanding between us.”
Not the same thing. Not nearly the same. But Rafe held his tongue. Indeed, his tongue suddenly felt thick in his dry mouth. He swallowed twice before he could go on. “If she loves you,” he said, staring down at his hands in his lap, “she wouldn’t care that you made some mistakes and ended up in here.”
“It’s not about love, it’s about respect.”
Rafe blinked at James. “What?”
“I want her to respect me. As well as love me, of course.”
“Of course,” Rafe repeated quietly. “Of course. And she does love you. I’m sure of it.”
He pursed his lips. He must never tell James about the kiss he’d shared with Lizzy. It had been so very, very wrong. The fact that it had felt right made it even worse. “But I’m still not going to tell her.”
James threw up his hands. “Why not? I know I said not to at first, but the situation has changed. You can’t risk your life coming here anymore. And I need to eat.”
“I’ll take care of you. Lizzy doesn’t need the extra worry.”
“Why, what has she got to worry about? She has a nice life working at the tiring house and taking care of her parents in the evening. They’re not demanding people, the Crofts, they’re good folk and don’t put any pressure on her whatsoever.”
Rafe said nothing. The authorities would soon discover he was in the Marshalsea and they would use that knowledge to flush Rafe out. He couldn’t risk Lizzy coming and the only sure way to do that was to not tell her.
“Rafe, listen to me.” James was up on his knees, pleading. “It’s too dangerous for you to come here anymore. Lizzy is the only one.” He blinked rapidly. “I have many acquaintances, but no other true friends. Not ones I can trust.”
Rafe put a hand on his arm. “Don’t fret.” There was nothing else to say. They were going around in circles and it was time for him to leave.
But James wouldn’t stop. “You always take care of me, Rafe. Let me worry about you for once. I want to stop being an extra burden to you.”
Rafe’s heart swelled. He squeezed James’s arm. “You’re not a burden, little brother. Not in the least.”
“Look,” James said with gritted teeth. “I need Lizzy. She makes me feel better about myself.” His voice turned soft. “She’s the best thing in my life. Actually, she’s the only good thing in my life at the moment. I want to see her.” His eyes filled with tears. “I need her, Rafe. I need to speak to her, hear her voice.”
And kiss her again, and hold her until she falls asleep in my arms. But James didn’t say it and the words echoed in Rafe’s suddenly empty head.
“So really, you’ll be doing me a favor by telling her I’m here. She’ll be such a great help. She always gives sage advice. I love her for it.”
“Love.” Rafe’s gut twisted. He blinked, tried to grasp at a thought fleeting through his mind but couldn’t. Thinking had suddenly become like wading through a swamp.
“Watch out!” That was James.
The fist that smacked Rafe in the cheek belonged to the ogre. He hadn’t seen it coming. His head hit the wall behind him and everything went black. If the other man, Briggs, hit him again, Rafe wouldn’t be prepared.
But he didn’t and Rafe’s sight cleared. Briggs extended his hand to help Rafe stand. Rafe took it.
“What did you do that for?” James asked, also standing. “He brought us all food. You should thank him, not hit him.”
“My nose hurts like the devil,” Briggs said with a shrug. He gave Rafe a nod. “We even?”
Rafe nodded back. “Thank you,” he said.
Briggs screwed up his face. “Why?”
For knocking sense back into me. “Never mind. James, I have to go. Take care of yourself.” He gave Briggs a glare. “Any more bruises or cuts on my brother and I’ll kill you next time. Understand?”
The prisoner grunted. “Come back sooner and I won’t feel like hitting someone.”
It was the closest to a promise Rafe was likely to get. He fared James well and left the cell. A few min
utes later he was outside the Marshalsea and heading back up Borough High Street to home.
Every part of him alert, he scanned the road, doorways, and windows of shops and houses for Treece or his constables. And then he saw someone—a hooded and cloaked figure watching him from the other side of the road.
The figure had the same build as Barker, and he’d just seen Rafe leave the Marshalsea.
CHAPTER 12
Lizzy wrapped the beef up in a cloth and returned it to the storeroom with the bread and jug of ale she’d set out for Rafe’s dinner. She didn’t want to waste it. There was little else to do after that so she set about scrubbing the storeroom. Years of dirt had settled into the grooves of the wooden dresser and a patch of mold had taken over the far corner. The work was hard and her back ached by the time she’d finished, yet it didn’t stop her from thinking about Rafe.
Where was he? Why hadn’t he returned? And why did he need to take some of their food with him?
Why had he kept his mission a secret from her?
The niggling thought that he had left her grew into a gnawing fear by the time daylight slipped away. It fought for supremacy with her other fear—that he was hurt and unable to get home. She wasn’t sure which scenario she preferred. She didn’t even know where to start looking for him.
But she could still look. It was better than cleaning.
Rafe was tired of walking and not getting anywhere. He’d crossed the city twice with bloody Barker dogging his every step. The bastard didn’t show his face but Rafe caught glimpses of the hooded figure and he had the same height and build as Barker. Besides, if it had been Treece, a hue and cry would have been raised immediately.
On Thames Street, Rafe decided to end it. He was tired and he wanted to go home. Lizzy would be worried. Hopefully. Was it wrong of him to want her to be concerned?
Probably. All the thoughts he had regarding Lizzy were wrong.
Finally, in an alley behind the Men at Arms Inn, he found the perfect place to flush Barker out. Squeezed between two wide, squat houses was a tall tenement that was narrower at its base than its top so that it looked like a tankard of ale with froth swelling over the rim. Boards covered the ground-level windows, and holes pockmarked the daub plaster. The door unlocked easily. Opposite the house on the other side of the alley stood three barrels, most likely belonging to the Men at Arms. There was nothing else nearby that could be used as a hiding place.
He went inside.
The abandoned building was in worse condition than it appeared from the outside. Half of the ceiling separating the ground and first floors was missing and the jagged broken ends of the other half looked unstable. Rafe climbed the stairs and tested his weight on them. They creaked and made snapping sounds but held.
He glanced down at the door. His pursuer did not enter. Good. Barker was behaving exactly as Rafe expected him to. He climbed back down, sat on the floor, and waited.
When nightfall came, he peered out one of the second-story windows. The street below was dark but he could see the barrels clearly enough, and the space behind. Empty. Whether someone had hidden there during daylight and watched the front door, he could only assume, but there was no other vantage point from which to spy on the house and Barker needed to spy on it. He must have left to alert Treece, in which case it was time for Rafe to go.
Rafe twisted and looked up. The overhanging roof was just close enough for him to catch hold of the edge. Two tiles came away in his hand before he found a good grip. Using the windowsill as leverage, he swung up onto the roof then slid down the steep pitch to the neighboring roof a level below. He landed softly in a tangle of skirts.
Picking them up in one hand, he scrambled to the roof’s apex and slid down the other side. He did the same on top of the next house and the next, silently thanking London’s carpenters for building houses so close together.
By the time he got to the last house, he was sick of clambering about in women’s clothing and decided he’d gone far enough from the abandoned building. He lay flat on his stomach, put one hand to his wig to hold it in place, and leaned over the roof’s edge. One of the shutters on the nearest window was open and, still hanging upside down, he peered inside.
The room was a bedchamber and inside stood a man wearing a shirt and nothing else. He bent over to put a log on the fire and the sight made Rafe wish he’d chosen a different window.
But there was nowhere else to go. He could only return the way he’d come, across the roofs, or jump from a height of three floors to get to the street. Not impossible but broken bones were likely.
In the distance, he could just make out the excited voices of men with the scent of a hunt in their nostrils. Treece’s constables, and hopefully Barker too. The banging of their clubs on posts or walls echoed through the crisp evening air. They were close.
He had to go in.
“Lo,” he called through the open half of the window.
The man farted as he straightened. “Who’s there?” He looked around, squinted, and picked up the candelabra.
“Over at the window,” Rafe said. “I mean you no harm but I need to come inside and go out through the front door.”
The man held the candelabra up to the window. It swayed and so did he. He was drunk. “Good lord! You’re a…a…”
“An ugly wench. I know.” Rafe opened the other shutter and flipped through the window, sliding at the last to get all of his body in. He landed on the rushes, his skirts halfway up his thighs but his wig miraculously still in place.
A pair of knobby knees and hairy legs stood beside him. “You hurt?” the man asked. He offered his hand and Rafe took it to get to his feet.
“No.”
“Huh.” The man belched and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His breath reeked. Definitely drunk.
“Thanks for letting me in.” Rafe gave him a nod and made for the door.
“Wait!”
Rafe waited. Listened. The pursuers’ voices were in the street, laughing and talking over the top of one another. The thrill of the hunt was in them. It could make men wild. He returned to the window and closed the shutters to muffle their sounds. “I must go,” he said.
The man blocked the doorway. He was of middling height and age with a barrel-sized stomach and bulging neck. How those thin legs held him up was a mystery. “Not yet,” he said.
Rafe didn’t want to forcibly move him aside after the man had allowed Rafe to enter his home. “I’m in a hurry.”
The man’s eyebrows rose up then drew together. He squinted. “You have a low voice. And you’re tall. I’ve never seen a woman as tall as you.”
“Nor are you likely to. I’m an oddity.”
The man sighed heavily. “So am I. I have a strange growth.”
“Pardon?”
The man poked the middle of his chest. It wobbled beneath his shirt. “Right here. My wife, God rest her bitter, wretched soul, used to laugh at it.” He shrugged. “So there you have it. What say you?”
“About what?” Rafe cocked his head to the side. It was impossible to determine what was happening in the street but he couldn’t stay any longer. If Treece and his men weren’t in the abandoned house they would be soon and then it would be too late. “Never mind, I must go.” When the man didn’t move, he shoved him gently to the side. The drunk swayed and took a step away from the door.
“Don’t go, gentle lady!” he called after Rafe. “I don’t mind how ugly you are! Truly I don’t. I’ll blow out the candles so we don’t need to look at each other.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Rafe said as he ran down the stairs.
“I’ll pay you!”
“Not enough, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.”
The heavy sigh followed Rafe through the house to the front door. He listened then opened it and ran down the street. He just managed to sink behind the barrels opposite the abandoned house before Treece’s men entered the alley. He watched as they filtered into the house
, clubs in hand. One stayed behind, silhouetted by the moonlight. Rafe knew that tall, solid frame, the longish hair, the cocky stance.
Barker.
Rafe crept out of his hiding place and went silently up behind him.
Not silently enough.
Without warning, Barker spun around and struck out. Rafe ducked and kicked, knocking Barker down. Before he had a chance to recover and call for help, Rafe punched him in the jaw. Barker’s head smacked back against the ground and his eyes fluttered closed. He was out.
Rafe couldn’t kill him or confront him there in the street. He needed to take him somewhere he wouldn’t be seen. If Barker turned up dead, suspicion would immediately fall on Rafe.
Rafe picked him up and hoisted him over his shoulder. There wasn’t much time. The men were already shouting back reports to each other that no one was inside. Rafe ran up the street, down another, up one more until he found one that led to a set of waterstairs near the construction of a new brick warehouse. Barker was heavy but he’d carried heavier loads. Rafe threw him into one of the wherries tied to the jetty then gathered up some bricks and sacking. He climbed into the boat. There were no oars, the watermen having removed them for safekeeping overnight, so he simply untied the vessel and let the current take them.
When they were safely away from the waterstairs, protected by darkness, he looked down at his companion. He was quite sure Barker had woken up. “Catch you unawares, did I?”
Barker opened his eyes and rubbed the back of his head.
“I expected more of a fight from you,” Rafe said.
Lightning quick, Barker reached inside his boot. He found nothing.
Rafe held up a long dagger. “Looking for this? I also removed your sword and the blade strapped to your forearm.”
“Fuck you.” Barker spat. He tried to sit up but Rafe pinned him to the damp bottom of the boat with his foot. He pressed the blade to Barker’s inner thigh. If his quarry moved an inch either way, Rafe would castrate him.
