by Shirl Henke
lie down. I'll go with Lem and fetch your father's body for burial."
She shook her head. "No, no. I can't just sit here and do nothing. I'd go mad. I shall go with you. He would want to be taken to the mission. So many of the people he helped will come there."
"That they will, mistress, that they will," Lem echoed.
"Then it is settled," Joss replied firmly. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and smiled weakly at Alex. "I am so grateful for your help. Oh! But what about Mr. Therlow? Your appointment?"
"Bertie Therlow can wait for a few days more. You need me now, Joss."
* * * *
You need me now, Joss. Joss sat staring into the dying fire in their rooms—her rooms, she corrected herself. Papa was gone. They had buried him that morning. She had indeed needed Alex to get through the ordeal. Hundreds of people from all across London's teeming slums had come to the mission to pay their last respects to the Reverend Elijah Woodbridge. She had received condolences until her hands ached from being clutched by so many anguished souls.
Throughout it all, Alex had stood by her side, a bulwark of strength and calm. Finally late that evening he had left when he received her promise that she would get some much-needed rest after the long and grueling ordeal of the wake and funeral. But sleep would not come. She huddled beneath the covers, shivering not from cold but from utter desolation. She was alone.
Now that her father was gone she had no one but Alex, and she could not further impose upon his friendship. He had a busy life and new responsibilities that called him. Of course, so did she—the hospital, the shelter, the school. But without the reverend's presence behind her work, she had already learned that much of her support was evaporating.
Yesterday the Society for Moral Rectitude had dolefully informed her that a lone female could not possibly be placed in charge of the shelter. The same message had come from the mission board this very morning regarding the school. They both explained their decision in terms of utmost Christian charity, being ever so considerate of her frailty and grief. She must have time for a proper mourning. She must fall upon the bosom of her family for refuge and solace.
Her family. The noble Earl of Suthington and his brood of vipers who shared the Woodbridge name with her. Would that she had never heard of them! The earl did not deign to set his ermine-clad foot inside her father's humble mission. Instead he had sent his younger son Ernest to express the family's sympathies. Never was a man so misnamed. The mealymouthed, hypocritical fop had done little to conceal his distaste for the reverend's mission and the people he had served.
Ernest had explained in the most patronizing terms that his father, out of familial duty, would take her in. As if she were a child or an imbecile! Drawing on every ounce of patience she could muster, Joss had declined his offer. But that was before she learned that the various boards and societies who were willing to fund her father's work would not do the same for a lone female. The final blow had come only an hour ago when Aunt Regina, tearful and embarrassed, had informed her that she had a new tenant for the rooms.
Elijah Woodbridge had usually been behind in his rent, often giving away his meager stipend to feed or clothe someone less fortunate. The old landlady had been fairly patient while he lived. But now, hearing of his death, the tinner down the way made an inquiry regarding letting the apartment. He would pay half again as much as the reverend had.
Joss would have to go begging to the earl unless she found new quarters and some means of earning a livelihood. Her educational credentials were as impeccable as her moral character. She could become a governess, but the thought of tutoring the spoiled and horrid offspring of the nobility appalled her while so many bright and eager young minds among the poor starved for knowledge.
She could ask Alex for help and knew he would freely give it, but pride forbade her. She could not live off him like one of his Cyprians. At least he received services from them—services he would not want from a plain, gawky tabby like her.
You need me, Joss. How true it was and how utterly impossible, for the way in which she needed him had nothing to do with food and shelter or even friendship. She needed his love, the one thing her wonderful, wicked angel could never give her.
The flames in the fireplace had long since died to dimly glowing embers. Joss stared into them, trying to divine the future. Useless. Tomorrow she would figure out some way to continue her father's noble work. Perhaps a renewed appeal to the Society of Moral Rectitude would change their position. Failing that, she would simply have to swallow her pride and move to the Suthington city house. At least under the earl's protection, she might be able to persuade the board to renew support for the school. With that thought she drifted into a restless slumber punctuated by dreams of Alex.
* * * *
Alex walked carefully, every sense alert as he made his way to the small shanty at the far end of the alley. Hidden in shadows, the dilapidated wooden shelter looked like little more than a lean-to or one of the insubstantial brush arbors the Muskogee built as temporary sleeping quarters for warm summer evenings.
"I say, old chap, do you think this John Slocum fellow will be lying about, unawares, ripe for the plucking?" Drum asked Alex as they neared their destination.
"According to that charley Harry Wrexham, he's been holed up in there since the day after Reverend Woodbridge's murder."
The little dandy muttered a low oath as one faultlessly shined black Hessian sank into an oily black puddle of water. "Drinking up his pay, what?"
Alex nodded grimly. Acting on information he had wrung from Wrexham, he had already found Jem Barker, the rabble-rousing sailor from whom he had first rescued the Woodbridges last year. Having abandoned the seafaring life, Jem owned a half share in a brothel near the docks. He picked up additional pocket change kidnapping small boys for the sweep masters of the city. The reverend and his daughter had been bad for business.
Jem employed John Slocum, the red coated assassin who had made last year's unsuccessful attempt on the clergyman's life. Or Jem had employed Slocum. Since Alex had dealt him justice that morning, Jem would not be employing anyone. Before he died, Barker had given Alex and Drum the name of the man who'd actually done the foul deed.
Motioning for Drum to guard his back, Alex shoved open the door to the dark, smoky interior. The fetid sweetness of opium mingled with the raw, bitter tang of cheap gin and the musky odor of sex. "Celebrating, Mr. Slocum?" Alex inquired in a low, deadly voice as his eyes swept the filthy shanty's meager chairs and table and the bed upon which the killer sprawled with a fat slattern draped over his body.
Still wearing the same filthy red velvet coat he had sported the first time Alex had encountered him, Slocum stared at the intruder with glazed eyes. His slack mouth closed in an ugly sneer as he rolled up from the filthy rags covering the mattress. " 'Oo th' 'ell do ye think ye are, breakin' in on a man's pleasure?" he croaked in a smoke-roughened voice.
"I'd advise you to gather your clothes and get out of here before the trouble begins," Alex said conversationally to the whore, whose pockmarked face paled at the toff's cold eyes. Her body was covered with open sores from syphilis. Consorting with her would kill Red Coat in time, but Alex did not plan to grant John Slocum that time. She scooted hastily past him and out the door as the assassin shook his head to clear it of drink and drugs.
"Whot do ye think ye'r doin'?" Slocum asked with an oath as Alex began pulling open the drawers of a rickety chest and dumping the contents onto the splintery floorboards. Slocum slipped a knife from beneath a pile of rags by the side of his bed and lurched to his feet just as Alex finished perusing the contents of the bottom drawer. Before the tough could strike his back, Alex turned with lightning speed. His hand smashed Slocum's wrist against the wall with a sharp crack and the knife clattered to the floor.
Alex's own blade materialized in his other hand and now pressed uncomfortably against his foe's throat. "I want the timepiece."
"Whot timepiece?" Slocum croa
ked, stretching up on tiptoe against the wall to avoid the pressure from the gleaming steel.
"The gold one you took off the Reverend Woodbridge's body. 'Tis a family heirloom and his daughter wants it back. With your penchant for finery," Alex said with a disdainful glare at the louse-infested velvet jacket, "I assume you kept the timepiece to complement your sartorial splendor. Pray God you did not sell it... did you?" A single drop of bright red blood oozed beneath the blade and dribbled onto Slocum's greasy throat.
"Now, gov, I don't know nothin' 'bout—" His whining voice was cut short by increased pressure from the knife. Now several drops of blood ran free, staining the dingy ruffles of his shirtfront.
"You'd best answer truthfully. If I must, I'll extract the
information with this blade, and let me assure you, I've been taught to wield it with great skill by my family in America—my red Indian family. I know tricks that can keep you alive for days while you pray for death ... you could ask Jem Barker ... if he were still alive to answer."
"It's 'ere! I got it, gov. I—I'll give it over, only promise ye won't cut me." Slocum's eyes were totally focused now, all effects of the drugs and gin dissipated by stark terror.
"Very well, I give my word not to cut you," Alex said, releasing him. "Produce the timepiece."
From the doorway, Drum observed the exchange with one eye still on the alleyway outside. Slocum scrambled to the mattress and slipped his arm into a hole concealed in its side. When he pulled it out, the pocket watch gleamed softly in the dim light of the room's lone candle.
"Place it on the table," Alex commanded coldly. As soon as the assassin did so, he reached out with one hand and seized the man by his red coat, yanking him off his feet. When Slocum stumbled forward, Blackthorne's arms wrapped about his neck turning it with one powerful twist until it snapped. As the man dropped lifelessly at his feet, Alex said, "I promised I would not cut you, John, but not that I would spare you."
Drum watched him examine the gold timepiece, murmuring softly, "At least Joss will have this."
He stood staring down at the inscription until the dandy cleared his throat and said gently, " 'Tis best we quit this place, Alex. Some of the denizens of this pesthole might try to relieve us of Slocum's ill-gotten gains."
Coming to himself, Alex placed the watch in his waistcoat pocket and turned to Drum. "Thank you, my friend, for assisting me in this ugly enterprise."
The two men walked away from the noisome alley without incident. Drum hailed a hackney and they climbed aboard. Alex remained deep in thought, staring down at the timepiece, which he had extracted from his pocket.
Drum studied his friend in silence for a moment, his keen green eyes riveted on Blackthorne. "Whatever the fascination of that bluestocking, she certainly has you in thrall," he commented, almost to himself.
Alex looked up distractedly, only half hearing Drum's remark. "Were you speaking of Joss?"
"Your very own prim long Meg ... but considering your own estimable height—from which I would borrow a few inches were it possible—perhaps Miss Woodbridge is not so overtall." He stroked his chin in amusement, a wry smile bowing up his elegant lips. "Yes, you would make up a pair nicely."
"What on earth are you rattling on about?" Alex asked incredulously.
"Why, you and the preacher's daughter, of course," Drum replied innocently.
"As in a love relationship!"
Drum only nodded, then said, "My boy, I always knew you were an original. Now I have proof. You've fallen in love with a female for her mind.r
"Why, that's the most lack-witted, addlepated absurdity I've ever heard!"
Drum tsked chidingly. " 'Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.' "
"I certainly do not." Alex replied indignantly, unaware that his hand clutched the timepiece tightly.
"If you squeeze that watch much harder, you're apt to melt the thing down to a shapeless lump, old chap," Drum said, pointing to his friend's hand.
Alex unclenched his fingers as if the timepiece had suddenly scalded him, and hastily replaced it in his waistcoat pocket. "Joss is my friend ... an unconventional one, to be certain. Look, I understand that friendships between men and women are unusual—rare, even, yes, but Joss is just a comrade, someone I enjoy talking to and exchanging quips with. She is not some bloody bit of muslin, for heaven's sake!"
Drum waved one gloved hand in remonstrance. "No, no, my friend, I did not mean to imply such a transient, not to mention immoral, role for the prim Miss Woodbridge."
A look of dawning horror etched Alex's face. "A wife?" He practically choked on the words. Then looking again at Drum with narrowed eyes, he threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. "Lord, you bloody well had me going there for a while, Drum. The very idea that I would consider marriage at all is beyond absurd. If I wouldn't leg-shackle myself to Helen of Troy, why would I consider Joss, of all females?"
"Perhaps you'd best answer that question for yourself," Drum replied musingly.
* * * *
Marry? Joss? Alex sat in the library of the Caruthers's city house, staring at the brandy snifter in his hand, deep in thought. He intended to deliver the timepiece to her in the morning, but first he had to muddle through his thoughts and set them in order. The fact that strong drink and clear thinking did not mix well had not occurred to him in this instance. The tall case clock on the far wall struck midnight.
He ruminated about his unusual relationship with Jocelyn Woodbridge. Drum's flippant remarks about his being in love with her were utterly preposterous, of course, typically Drum in one of his infernal hoaxing moods. Yet by the time they had parted company at the end of the hackney ride from Eastcheap, Drum had no longer been affecting droll humor.
Love Joss? Preposterous. Since the day they had met, his paramount urge had most often been to strangle the chit. Of course, he had come to admire her intelligence, her keen wit and gentle sense of humor, her courage, her compassion. In spite of her frequent clumsiness, she possessed a genuine grace for living. Even though she was tall, thin and forced to wear ugly, thick spectacles, he had never heard her complain about what nature had allotted her, except to make jokes at her own expense.
As time passed and their relationship developed, he had ceased to think about her unflattering appearance—unless someone else made a disparaging remark about it, which increasingly annoyed him. It was unfair to value a person only for how he or she looked on the outside. After all, it was one's mind and heart that truly gave one worth. That was a firm teaching of the Muskogee that he had learned at Grandma Charity's knee.
Joss's heart was good. She was brave, honest and caring. The thought that his grandmother would admire her had never occurred to him before. Unbidden, it did so now. But that was the stuff of friendship, not romantic love.
He loved her as he loved his sisters, who also frequently exasperated him. No, that was not quite right, for she was far stronger and more clearheaded than any of that flighty crew, more logical and intelligent—like his mother. But he certainly could not compare their relationship to the one he shared with his mother either. Joss was a friend who just happened to be a woman, that was all.
She was Joss. Dear and disheveled, truly an original... but a woman he would fall in love with? He shook his head, positive that was absurd. She would laugh at the idea—laugh at him for even thinking it. Joss had never evinced the slightest interest in playing silly games to catch a husband, any more than he wanted to dance to some female's whims to woo her to wife.
Alex never intended to marry. At least not in the foreseeable future. He had never given any real thought to the matter, save to dismiss the idea of a wife every time his parents brought it up. Now he forced himself to confront his feelings. Outside of his natural bachelor's affinity for unfettered access to the high life, he had no reason to dread matrimony.
Indeed, he had every reason to look forward to it if Devon and Barbara Blackthorne's happiness was an example. His entire family was riddled wi
th felicitous marriages—Uncle Quint and Aunt Madelyne, as well as his sisters. Only his favorite cousin Beth, like him, resisted matrimony because she was determined to pursue an art career. Even her brother Rob had leg-shackled himself to the girl of his dreams.
Of course that was on the other side of the pond. Marriages here were usually arranged for political, social or economic reasons as had been the case in the unhappy union of Octavia and Monty. Yet he was forced to admit that it was not here in England that his aversion to marriage had originated. Deep in his heart he'd always shunned the idea. Why? He swirled the brandy about in his glass and took another sip. It was not the casual, unemotional relationships of the English that put him off, but rather the intense, passionate bonding that characterized the Blackthorne men that frightened him.
Although only whispered about, he knew the secret story of his great uncle Robert Blackthorne, who had been so in love with his wife, the beautiful Lady Anne Caruthers, that he had become insanely—and unjustifiably—jealous of his own brother. The rift had torn the family apart for a whole generation. Alex did not want to love that way. Or even the way his parents did. They were so devoted to each other, so intensely close that he had always felt...closed out somehow, a reaction to which his sisters had all been cheerfully immune. He alone, the only son, came to feel that he never wanted to be so wrapped up in a single person that his whole life was entrusted to her hands. What if something happened to her?
"I'm getting maudlin," he muttered to himself. This much introspection was simply not healthy for a man. Should he lay the fault at Drum's feet—or Joss's? He did not desire her, nor did he want her for a wife. He simply loved Joss because she was Joss, and that was that, he concluded, downing the last of the brandy. He would ponder the nature of the relationship no further.
Montgomery Caruthers stood in the doorway, observing his nephew's brown study. He had just come from a winning night at White's card tables and was feeling expansive.
