She shut the door and simply stood there, looking into the shadows of the alley and at the den not twenty feet away. Was Jones still in there? Squares of light formed a patchwork over the cobblestone pathway. A few people passed through them, intent on their business and taking no notice of her. Yet. Sounds assaulted her from all directions, rooms above, the street nearby, the homes and shops and pubs a stone’s throw away beyond the alley.
“Missus.”
When had the door opened behind her? She spun around to face the large bald man who had chased her away.
“Missus, come in.” A heavy hand fell onto her shoulder and held her in place. “Dressed like that, you’ll be taken for sure.”
“What?” Her voice was appallingly high-pitched.
“You’ll be dead by morning, or worse. Come in.” He gave her no choice, pulling her through the doorway with more strength than she could fight. The door closed behind her, shutting out the sky and stars and—as he leaned against the unremarkable wooden panel—freedom.
“What’s a fancy lady like you doing in these parts?” He was huge. Taller than Jones by a foot or more. Wider.
When she opened her mouth to protest, he simply cocked his head and spoke before she could.
“Don’t go tellin’ me you ain’t a fancy lady. Quality ain’t stamped into the clothes as much as the blood, missus. You has quality.” He strode across the room to the banked fire, stirred it to life with a makeshift poker resembling a bar from an iron fence found in every street of the West End.
“What do you want?” Cat set her hands behind her back and clutched her skirt, hoping her fear would transmit to the skirt and not to her captor. “I have no money with me.”
The great beast of a man set the iron bar aside and simply watched her, dark eyes shadowed in the dim light. Without speaking, he settled himself on a short stool between the fire and a pile of blankets. She noticed then that there was no table in the room. Only a fireplace, the stool and blankets, a trunk that had seen much better days, and cooking utensils. All of it was clean and organized.
He was likely better off than most in the rookeries.
The man remained silent, though he was now winding something in his hands, pulling, braiding, stretching. It looked like rope.
Rope.
Terror could grab a woman with two fists and squeeze the life from her. It could send the edges of her vision into the black and weaken her legs.
“Don’t go off like that.” The man’s hands paused their movements, the long fingers gentle on the threads despite their size. “Might want to take a breath, now, afore you keel over.”
Cat drew in one shaking inhalation and found her vision clearing. She knew it wasn’t this huge man and his rope that caused her fear. It was everything. Every moment of the last few days culminated with this one moment, this one man.
But she’d managed before, hadn’t she?
“There now. That’s better. Color in your cheeks again.” He nodded once, acknowledging the change in her. “Can’t see why you’d be in these parts, milady. Might be you need to be shown where to go?” He cocked his head and watched her with those dark currant eyes.
“Yes.” Only she couldn’t go home, so being shown out of the rookeries was nonsense.
“Good.”
“No.” Yet she couldn’t stay in the rookeries where she was an easy mark, and where Wycomb might find her. “I don’t know.”
Oh God, her vision was going black again. She gulped in air and hoped the door at her back would steady her.
“Ah. It’s that way, is it? Can’t go back, can’t go forward?” The man seated before her began to wind the rope around one hand, gathering it between fingers and thumb so it became layer upon layer of material. The light from the newly stirred fire shown over a smooth skull.
“No, I can’t go back.” Saying the words sent her stomach plummeting. “I can’t go anywhere.”
Slow and steady the man worked, though his gaze did not leave her face. “What do you know of the opium dens?”
“What?” Perhaps it was not the most eloquent response, but, “What? What?” She jerked forward in a movement that was part step, part stumble.
“You reek of opium, and as there’s only two dens in this area, you must have been at one of them, though you don’t seem to be the worse for wear.”
“And you don’t speak like a miscreant of the rookeries.”
“Sometimes a man isn’t born here, he ends up here by choice.”
Cat wanted to ask why anyone would be here by choice, in a room with the drapes drawn and surrounded by urine-soaked streets. She didn’t ask, because sometimes it was better not to know.
“May I stay here, just for a few minutes?”
“Not if you’re dealing in opium.” He dropped the coiled rope into his lap. “To each his own, but I don’t want any of those sorts stumbling into my back room.”
“I’m not dealing in opium.” She was vaguely amused he thought so, and even more amused he would cast her out for it. “I was held against my will.”
He pushed up from the stool and she noticed his coat was patched and frayed. “How long is this bit you’d like to stay?”
“I don’t know. A few hours. Perhaps until the morning?”
“It won’t be any safer out there in the morning, milady.” He moved to the corner of the room and bent over the blankets. Cat couldn’t make out what he was doing and unease began to spread.
“I better go now.” What had she been thinking, asking this giant if she could stay? She reached for the door handle.
“Stop.” The man gestured to the pile at his feet. Without his shadow blocking it, she could see the cloth, smoothed out now to create a makeshift bed. “You can sleep here. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Sir—”
“Sir?” He laughed lightly. “My lady, my name is Bill, as I’m bald as billiard ball. I’ll see you out of the rookeries in the morning.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Jones hunkered down in a doorway, tossing a hot cross bun from hand to hand just as he had as a boy. He let the bun cool and watched the streets. He’d spent the night searching for Cat but had found not a trace of her. He sat, waiting and watching. The bit of bun he ate was dry in his throat—with no fault to the baker. Still, he waited. The sun climbed in the east, dark blue turning to gray and then to yellow sunlight.
The rookeries appeared much more habitable in the dark.
The bun in his hands cooled with only a single bite out of it. He found he couldn’t eat. Yet there was nowhere to set the bun without fouling it, so he continued to hold it—and waited. Seven streets converged here, all of them part of the rookeries. There were hundreds of places to hide, but she would not go home. The rookeries were his best hope.
Hours passed. Dawn. Midday. The evening light began to fall when he finally saw her. She walked beside a mountain of a man wearing patched but clean clothes. Jones fought the urge to rush into the street and snatch Cat away. Training stayed him, so he paused to observe her body language. Alert but not frightened. She watched the streets with avid interest, but with the cloak pulled around her so only a glimpse of her nightshift could be seen as she walked.
Jones chose his moment as they stepped out of the circle of streets and into an alley. They were less likely to be seen there, and with the windows and doors as they were, observation from above would be difficult.
“Cat.”
She spun, shock and joy warring on her face. Her butterfly-blue eyes were wide, pupils dilated. She ran, jumped, and wrapped herself around him as if he were the only safe haven in London. Arms about his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist, he felt every touch of her body to his, each point of contact causing a fire in his body and cool relief in his mind. Her lips met his, hungry and scared and loving all at once.
“Jones.” She buried her face in his neck, though her body slid down his until her feet reached the ground again. “I was so afraid.”
“A
s was I.” More, now that he knew she was safe. All the worry he’d pushed away during the long watchful hours seemed to coalesce to a single location in his chest. “I couldn’t find you. God, Cat, those were long hours.”
“Are you well, then?” The giant towered over them, arms crossed and a frown creasing his face.
“Yes.” Cat beamed up into the man’s face. “Bill, this is my Jones.”
“Jones.” Bill squinted at Jones, looked him up and down as if assessing his worthiness. “Milady shouldn’t be in St. Giles or the Dials.”
“No, she shouldn’t.” Jones nodded, both in respect for the statement as well as the man’s care for Cat. “Thank you. I know exactly the dangers she might have faced without you.”
“Aye. See she’s safe.” The man looked at Jones, then Cat, then Jones again. “If you’ve need for help, milady, you can call on me.”
“Thank you.” Cat reached out, set her small, white hand on a forearm marked with tattoos and scars. “For everything.”
“Aye.” The big man set a hand to his forehead, as if he were tugging on a cap out of respect. “Be careful.”
“I will.” Cat watched him stride back through the circle of the Dials and into an alley. A light smile curved her lips.
Everything inside him soared, just watching her expression soften. That she could appreciate a bald man in the rookeries was exactly why he loved her. He wished he could simply scoop her up and bring her inside him—not to protect her, but so that her grace would calm and soothe the dark places in him.
She spun suddenly, eyes serious again. “Hedgewood is part of it.”
“What?” All thoughts of love flew from him. He pulled her into the shadows of the nearest building. Long, slim fingers clutched at his arm.
“I don’t understand exactly what is happening, but I saw Hedgewood and my uncle the night he took me away.” She breathed deep, swallowed hard. Still, Cat straightened her shoulders. “He is working with my uncle.”
“How?”
“Money. The ships bringing in the opium. Also—” She paused, as if the next words were difficult. “Wycomb took me to the den so Hedgewood would pay to get me back. He wants more money.”
“He’s planning to run, then.” Jones drew her close, pulled the cloak tighter so her nightshift would remain hidden. She nestled against his shoulder and he set his chin on her head. Silky hair tangled in the two-day’s growth of his beard. Neither of them seemed to care.
“Cat, you are worth more than anything Wycomb could demand.”
“There is nowhere safe for you.” Jones set his elbows on his knees, leaning forward so that his torso folded over his thighs and his hands fell into the empty space between them. “Nowhere.”
“I know I can’t go home.” She could not go to Ashdown Abbey, nor Worthington House. Not to any of her other estates, even those in the wilds of Yorkshire. Wycomb knew them all.
“No. And you can’t stay at the townhouse, either. Neither can I.” Jones lifted his head, gaze roaming the streets and townhouses in front of him as if memorizing each brick.
They sat on a bench in Hyde Park, staring at trees well away from the townhouses and hawkers beginning their day. The night had been a round of running, hiding and running again. The sun had eventually raised her face above the city, bathing it in pale gold light that would strengthen throughout the day.
Cat hoped her will would increase as well. She slipped her fingers between Jones’s gripped hands, twining her fingers through his. “Is there another house we could go to? You must have dozens of places to hide in the city, in the country.”
“He knows them all, Cat. Even if we move around from safe house to safe house, there is nowhere Wycomb won’t be able to find you eventually. It will simply be a matter of checking the right safe house at the right time.” Regret overlaid resignation in his tone. He breathed deep, fingers clenching and releasing. “Worse, I can’t be certain there are any places he doesn’t know about.”
Fear spiked through her so that the rhythm of her heart rose, the blood pumping through her veins becoming a thundering, crashing pace.
“Then we don’t go to a safe house.” She strengthened the grip of her fingers. “A person can disappear in London if they want to.”
“Yes.” His head came up, eyes latching onto hers. “But you are known in many places, simply by virtue of your status. You’ll be recognized in the West End because you are the Baroness Worthington. You’ll be recognized for a lady in the rookeries because you don’t belong. Even in those semi-respectable parts of the city, you may be noticed for either reason.”
He was right. He was right.
“What do we do?” The words were choked and strangled as they left her throat, leaving it barren.
Well beyond them on the public road near the Life Guards Barracks, a crested carriage rolled past. The horses moved in a steady, even gait. Once it passed, Cat could see a woman carrying a basket of bread. She shouted, trying to sell her goods. That was life in London, Cat supposed. The wealthy passed by the poor without a glance.
“I don’t know what to do.” The words were full of despair and uncertainty. Jones pushed to his feet to pace away from the bench, steps beating an uneven tattoo on the path before them.
Cat stared at the now empty bench beside her. That space seemed to hold all the uselessness of her life. She was Mary Elizabeth Frances Catherine Ashdown, Thirteenth Baroness Worthington. She owned thousands upon thousands of rolling green fields. She employed hundreds of tenants, men and women and children who depended on her—and her guardian would likely kill her on sight, and if he did not, he would force her to marry. She gripped the edge of the bench, fingers curling around forged iron, as the dread in her raged higher.
The seat was not enough to anchor her. Booted feet digging into the grass were not enough to anchor her. So she focused on Jones.
Just on Jones.
His back was to her, broad and strong, with weapons no doubt hidden between his body and his coat. His shoulders shifted as he pulled a small paper from his coat pocket. He unfolded it, slowly, as if the fold were momentous.
“I love you, Cat.” The words wandered into the air, as though of little import. Four words that were quiet and simple, and could have meant “I would like tea.”
They didn’t. They meant everything.
“I—” She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t have the words to explain the sheer joy surging through her, tumbling around with the fear still tearing at her.
“I love you, Cat. And I know what we have to do.”
…
It was simple, really.
He would kill Wycomb so that she would be safe.
He would set her free of Hedgewood, even if that meant killing him, too.
Jones set this thumb on the paper, marred now from repeated folding. He rubbed the drawing. Morpho helenor achillaena. As a young man, he’d wanted to see it fly, though he’d known the butterfly was not native to England. It was only found in the tropics, so he would never would see it.
He’d imagined the wings opening and closing, hiding the blue, then revealing it. Imagined the freedom of fluttering flight over meadows and wildflowers, through the air with nothing but a backdrop of sky and cloud.
Now, instead of finding the butterfly, he’d found Cat. Her eyes would haunt his days and nights, and all he would have left of her was the butterfly drawing.
“You tore the page from the book.” Her words were unreadable. He could not tell if she was disappointed or angry.
Either way, the pain of tearing the page was less than the pain of losing Cat.
“I wanted it with me when you were missing.” The ache in his heart needed time to find a place to call home, so he took a moment to refold the page and put it back in his pocket.
When he looked at Cat her eyes were wide and lips parted, as though the shock of his words had immobilized her.
“Wycomb doesn’t yet know you are free—or likely does not. And, if he
does, he knows you won’t return to the townhouse, Ashdown Abbey, or any of your other estates. You can’t go anywhere you are recognized, because it would be too simple for him to find you. But I need to find him. I need to stop him. And you’ll have to come with me.”
“How will you find him? What will we do?”
“We’re going back to the opium den. Eventually, he will return there.” Jones set his jaw, preparing for the entreaties to come. “We’re not going alone, Cat.”
“Thank you for coming here. I couldn’t risk your families or returning to Angel’s townhouse.” Jones searched the faces of those he trusted most. Angel, his mentor and Marquess of Angelstone. The Shadow, Earl of Langford. The Flower, small and lean, and wearing her customary men’s clothing. Also deadly. All three were spies he would put his back to in battle and know he was safe.
Beside them in the back room of the Goose and Gander pub sat Cat, cloak wrapped tightly about her, eyes wide as she watched and listened. A tankard of ale sat in front of her just as it did the rest of them—the proprietor didn’t serve anything else—as well as cheese and bread.
“Lord Langford.” Her tone was flat. “Lord Angelstone.”
“My lady,” the Shadow replied, nodding his head as if they were meeting in a ballroom.
Angel said nothing, choosing to watch the exchange with mild amusement.
“You are both spies.” Her words were accompanied by narrowed eyes.
“Indeed.” The Shadow’s lips twitched. “It is a pleasure to see you again, baroness. I believe you and I shared a country dance not long ago?”
“I will never believe what I see again. Ever.” Cat lifted the tankard to her lips and gulped the bitter, second-rate ale. She sputtered once, then gulped again as if she had been deprived of water for weeks. “Spies are everywhere, aren’t they?”
“If you know where to look.” Jones set his knife to the cheese, sliding it through to carve a slice. “I’ve sent the Gents with a message to Sir Charles so he is aware of what is happening, but there is little time, I think.”
The Lady and Mr. Jones Page 27
