Thief of Hearts

by Ruby Moone

  “I’m sorry.”

  They stood silent for a moment, each lost in thought.

  Jeremy was the first to speak. “If you and your friends ever want help with garments, you only need ask. I am entirely at your disposal.”

  “You will charge a proper rate,” she said, suddenly quite firm and pragmatic again. “I have a feeling you are going to be quite busy.”

  Jeremy laughed. “Really?”

  “Oh, and when it’s just us, my name is Josephine. You can call me Jo.”

  “Jo,” Jeremy said softly.

  She nodded. “When I was young, I made everyone call me Jo. Of course, they thought it was Joe with an e, short for Joseph, but I knew it was just Jo. Short for Josephine.” She smiled. “It wasn’t much, but it helped.”

  “David said he has to live a lie all the time so when he comes to his home he needs to be himself.”

  “It’s true. Here, we can all be who we are. We’re all weird one way or another.”

  Jeremy nodded solemnly. “That’s why I fit right in.”

  Jo stared at him for a moment, and then laughed.

  * * * *

  David sat in Bill Kendrick’s comfortable parlour again and sipped coffee. His wife left them a plate of buttery shortbread and they were working their way through it, huddled around the fire which crackled and spat in the blackened range.

  “So, has Charnley done anything interesting? It’s been a quiet week.”

  Kendrick shook his head and wiped crumbs from his chin with his thumb. “Absolutely nothing. I’ve got men posted about, but I can’t see he has made any move to take your boy.” He paused and took a drink of his tea. “One thing that did crop up though was a bit of a set to with the Earl of Standish in Whites. Apparently the two of them had words, but I don’t really know about what. No-one was close enough to hear.”

  David didn’t have access to Whites, one of the most prestigious gentlemen’s clubs in London, but Kendrick had connections with the staff there. He wondered if that was anything to do with the document Charnley wanted retrieving.

  “When was this?”

  “Couple of days ago. Charnley hasn’t been seen out and about much since then.”

  David frowned as he contemplated this information.

  “You should know that just as we have been on the lookout for you, Standish has been scouting in Charnley’s business…and yours.”

  “What?”

  “There is definitely something afoot. Wouldn’t be in least bit surprised if Standish has something on Charnley and that’s what he wants you to retrieve.”

  “Christ.” David ran a hand around the back of his neck.

  “If I find anything that makes sense, I will get word to you.”

  “Thank you.” David reached over and patted Kendrick’s arm. He was one of the few people David trusted. One of the few people that he knew he could rely on absolutely. It was a relief to know he could always count on him. “Keep an eye on Standish, too?”

  Kendrick nodded as he swallowed the last of the shortbread. “So, when do we get to meet this boy of yours?”

  The question took him by surprise and to his absolute horror, David flushed.

  “Oh. Like that, is it?”

  David groaned.

  “Never mind, son,” Kendrick said, standing up and ruffling David’s hair. “Comes to us all.”

  * * * *

  He was growing soft. There was no other explanation for why he felt even a modicum of concern about Charnley. He played the conversation with Kendrick over and over in his mind and kept coming back to the fact that Charnley had asked him for help. He’d fancied it up with ridiculous threats and offers, of course, but the reality of it was, Charnley needed help. His help. He’d fantasised about having Charnley in his debt so many times. Thought about having the upper hand, lording it over him.

  But in reality, now that moment had arrived, and Charnley needed him, the feeling of concern that he felt rather than satisfaction was oddly disturbing. He still didn’t understand Charnley’s attempts to establish a connection between them, and certainly didn’t trust it, but it kept him wondering. It also supported the notion that Charnley had no intention of doing anything to Jeremy.

  He continued to mull it over as he went about his business, letting himself be seen about town. He also found it difficult to stop thinking about Jeremy and the violet dress and was faintly horrified about how much he was looking forward to going home and the night that lay ahead of them, but he still felt he needed to make amends for his surly outburst of a week or so before. As he walked down Bond Street, he glanced into the windows of the shops, looking for inspiration. Nothing gaudy, or so outrageously expensive it would make Jeremy uncomfortable, just a token of his…his what? Esteem, affection? Lust? He shook his head. He really wasn’t the kind of man for mawkish sentiments, but he felt he needed to make sure Jeremy…understood.

  He looked at pocket watches, writing desks, handkerchiefs and gloves, all manner of gewgaws and fripperies, but nothing stood out to him, so he walked back down the other side slower this time, paying more attention. He was almost at the bottom, when he spotted something in the window of a small, exclusive jewellers. He hesitated, and then went inside.

  He was seated in a comfortable parlour whilst the shop keeper brought the items from the window for his inspection. A single rope of pearls, long enough to sit nicely on the décolletage and not strangle the owner, and beside it, a gentleman’s cravat pin with a single, beautiful pearl. As the owner extolled the quality of the pearls, David imagined them sitting about Jeremy’s neck whilst he wore the violet dress, and when he wore a cravat, the pin would nestle gently at his throat. He thought of other pearls he might give him and realised he might have to stay seated for a moment or two longer.

  Once he was decent, and the pearls paid for, he gave his direction to the jeweller and arranged for them to be delivered later in the afternoon before walking towards St James to spend a little time at his club. It was a small, discreet place which suited David perfectly. Not favoured by the high and mighty who frequented such places as White’s, Brooks and Boodle’s and the like, but more people like himself. People who were on the fringes of polite society but with enough money to purchase the niceties that went with life in the Ton. He passed a pleasant afternoon listening carefully to the conversations that went on there but made no discoveries about the situation between Charnley and Standish. He waited with increasing anticipation until he felt he could wait no longer.

  He arrived at his house, and the first indication something was amiss was the fact that the door stood slightly ajar. He ran up the steps and paused, then pushed cautiously. It opened, just as Jo Crawford ran into the hall, skirts in hand.

  “Oh, thank Christ,” she said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him inside.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  She swallowed and took his hand. “They’ve taken Jeremy. The magistrates. They’ve taken Jeremy.”

  Chapter 18

  David grabbed her by the shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

  She shook her head. “They came and took him. Arrested him. Accused him of thieving…”

  “I’ll kill him.”

  He was frozen inside. Frozen to the core. His bright, beautiful Jeremy crammed into some seething pit with the vilest that the human race had to offer.

  “Where did they take him?”

  “Newgate, but they will probably put him in the Session House on Newgate Street first whilst they wait to try him.”

  Horror filled every part of David’s soul. Prisoners were penned in tiny cages no bigger than a dog’s kennel down in the rank, dark cellars of the session house, and at this time of year they would be freezing. He could only imagine the filth and degradation Jeremy would be forced to endure.

  “The bastard,” he whispered, and only his grip on Mrs. Crawford kept him upright. “The utter bastard. I will kill him with my bare hands.”

  “Charn
ley?”

  “Who else,” David snarled. “He threatened Jeremy a week ago with the hangman’s noose if I didn’t do his bidding.”

  “I know.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Mrs. Crawford gave him a look. “I make it my business to know what is going on. Fine housekeeper I would be if I didn’t keep abreast of things. I never expected him to actually do anything though.” She hesitated for a moment. There’s bad blood with Charnley and Standish. I presume you know that?”

  “I do. I’m going to go to Charnley’s and make him rescind whatever trumped up nonsense he has laid against Jeremy and get him out. Get Spencer, Bentley, and Kendrick on it.”

  “Already done.” She squeezed his arm and began pulling off her apron. “I’ll get my coat and join them. Meet you back here?”

  She returned moments later, buttoning her coat and pinning a hat in place.

  “Here.” David held out a sheaf of notes and some coin. “Use it as you need to. Where are you going?” he asked as she set off into the house.

  “Can’t very well use the front door, can I.”

  David sighed. He stood for a moment, trying to gather his wits and stamp down the bubbling panic that threatened to overwhelm him. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was calm.

  * * * *

  David hammered on the door of Charnley’s Grosvenor Street mansion and, finding the door unlocked, let himself in. He strode through the hallway, boot heels ringing on the marble floor, and was met by a flurry of agitated staff.

  “Get me Charnley. Now.”

  The butler emerged and addressed him in condescending tones, but David brushed him aside. “Where is he? Study?” He stalked across the hallway and headed for the study door with the staff flapping behind him. He threw open the door, but there was no-one inside.

  “Charnley!” he bellowed. “Get out here now.”

  The flurry of footmen was swiftly replaced by burly, determined looking grooms, so David pulled out a brace of pistols from the back of his breeches and aimed them.

  “Hold it right there,” he said, and the men stopped. “I have no quarrel with you, but I will see Charnley. Anyone who tries to stop me will be shot. Those of you who know me know I will do it.” He raised the pistols and waited. No-one moved.

  “So, where is he?”

  “What in God’s name is going on?” Charnley appeared, leaning over the gallery balcony, then running lightly down the stairs wearing only his shirt sleeves and waistcoat. “Lambert, why are you causing ructions in my home? For God’s sake, man, put the pistols down.”

  “First, call off your lap dogs.”

  With a flick of a hand, the staff were dismissed, but David held onto the pistols. “Shall we?” he asked, nodding towards the study. He slammed the door shut behind them with his boot.

  “Get him out. Whatever you want from me is yours, just get him out.”

  Charnley frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  David stalked across the room, gun in hand, and put the muzzle against Charnley’s chest. “You have until the count of three to tell me you will get him out. If you do not, I will shoot you and get him out myself.”

  Charnley staggered back and held up both hands. “What…who are you talking about? Get who out of where?”

  “One.”

  “Lambert, I do not know what…”

  “Two.”

  “God…man will you…Oh Christ. Not Naylor?” A look of genuine shock on Charnley’s face surprised David.

  “Three. Yes.” He pushed against Charnley’s chest.

  “Yes, yes…of course I will help. Just put the fucking gun down.”

  David lowered the pistol slowly, and Charnley backed away, one hand going to his throat. Sweat stood out on his brow.

  “Get your coat, get down to Newgate, and undo whatever lies you told to put him in there. Now.”

  Charnley lifted both hands. He was a little taller than David, and heavier from having a few years on him, but he was treating him with a healthy respect. “Now, listen to me.”

  “I’m listening. Get your coat.”

  “David, I will do everything in my power to get Naylor out, but we have a serious problem here.”

  “Which is?”

  “He is not there because of anything that I did. I did not order his arrest.”

  * * * *

  Jeremy stumbled down the cold stone steps into the dank basement of the session house, half pulled and half dragged by two toughs who took delight in tripping him as he went and then catcalling. As his arms were bound behind his back he fell into the wall, grazing his face on the damp, fetid stones. The door was opened, and the stench from the room beyond made him gag. Voices rumbled, and someone shouted and rattled what sounded like a cage. One of the guards put a hand on the back of his head and shoved him down and into a small pen barely big enough to allow him to sit. He shuffled in and pressed himself against the back wall. The guard cut off the ropes that had tied his arms and pulled off his shoes and stockings to attach manacles to his ankles. The other end of it was attached to a ring on the wall. They were incredibly heavy. The metal was freezing cold against his bare skin. Old and rusty. He moved and felt them scrape and dig into him viciously. They had taken his coat and his cravat as well as his shoes and stockings. A crude bowl and a spoon was thrown into the corner, and then the pen was slammed, and a lock turned. The two men turned their backs and walked out, shutting the door to the room behind them, cutting out most of the light.

  In the gloom, Jeremy could make out men in the pens opposite him. They were arranged one on top of the other. All seated, all manacled, all staring at him. His heart hammered so much he was lightheaded, and the stench of stale bodies, mould, piss, and shit made him want to vomit. He held his hand to his mouth and tried to breathe and think and not let the incipient panic clawing at his throat get the better of him. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe steadily. Lord Charnley must have followed through on his threat.

  “Oy, fancy boy. What you in for?” a voice from above him rang out. As Jeremy’s eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, he could see some of the men opposite laughed. “Oooh, let me guess,” one of them said, flapping a hand about.

  Jeremy clasped his knees tight to his chest and put his head down on them as roars of laughter echoed through the room. Tremors ravaged his body, and the panic sliced through him again at being penned in such a tight, tiny, dark space. He couldn’t breathe. He put his hands over his head, buried his nose in the fabric of his breeches to dull the stench and to hide the tears that clogged his nose and eyes, and let the freezing cold seep into him and numb him.

  * * * *

  “What?” David lifted the pistol again. “Of course, it was you. It was exactly what you threatened to do.”

  “I know,” Charnley said, holding up both hands. “I know what I said, but you have my word as a gentleman, Naylor was not imprisoned on my order. Where is he?”

  “Session House.”

  Charnley grimaced.

  “Precisely. I want him out. Now.”

  “I’m sure you do, so the sooner you put the pistols away and let me think the sooner we can do something.” Charnley gave him a pointed look. David watched him. His eyes were a greenish grey, very similar to his own, but the similarity ended there. Charnley had curly chestnut hair, very much like their mother’s had been, and the charming, open face of a man raised in luxury.

  He lowered the pistol.

  “Brandy?”

  David nodded. It seemed wrong to be drinking brandy whilst Jeremy was stuck in some fetid hole, but, damn, he needed a drink. He pushed the pistol back into his breeches with its mate, accepted the glass from Charnley, and took a long drink. Heat burned down his gut and he closed his eyes.

  “Tell me everything you know.”

  David looked at Charnley. “I know very little. I arrived home and my housekeeper told me he’d been taken to Newgate. That’s it. Tha
t’s all I know. I want him out of there.”

  “We need to find out what he has been arrested for as that will give us some idea where the allegation came from.”

  “Already looking into it. Someone should be here shortly with that information, along with anything else that they have been able to find.”

  “Is he respectable? May he have stolen something, or been caught soliciting?”

  “He’s a fucking footman, not a thieving whore,” David spat. “He is the most honest, decent man I know.”

  Charnley held up a hand as if warding off David’s words. “I have to know if there is anything that might trip us up.”

  A soft tap at the door halted any further words, and the butler stepped in.

  “A…Mr. Kendrick wishes to speak with you, my Lord. Says it is urgent.”

  David could see the outrage in the man’s features at the notion of having to admit a tradesperson to his master’s study.

  “I asked him to come here.”

  Charnley gave David a long look before turning back to his butler. “Show him in.”

  Bill Kendrick came into the room and nodded to David and Charnley. Even in his rough clothes, Bill Kendrick was clearly someone to be reckoned with. Grey hair neatly oiled, and his chin freshly shaved he seemed to fill the room.

  David strode across and shook his hand warmly. “Thank you for coming. Have you found anything?”

  “Aye. Lad’s been done for thieving. Reckon he stole a pearl necklace from Sir Granville Fallows country estate a week or so back. Apparently, the lad used to be a footman there, and Fallows reckons he did a runner with the necklace and a gold watch belonging to a Mr. and Mrs. Framling who were attending a weekend party.” Kendrick looked uncomfortable. “Reckoned they found the pearls on the lad.”

  David felt sick. “Found them?” The pearls were in his room, in his house, he hadn’t…Dear God. “They didn’t find them on Naylor,” David said.

  “You sound very certain?” Charnley raised an eyebrow.

  “Damned certain. I stole them. They are in my house waiting to be disposed of.” He turned to Kendrick. “Do you recall the conversation we had about them?”