Cass’s shoulders sagged. All she had done was scream. Of course she’d not expected it to be heard by those who plainly had. The worst person in the world in fact. Gil Gressingham. To come by now and find them, find her—God Almighty, what were the odds on that? Obviously Devorlane Hawley wasn’t the only one sneaking about.
All it took was Starkadder somehow rising from his grave for the cake to be well and truly iced. For that matter, maybe like her, he wasn’t dead at all. And he was getting ready to lurch from the shadows cast by the straggling bushes in a pair of serviceable boots and a coat designed to keep out the winter chill, the pallor of the grave on his cheeks.
“Glad ee asked, sor.” Barron’s gasp was one of pure relief. But then Barron was not her. Not Sapphire. Not known to Gil Gressingham. “This gen’leman ‘ere accosted Lyde Armstrong and ‘e troihd ter strang’l me.”
“I did not accost. I merely asked if Ruby there would be so good as to fetch Lord Koorecroft.” Devorlane Hawley spoke as if to an idiot.
Cass cursed the fact he spoke at all. It was surprising given the number of blows Ruby had rained on his shoulders and his head. Although it was hardly surprising that now he did, Lord Koorecroft was the first person he mentioned. If he wasn’t careful though, with Gil here now, it might also be the last.
“Lord Koorecroft, sir?” The pursed lips. The shrug. The fitting of his thumbs into his mulberry waistcoat pockets. Gil’s bemusement was magnificently feigned. It was all Cass could do not to congratulate him. “You mind me asking now, what you would be wanting with him? I mean, grand sounding gent like that. ‘Least I think he’s grand sounding. Does anyone else here think he’s grand sounding?”
“He’s the local magistrate in case you don’t know.”
“The law and order man? Can’t say as I do. Though it certainly looks like a bit of law and order is needing kept here right enough, you don’t mind me saying.”
The understatement of facts. She’d pay for this. Dearly.
Devorlane Hawley threw the stick aside and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “Damn right it is.”
She muffled a gulp as he shot out a hand. “I just wanted Lady Armstrong to tell him, if I sent this man here to hell, who he’d be sharing the journey with.”
Well, maybe he did, but she’d be a whole lot happier if he’d let go of her wrist while he did it. Already she’d a robe to keep shut and Gil’s eyes feasted like a starving maggot. She gritted her teeth. “How would I know, Lord Hawley? Unless it’s a dead doxy.”
He dragged her closer, so his breath fanned her cheeks. “That’s sweet, Lady Armstrong, but the only dead doxy here is likely to be you.”
She lowered her eyelashes. “You mean to add murder to your other crimes?”
“Then why not scream? Like you did a moment ago.”
“If you want me to. It would not be a trouble.”
“Whoa. Here, bear with me a minute here, sir, if you’d just be so good?”
Good? Cass dragged a breath. Good? How she stood here, how she didn’t turn and run? She couldn’t, could she? She didn’t even have shoes on her feet. What if she fell into one of these herb bushes there? Tripped on a trailing bramble and nearly broke her nose as she had earlier?
“I’d like to but we have a little dispute here, my Lady Armstrong and I. Trust me, it can be solved in a trice if you help me take her to Chessington.”
Gil stepped closer. She just must hope Gil hadn’t seen that kiss. It was probably why his muddy brown eyes edged her face though. Then they edged Devorlane Hawley’s.
“Your Lady Armstrong? Well, well. Now hold your horses a minute, sir. See, the man here … what did they say was your name again?”
“Barron.”
“Barron here says you accosted her. Is that so?”
Devorlane Hawley smirked, so confidently ignoring her wounding glare, it was all she could do not to smack his jaw.
“Much as I’m not a man to question a lady’s virtue—”
Gil cocked an eyebrow, ran his fingers over his jutting sandy beard. “Her virtue?”
“Which is, of course, impeccable.”
“You hear that, Cass, my girl? Now that’s something …. something that … Oh, never mind.”
Cass? Girl? Devorlane Hawley’s mind must be reeling through a set of jigs. Tilly had to have said Cass lived here, probably with Pearl and Ruby.
Cass, my girl suggested she did more than that, certainly with Gil Gressingham. She drew her head higher, although her heart tumbled down her ribcage. Another brother? A cousin perhaps?
“I never touched her,” Devorlane Hawley said.
For a second, a second only, Gil lowered his gaze to the ground. Then he raised his chin and eyed Devorlane Hawley squarely.
“Actually, sir, you have no honest idea how good it is to hear these words. For a second there you had me worried.”
“Why’s that?”
The faintest smile played about his jaundiced mouth. “Why? Because I can’t shoot straight. I wouldn’t like to have to call you out because you accosted my wife.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Wife? Wife?
When the whole county knew she was a widow and she dressed endlessly in a parade of crow’s garments? Shutting the door on the room she’d schemed endlessly to inhabit, Cass couldn’t believe it. Why not curse, give vent to the screaming pulse within her? Her dreams were in danger of being ripped away if she didn’t take a breath, hold it, and examine the geography of this land, though. Its terrain, its hiding places. However he’d managed it, Gil had found her—in a black peignoir, in a brawl with a man she’d kissed, while married to Gil, who was now here and wouldn’t be leaving any time soon either.
Hastily she tugged a shawl round her shoulders—the first thing to take care of was the fact she faced him half naked, with her undergarments on the floor. Silk ones.
“So? What do you want?”
Apart from staring at her drawers and corset? Well, he was welcome. It was all he was going to get to do with them--whatever else happened here, whatever he’d said. Maybe she wasn’t going to be able to dominate this situation with them on the floor, as much as she’d like, maybe her options were as numerous as one-legged chickens, gathering the garments up would show she knew it.
“Nice that.” He dragged his gaze from her corset. “What did you just say?”
“What do you want?”
“Hmm.” He screwed up his face, stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket, looked at the ceiling. “Well now, to quote Hamlet, by that fellow, what’s his name again, William Shakespeare and all that, that is the question. Whether it’s to suffer the there them slings of outrageous fortune, or, you know, take up arms and all them things what you take up, and do what you can, to actually end this protracted situation what you is in. Or is it, the them there stings of outrageous fortune? You know, I can’t remember. But, see, what I am hoping is that I ain’t going to have to end them. Thinking how awful that would be for certain for those concerned, see? You get a big soddin’ arrow sticking in your—”
“Jesus, Cass.”
“Evenin’ Rube.” He sniffed loudly. “Hope it’s a good ‘un.”
“It soddin’ was till yer soddin’ showed yer soddin’ ugly face.”
“Hmm.” He strolled around the copper tub, sniffing the stone cold suds. “Personally I think ugly sodding face is what you might call a better arrangement of the words. See, it has what you might call, a more them there poetic ring to it.”
“The only soddin’ thing I’d like to ring is—”
“Hmm. Well … Sure you ain’t alone there. Still, not to put too fine a point on it, not just you here, Rube, to bid a good and wondrous-to-behold, evening to. Pearl, Sapphire, jewels of the Orient. Here, don’t you think this is just like them olden days what we did have together, them happy times in … what was the name of that place again … Lanthorne Street?”
It would be if Ruby sprung across the floor and Gil took her by the throat.
“Jeezus, Cass… ”
“Uh.” He shot her a warning glance. Then he swung his gaze to Cass. “‘Course, you was all real then. Not ghosts. Well you are. I mean you’re dead, see, ain’t you? Some of you anyways. But seriously, no seriously, see, you got any idea how surprised I was to discover you and old Rube there wasn’t thrustin’ up no daisies at Mile End? Hat off to you both, if I could get me hat off now. After the journey, through all the frost and cold, them withered brambles and that, and then the shock of coming here and seeing that what I thought was ghosts, was in fact not ghosts, me hat’s a bit stuck on me head.”
“I said, what do you wan—”
Another sniff. “And I said, ain’t you even going to ask how I found you, Cass? Ain’t even you that tiny bit curious?”
She was, but since he wouldn’t rest till he’d played this particular fiddle, why give him any satisfaction? “Not really.”
“Well, see? Since you ain’t asking, I’ll tell you anyway. Then we can get to the next part of this incredible little there them meeting, this company of ghosts.”
“Cass … ” Pearl wailed.
“I mean, it’s them there simple, in’it? You always was smart, Cass. All the way back. Even that first day you arrived in Lanthorne Street. Maybe not so everyone could see it. Your brains and things. But I could. You was always a cool un’ too.”
Was she? She didn’t think so. But if she seemed so, it was only because necessity had always demanded it. How else to keep the circling wolves at bay on that little patch she inhabited? Wolves like him, like Devorlane Hawley padding round it now. Why the hell hadn’t she just bolted earlier?
“Pearl’s running away … now that wasn’t so smart. You ladies messed up there. See? I know, least unless you stole her some and put them in her them there head, she ain’t got the brains to do that on her own. See? That’s when I started remembering, after I had shed a few tears’n all over your untimely demise, in the raging torrent of what is the Thames river, how you always said you was lady of a particular manor. You was so easy to find, Cass. Didn’t you even think of using a different name? I mean don’t you think old Lord what’s ‘is name again—Koorecroft—well, I ain’t him it’s true-- but don’t you think he’d be happy to hear he’s got three of London’s finest snaps on his patch?”
“Are you meaning yourself, Gil? Because Pearl’s hardly that. She hasn’t done nothing. So let’s leave her out of this, shall we?”
“Course she hasn’t. What did I say about brains? Whereas you now?” His brute contempt was preferable to the way his eyes softened. “Ah, you now. You wouldn’t grass me up, my girl. Not the things I done for you back in the day. The times I kept Starkie away, and not just from beating your back. Tatters, wasn’t it, some of them times when you just refused point blank to get out there and do what you was born to do? What God gave you the them there talent to do? But maybe you’ve forgotten? What do you think, ladies? Has Cass here, forgotten? Fool’s errand this is, if she has.”
She fought not to moisten her lips. He was right. He had done things for her. From that very first day he’d looked out for her. Even tonight he’d ensured she hadn’t fried. In his way.
But then again, there was the one time he’d failed her. The time he’d messed things up. The time that to this day, shrunk the little patch she stood on. And that one time meant whatever he’d done for her, he wasn’t stepping on that little patch with her, whatever happened next. She wasn’t stealing again either if that was why he was here. She’d sooner die. And she didn’t care if he knew why. Not given what boiled in her veins and all she stood to lose. She tilted her chin.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. Do you remember the Wentworth emeralds? Hmm? That nice little necklace I stole about four miles from here? Seeing as you remember so damned much, do you remember that?”
“Jeez.” He coughed. A rasping bite that seized his throat and shook his shoulders for what seemed an eternity. “Only time you came up empty handed.”
“Lord Hawley’s the man I left them with, after I was forced to walk a mile along the freezing highway in the pitch dark looking for you, because you messed up. And you know what that night cost me in terms of Matthew and what Starkadder did to him. How I found him. How he lay there. How he’d died. So if you think you can beat Lord Hawley to Lord Koorecroft’s, if you think any of us are going to steal for you again, door’s there. Go on. Be our guest.”
“Whot? While I’m bein’ your guest, you bolt? Is that it? Nice try, Saff. You always was a class act. But, did I say anythin’ about stealin’? Who said anythin’ about stealin’? You bein’ in my bed, or nothin’, though there’s worse places I could be I suppose. You too. I mean—”
“No, Gil. I couldn’t. So don’t even think about it.”
He coughed again and she swallowed what rose in her gullet. Of course Gil had never looked after her for nothing. Any more than he was here for nothing. He had always wanted her.
So the choice probably was whether the one legged chicken stayed that way, or became a no-legged one, in terms of options. He’d already put a certain cart before a certain horse, saying she was his wife. Was this why? To force her into a corner? Her?
“Yes," she added. “Little do you know the mistake you’ve made. But if you want to sit down there by the fire? Where we can all see one another? Discuss this further? The next part of this as you said?”
Yes. When it came to bolting, the thing was to keep this civil, lull him with drink—provided Ruby parted with that drink--and get the hell out of here, slip away one by one, if need be. Code Blue. Pearl cowered by the door. While Ruby might part with the drink for tonight, that would be as long as she’d part with it. So they were hardly going to argue. They had money, didn’t they? And packed bags over at the hall. It all depended on him sitting down in that chair and her keeping Ruby and Pearl onboard.
“Don’t mind if I do, my girl. A man gets weary, what with all this standin’ on them there legs what the fates have them there decreed, ain’t what they used to be.” He sank into the battered chair, dragged his coattails out from beneath him. “I knew I could count on you.”
“More than I could do with you that night. But then some things never change. Like you telling Lord Hawley I’m your wife. I’m not your wife.”
“You looked like you could do wif a bitta help.”
She tightened her jaw. “I do now. Especially as the whole county thinks I’m a widow.”
“If I’d known I’d have said somethin’ different. But thing is, you never told me you was, so how could I know? See, I couldn’t know what you might call, anythin’. Saff, look, look, I vow and swear—”
“You, Gil? That would be a first. But there, let’s not quibble.”
“Well, thing is whot did you scream for if you wasn’t wantin’ my help? See? I mean--and maybe there’s somethin’ about this I ain’t understandin’, cos understanding isn’t what you’d call my strong point, in fact, got a head thick as Pearl there, that way--you kissed him. And then, you screamed, which seemed to me a very odd thing to do. Well, don’t you think it is? Especially when he’d just said—” The sniff was short as a dying man’s last breath but loud as a clanging gong. “Now, what was that again?”
Cass’s heart skipped a beat. Have Ruby and Pearl know she’d had this in the bag and then burst the bag? Think she was one of these awful people who always had to have the last word? That she’d somehow failed to manage Devorlane Hawley as promised? She couldn’t.
What they didn’t know was that Devorlane Hawley was dangerous. Drawing her steel heartstrings, playing on her for that moment he asked for the kiss, so that for the sixty miniscule beats it was composed of, she’d stood in another world. A strange moonlit one, full of short breath and stuttering heartbeats and magic. Then, when he had her where he wanted her, as opposed to where she wanted to be, propositioning her.
“He said nothing.”
“Well, that’s a man for you. You never was much go
od wif them. Whatever I said, I ain’t long for this world. I only wants a bed. Not yours, before you go thinkin’. Just a bed. See? What I saw out there, looks like that bed, that bed of yours could well be occupied and—”
“Local inn’s along the road.” Ruby walked to the table with the half empty sherry decanter on it. “Queen’n Crown. Very nice. Good price. Handy if yer wanting ter—”
He swung his gaze up. “Now, Rube, why should I stay there, when I can stay here, nice and cozy as can be with you ladies? You wouldn’t want me stayin’ along there. Not the way drink loosens a man’s tongue, ‘specially a sick, dyin’ one, wif nothin’ left to lose. Who knows what I might say?”
“You stay”—Ruby banged he decanter lid down on the table—”and I go.”
“That’s up to you. Here, just think of the hole I’m diggin’ our Saff here out of. For old time’s sake. All I done for her back in the day. Sure wif her creative talents she can find a way ter explain me for a week or two. What do you say to it?”
He coughed. What she’d say, the grieving widow she purported to be, wouldn’t be polite. Of course they were all of them skilled in the art of disguise. There had been no choice in order to survive. A lady. A footman. Cass had even been a chimney sweep on one occasion involving a locked room. But to starve in order to come by the sunken eyes, the cadaverous frame, would even Gil go that far?
If he was ill, if he was dying, was it so clever to run, when her heart was in this place and this place was hers?
What if even now men were on their way to arrest her? It was all very well talking about it being Devorlane Hawley’s word against hers. He was an English duke. Even if she wasn’t Sapphire but some perfectly innocent woman, who hadn’t lifted so much as a blade of grass, that wasn’t hers to lift, who would Lord Koorecroft believe?
A husband now? Wasn’t it better to suffer the slings and arrows of that outrageous fortune, than take arms against it?
Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1) Page 6
