by Shana Galen
A movement just a few yards away caught his attention, and he urged his horse forward. As he neared, he saw a riderless horse raise its head and look at him. The animal was not tied to a post, and no other horses or carts were nearby. Flynn dismounted and strode to examine it. This was no workhorse; he could see that immediately. This was a carriage hack who’d been fed and cared for by someone with blunt. Someone like Doctor Emerson’s neighbors in King’s Circus.
Flynn turned in a circle then, examining the ramshackle buildings. He was close. Emma was close.
He consulted his map again, but it did little good. Drawing his pistol, he approached the door nearest the horse and knocked. He waited, and when no one answered, he pushed it open and said, “Ho, there!” He stepped inside and found his progress impeded by a blade to his throat.
“Who are ye, and what do ye want?”
Flynn’s gaze flicked to the crude knife, then to the face of the tall, thin man. It was not his brother. He had not seen his brother for decades, but he knew this man was not him. “Unless you relish a pistol ball in your heart, you’ll move that away from my throat,” Flynn said carefully. The man, who smelled as though he bathed only every other year, looked down at the pistol Flynn held pointed to his chest. With a grin that revealed a set of black teeth, he lowered his crude weapon.
“At your service, guv.”
“Good.” Flynn’s gaze never left the man’s. “Then take your hand out of my pocket and step away.”
Slowly the man withdrew his hand and shrugged. “Can’t blame a man for tryin’.”
Flynn surveyed the room in the weak light. It was a public room of some sort, with several tables and chairs in varying states of disrepair littering the floor. Two other men, both of whom looked half asleep, lay on the floor near the far wall.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Can’t see that there’s anyone here to interest the likes of you, guv.”
“A shilling for your trouble, then.”
The man nodded and held out his hand. “Payment in advance, guv.”
“Payment when I have the information I seek, or I’ll take that knife from you and gut you myself.”
The man took a step back, though in Flynn’s assessment, he didn’t look particularly worried. Flynn was most likely the least of his concerns. “I’m looking for a man named Robert.”
“Don’t know him.”
Flynn held a hand out, and the shilling gleamed in his palm. “He might go by Robbie.”
The man blinked and took another step back. “I don’t know ’im. You’d better go.”
“I don’t believe you, Mr.—”
“I don’t have no name. Not one I’m telling you. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get on that horse of yours and go home.”
“I can’t.” Flynn stepped farther inside the room, though the stench of unwashed bodies assaulted his nose. He closed the door. “Robbie has something that is mine.” Or rather someone, though Flynn didn’t know when he’d started to think of her as his. “I won’t leave without her.”
The man said nothing, but his gaze cut from right to left and then to the sleeping men. “Robbie is Satin’s man.”
Flynn shrugged. “I’ve heard of Satin. He doesn’t scare me.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
Before Flynn knew what had happened, the tall man snatched the shilling from his still open palm. “Robbie is upstairs, second door on the right, and you didn’t hear it from me.” He circled Flynn and was out the door and gone.
Flynn looked toward the stairwell the man had indicated. He had doubts as to whether, if he went up, he’d come back down, but Emma might be up there, and so he put his foot on the first creaky step, knowing with each groan of the staircase he was closer to that eternity Lucifer had planned for him in hell.
Six
“I could help you,” Emma said, watching from the mattress as Robert Flynn took another dose of the opium-laden laudanum. He swallowed and closed his eyes, then trained his gaze directly on her. The small candle flickered, and the shadows obscured most of his countenance.
“How can you help me? You can’t even help yourself.”
“I work at the charity hospital,” Emma said, ignoring his sneering tone. She was the daughter of a duke. She had grown up with the sneering tones of the sons and daughters of the peerage. “We have opium-eaters there. We help them overcome their addictions.”
He shook his head. “You say it so pretty—overcome their addictions. Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you think I want Satin’s claws in my back? I’ll die without this.” He shook the bottle he still clutched.
“You won’t die,” she said calmly. “You will only feel as though you’re going to die.”
“Oh, well that’s much better then.”
Emma clenched her hands in her skirts and went on. “But when it’s over, you will be free. You won’t need that anymore.” She indicated the laudanum, and he turned it toward the candlelight, examining it with a look akin to love. But the twist of his lip showed her just how much he hated his weakness. He slid down the wall beside the door opposite her and stared into the space between them for a long time. Emma knew he was feeling the effects of the opium, although she doubted he received much pleasure from it any longer.
Finally, when she thought he might have fallen asleep, and she began to contemplate sneaking out of the room—though what she would do when she reached the street, she had no idea—he said, “You asked why I keep thieving for Satin.”
“Er—yes,” she said.
“It’s the opium,” he said. “I need it, and Satin makes sure I have all I want.”
“As long as you give him what he wants.”
Flynn’s brother nodded. “I’m a good thief, but you think I want to take money off them poor sods who come here to take the waters? They’re sick. Hoping for a cure.” His accent was deteriorating as he spoke, and she wondered if he would fall asleep soon, despite his efforts to remain awake. “Old ladies and men who can’t walk without help. I don’t take any pleasure in pilfering their purses.”
“Then walk away. Lord Chesham is”—how to describe Flynn? Strong, handsome, smart, witty?— “not afraid of…anything.”
“Just wait ’til Satin has him. He has plans for the both of you. Ordered me to take you both, but right now I’m…not in the best shape. No match for your Lord Chesham. I seen if I take you, my brother will follow. Much easier.”
She latched onto his words. “You’re right about Flynn. He’s strong. He can destroy Satin, and I can help you free yourself of the opium. Your life doesn’t have to be like it is. You can change it.”
He stared at her, obviously dubious of her promises. She was dubious as well. Could she help him? She’d never helped anyone all on her own. As much as she tried to blend in at the charity hospital, to make herself like any other nurse, she was still Lady Emma. She suspected she had been shielded from certain unsavory aspects of the hospital. And after her abduction tonight, she had no doubt Katherine and Andrew would whisk her away and out of Society’s view for some time. It would be the only way to save her reputation, if indeed it could be saved after this.
Emma rather doubted her reputation could survive. She’d been in a room alone with a criminal for several hours. Everyone would assume the worst.
Suddenly, Flynn’s brother jumped to his feet and looked at the door. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered. Emma’s heart thumped in her chest. Was it this Satin he’d spoken of? What would he do when he saw her?
A quiet tap sounded on the door, and she swallowed. She wished she could sink under the mattress and hide. Except she’d never been one to hide before. Instead, she rose to her feet and stood, legs braced, ready for the worst.
“Who is it?” Flynn’s brother asked.
“Open the bloody door before I kick
it down.”
“Flynn!” Emma couldn’t stop herself from calling out. She glanced at her captor. “It’s your brother!”
Robert Flynn faltered, and before he could move to open the door, Flynn did exactly as he’d promised and kicked it open. Robert jumped back, but Emma ran forward. “Flynn!”
He stood in the doorway, pistol trained on her captor. He gave her only a quick glance, but she could have sworn she saw relief in that look. And then she crashed into his arms. Without lowering the pistol, he caught her and pulled her hard against him. She was safe.
She wanted to bury her head in his shoulder, close her eyes, and forget the last few hours. Flynn was here. He would take care of her.
“Lady Emma, are you hurt? Did this knave touch you?”
“I’m fine. He did not hurt me at all.” She raised her head and looked from one brother to the other. “Flynn, may I introduce your brother, Robert. Robert, the Viscount of Chesham.”
* * *
Flynn stared at the man Emma said was his brother. Of course, he knew his brother had her. Derring had said as much, but Flynn still felt a cold numbness wash over him as he stared at the man in the flesh. In his mind, Robert had never aged past the age of four. In his mind, Robert was short and cherub-cheeked, stuck in the place between toddler and boy.
This man had several days’ growth of beard, and his hair was long and unwashed. He was a little shorter than Flynn himself and quite a bit thinner. Almost gaunt. His nose looked as though it had been broken a time or two, and he sported an old bruise on his temple. His hands, one clenched around a crude dagger and the other a bottle of some sort, were scraped and scabbed and grimy with dirt.
Reflexively, Flynn pulled Emma closer. He wanted her away from this place and safe. Then he would deal with his brother—if the man was indeed his brother. But even as he thought it, he knew he was fooling himself. The young man who stood before him might have been himself in other circumstances. He saw the same arch of the brow on that face that he saw every morning in the mirror. And he saw something else as well—traces of his late father.
And for that alone, Flynn wouldn’t have minded striking the man who stood opposite him.
“You are Lord Chesham?” the man asked. Flynn swallowed. He sounded like their late father. Strange to hear that voice from the grave, though Flynn supposed he sounded much like the man as well.
“I am. You purport to be my younger brother?”
The man’s mouth quirked in the same way Flynn’s would have if he’d had to listen to some pompous ass ask who he purported to be.
“My name is Robbie. I remember that much.”
Yes, they had called him Robbie or Master Robbie. He’d seemed, as a child, too young for the formality of Robert. But he was no child now. “At the moment, I don’t give a shilling who you are. You’re lucky to be standing. When her brother finds out you abducted her, you’ll be in your grave.”
The man’s gaze slid to Emma, then back to him. “Who’s her brother?”
“The Duke of Ravenscroft.”
Robbie laughed. “I might have known. I knew she weren’t no mere miss.”
“Flynn,” Emma began, “he took me only because he didn’t have a choice. The man he works for wants to ransom us both.”
Robbie nodded. “That’s the truth, if you’ll have it. And maybe there’s another truth I haven’t said. Maybe I hoped if you came here, you could get me out.”
Flynn glanced about the room, noted the sparse furnishings and the general squalor. A man in these conditions might be desperate enough to try and impersonate the son of a viscount. He was desperate enough to abduct the sister of a duke. “How do I know you’re really Robert Flynn?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I take her, shoot you, and walk away?”
The man shrugged. “Maybe you should. It’s not safe here. As for proving my identity, I can’t. All I know is my name—Robbie—and…” He trailed off and pulled the bottle he clenched a little tighter to his chest.
“And?” Emma was the one who finally asked. Flynn could have waited all night.
“And I have one memory.” He looked at Flynn and then away. “I don’t even know if it’s a memory or something I conjured in my dreams. It’s…” He seemed to look far away, back into another life. “When I think back, I see a sparkling flower. I think it must be jewels I see sparkling. They’re in the shape of a flower—red petals, a green stem, and a ladybug—”
“A ladybug on the leaf,” Flynn finished.
Robbie looked at him, seeming to come back to the present. “Yes. You know it?”
Flynn’s heart was pounding painfully in his chest now. “It was my mother’s. A brooch she often wore pinned to her day gown.” But the brooch alone did not prove this man was his brother. He could have seen the viscountess wear the brooch any number of times. She resided in Bath part of the year. Perhaps she wore the brooch here.
Except Flynn had not seen her wear it in years. She’d been wearing it the day Robbie disappeared, and afterward he’d heard her tell her lady’s maid she could not bear to see any reminder of that day—not the brooch, the gloves, or the dress and hat she’d worn. Flynn, who had been nine, had thought he too had been relegated to that same list of reminders. It had seemed to him neither of his parents could bear to look at him. Everyone said his brother’s disappearance was not his fault, but he did not believe it. His parents did not believe it. When he was sent away to school, he was actually relieved and resisted going home for holidays. Flynn had wished, more times than he could count, that he had been the one to disappear.
Had he finally found his brother? Seeing the way the man lived served only to thrust the dagger in his chest deeper into his heart. He had grown up with everything, and his brother had lived…here. In this filth and poverty. And the man was hugging a bottle of laudanum. Flynn could add his brother’s addiction to his long list of fraternal crimes.
“I can see you don’t believe I’m your brother,” the man said now. “I didn’t believe it myself, but Derring was convincing. And now that I see you for myself, there’s no doubt.”
Flynn nodded. He had to take Lady Emma home. In all the urgency, he had come to Bath without even considering where he would stay. He could stay with his mother, but he could hardly bring this man—a man who had abducted Ravenscroft’s sister—to the Royal Crescent. Nor could he leave the man here. Now that he’d found Robert, he was not parting with him. “This isn’t over,” Flynn said. “You’re coming with me.”
The door behind him swung open slowly, and Flynn turned, training his pistol on the three men who filled the door. A large man with long black hair streaming out from under his dirty hat stood in front. His shoulders were broad enough that they would have blocked out the other men if the two of them had not been so tall.
“Satin,” Robbie breathed.
“Am I interrupting?” the man in front asked. “You didn’t send word your guests had arrived, Robbie.” He reached a dirty paw for Emma. “Such pretty company too.”
Emma shrank back, and Flynn pulled her closer. “We were just leaving.”
“Were you now?” Satin asked with a crooked smile. His teeth were yellowed, and bits of food were stuck between them. He met Flynn’s gaze directly, and Flynn noted one of the man’s eyes was blue and one green. “I don’t think so.”
“I think maybe we ought to let them go, Satin,” Robbie said, spreading his hands in an appeasing gesture. “Keeping them is dangerous.”
The man called Satin moved with lightning quickness for a man of his size. Flynn barely blinked before Satin had Robbie shoved against the wall, a hand at his throat. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask.”
Flynn started for the door, propelling the wooden Emma with him, but the two men blocked their way. “Go ahead and shoot,” one said, eyeing Flynn’s pistol. “Ye can’t kill all of us.” He held out his hand for the
pistol, and Flynn cursed under his breath. He was tempted to shoot one of them and take his chances with the other two, but there was more than himself to think of. As soon as he fought one man, the other would grab Emma. It might be better to wait for another chance.
He slapped the pistol in the man’s outstretched hand and hoped he hadn’t made a mistake.
“There now,” Satin said from the other end of the room, where he kept Robbie pinned to the wall. Robbie’s face was turning an alarming shade of purple. “You see, Robbie, your brother can be reasonable. And I’m going to let him and your lady friend go free, too, but first I have a job for you.”
Robbie’s gaze met Flynn’s, and in it there was regret and apology. “And if I do the job, you’ll let them go?”
“Of course.” Satin turned to his thugs. “Boys, I want a word alone with Robbie. Take them two to their temporary accommodations.”
The thug who hadn’t yet spoken said, “Where’s that?”
“The flash ken, you numskull,” the other thug told him, smacking him on the back of the head. “Take her”—he indicated Emma—“and I’ll make sure this one don’t give us no trouble.”
The first thug yanked Emma away from Flynn, and he had to let her go. He would kill Robbie for this. Kill Robbie and Satin, too, for allowing the man to touch her. As though she heard his thoughts, she turned and gave him a determined stare. He knew she’d been frightened, because he’d felt the rigidity in her body, but she looked calm and serene. Her gaze told him she trusted him to save them.
He was determined that the faith she had in him would not prove to be misplaced. The thug ushered Emma away from the door, and Flynn followed with a little coaxing from the thug waving his pistol. Now he was being threatened with his own pistol. How demeaning. Flynn might have laughed if Emma had not been present. As it was, he followed the man dragging Emma through the hovel and out into the night. The thugs led them through a dark alley, through several more ramshackle buildings, and down into what appeared to be a cellar of some sort. The “flash ken” was the thieves’ headquarters, where Satin and his men ate and slept and plotted. Flynn was hopelessly lost. He thought about appealing to any of the men and women they passed, but the hollow-eyed creatures shrank back and into themselves. Flynn heard whispers of “Satin.”
