“You got it, guv.” At least the lad was lighter on his feet than he was with his fingers. He turned and sprinted up the bank and toward the street, his small feet slapping the pavement as he ran. As he disappeared out into the distance, a cloud overhead blotted out the peachy dawn and gave an ominous rumble overhead.
For once the drenching rain was a blessing. Chris turned his face to the deluge and scraped his hands through his hair, rinsing out the worst of the grime that had collected there. His clothes were still ruined—not even a good, thorough wash would exorcise them of the smell. But at least he felt marginally cleaner than he had been.
The irony of his position did not escape him. He had ended up exactly where he had started in life; in the mud and muck, stinking of the sewers. No matter how far he had risen, no matter what sort of name he had made for himself, how much blunt with which he had lined his pockets,herewas precisely where he was meant to be. He had escaped it by the skin of his teeth, the sweat of his brow, and a great deal of luck and cunning—but it was always right here waiting for him.
The simple fact was that he could take himself only so far. He could not enter theTonthrough sheer dint of will alone. He needed a foot in the door, so to speak.
He needed a damned wife.
∞∞∞
It was impossible to tell whether or not the lad had actually made it back in time. Even if Chris had not been divested of his pocket watch before he’d been unceremoniously dumped into the Thames, its inner workings surely would have succumbed to the filthy water. But the summer storm had not yet passed by the time the carriage arrived, and if the time that had elapsed had been a bit over the mark, it had been near enough to it that Chris did not feel inclined to quibble over what had likely been a few minutes at most.
The carriage door opened as Chris loped toward it, his stride awkward and hobbled. Brooks had come himself, and he had one hand clenched at the scruff of the boy’s neck, holding him by the collar of his shirt.
Probably the boy had tried to nick whatever coin it was that Brooks had brought with him. A proficient pickpocket could earn double or more what a mudlark might—if he didn’t get pinched. Young Albertwould need to be disabused of the notion before he found himself transported for picking the wrong pocket.
“Lemme go!” The boy squalled, flailing against the hold as he was dragged bodily out of the carriage.
Chris grabbed for the length of toweling that was draped over Brooks’ arm, rubbing first at his hair and then at the rest of him. “Tried to nick the coin, did he?” he asked.
“Thought I wouldn’t notice,” Brooks said dryly.
Chris barked out a laugh, tossing the towel onto the floor of the carriage as he climbed inside. “Who’s your kidsman?” he asked of the boy. Clearly the man wasn’t training the children upproperly.
“Ain’t any business o’ yers,” Albert said, his bare feet sliding along the grass. “Lemme go, or I’ll shout!”
He’d been shouting already, but he was also smart enough to recognize that help was not forthcoming. Not so early in the morning, and not for a boy who looked like the urchin he was. “Throw ‘im in the carriage,” Chris said to Brooks, jerking his head toward it. “We’re taking him to Em.” He stretched out his hand for the umbrella, which Brooks handed over.
“Thought as much.” Brooks tossed the wriggling boy over his shoulder and lobbed him back into the carriage. “You’ll make a new enemy.”
“Or a worse one.” Hard to tell. Sometimes the children didn’t talk. Sometimes they lied.
“Can it get worse? You receive at least half a dozen death threats a week.” Brooks had had to shout to be heard over Albert’s caterwauling. “And I don’t suppose you were foolish enough to simply trip into the Thames, which means someone must have actually tried to kill you. What would you call that?”
“A perfectly average Tuesday,” Chris said. “Quit your bellyaching,” he snapped at the boy as he climbed into the carriage. “No one means to hurt you.”
Brooks slid onto the seat beside the child and fished in his pocket, withdrawing a small purse. “You promised the boy a sovereign?”
“I did.”
A scowl pleated Brooks’ mouth as he eyed the boy askance. “Waste of coin.”
“My coin to waste.”
“Here, then,” Brooks said with a roll of his eyes, extending the coin to the boy. “Take it, and stop that damned whining. It’s unbecoming.”
“What’s unbecomin’?” The boy had ceased his wailing thesecond the cool metal of the coin had touched his palm, and he wrapped his fingers around it, squinting at it in the dim light. “An’ who’s Em?”
Chris watched the boy shove his arm into the loose neck of his shirt, tucking the coin away. Probably his clothes had been sewn with hidden pockets, the better to conceal the fruits of his thievery. Not that it mattered. It would be some time before the boy had the opportunity to spend it. “She’s my sister,” he said. “She runs a home and a school for children in need. She’s right fierce when called to it, so you’d best mind her. And your manners besides, or I’ll tell her to beat you good and proper.”
True horror slid over the boy’s face, his jaw hanging agape as his eyes widened comically. “I ain’t going to no school!”
“No, of course not,” Brooks sniffed. “You’ll have to be bathed and deloused first.”
“Bathed!” Albert shrieked the word at the top of his lungs, and the sound fairly rattled the roof of the carriage. “But I had a bath in May!”
“By the smell of you, I’d’ve said February.” Chris ducked the small fist that lashed out at him and swiped his arm to the side, effectively pinning the boy in place. “Listen ‘ere, you little pissant,” he growled, and paused to rein in his temper once more. “You’ll be respectful and call herLady Emma, or I’ll let ‘er wallop you.”
