Onward they strode, keeping to the winding alleyways in silence, until, at last, she slowed her step. She jerked her chin toward a building ahead—musty gray, ramshackle, and listing subtly to one side. To all appearances, the edifice would be a pile a rubble in a matter of days, if not hours.
But it wasn’t the building Jamie had a care for. It was Hortense. Even in the uncertain light, he detected an unnatural brightness shining in her eyes. She held a fist to the door, poised to knock, and hesitated. Once she knocked, she would be committed to the events which would follow.
As much as he wanted to spare her this, Mollie’s boy—hisboy—might be within these walls. He couldn’t leave it be. Now that he knew about Rafe, Jamie would claim him and take him to his new home, his true home.
Her hand hadn’t yet knocked. Instinctively, Jamie closed the distance, so only a few inches stood between him and her. Low words were emerging from his mouth of their own accord. “You will not be alone in this.”
She blinked. She recognized them as the words he’d spoken yesterday, yet the jitters didn’t completely clear from her eyes. He gave her a steadying nod.
She knocked three soft raps, waited ten seconds, rapped two more times, waited five seconds, and then one short, sharp knock. A code. One she still knew. Curious that.
Thirty fraught seconds passed. She wiped her palms on her trousers.
The door barely squeaked open. A boy’s canny eye appeared in the scant sliver, landing on Hortense, then Jamie. “’Oo’s this?”
“Tell Doyle it’s Hortense and”—she hesitated—“an associate.”
Without acknowledging the command, the boy shut the door.
Jamie glanced around the ramshackle building. “Will Doyle want coin?”
“One never knows with him, but likely not.”
“This place could use a bit of coin to prop it up.”
“It won’t be coin.”
Again, the door opened, its rusted hinges screaming with the effort, this time wide enough to admit both of them into a dark corridor, lit only by the meager light of a small, dirt-crusted window. Through close corridors the boy led them. As Jamie’s eyes adjusted to the nearly complete dark, he was able to form impressions of the surroundings. Narrow walls moldering with damp. Small table jutting into the walkway that he jostled with his right thigh. Around corners they curved, his broad shoulders clipping the walls. He would have a few bruises after tonight.
It wasn’t long before they reached an opening, even darker than the corridors they’d just traversed. Hortense’s arm swung out, preventing him from proceeding through. “There is a staircase,” she said in a rushed whisper, saving him from a tumble down rickety stairs that would have likely resulted in a broken neck at the bottom.
As they descended, the light grew brighter, and soon they were inside a room lit by the dim, flickering light of a few tallow candles. The walls of the room were undecorated, rough, and streaked with black mold. It looked as if it had been dug out by hand and left half unfinished. Five or six boys were scattered about, all staring out at them in silence.
Hortense’s gaze, however, was fixed on a point straight ahead. There, seated behind a large, square table, hands resting on its top, each finger adorned with a bejeweled ring, could be none other than the man known as Flick Doyle. All manner of ill-gotten goods lay scattered before him—handkerchiefs, pocket watches, snuff boxes, coin, papers, any and every thing that might fill a gentleman’s pockets.
Doyle settled back in his plush, red velvet chair and pushed round, wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose. “When the boy told me he heard Hortense’s knock—but it weren’t just Hortense, but Hortense and anassociate, I thought to meself, Flick, ye got to meet thisassociateof Hortense.” He spewed a hearty bark of a laugh. “Now what ye be wantin’ from me, pet?”
Chapter Ten
“Now what yebe wantin’ from me, pet?”
Hortense’s jaw tensed, and her hands clenched into fists.
Pet.
After all these years, her body still had a visceral reaction to Doyle calling her by that sobriquet. She was no one’spet.
When she didn’t offer a reply, he snorted. He knew she didn’t like being called pet. She took him in with fresh eyes, the ones Clare would be casting over him now. Doyle was essentially the same as the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him. Hair maybe a little thinner and grayer, but still unkempt and greasy. Actually, those words sufficed to describe his entire person, inside and out. He jerked his chin toward Clare. “Who’s thisassociateye’ve brought fer me perusal?”
She darted Clare a suppressive glance. Under no circumstances was he to answer the question. But here he was opening his mouth. She let the first lie that came to mind roll off her tongue. “He can’t speak.”
Doyle cocked his head. “Mute, ye say?”
“Aye.” She kept talking for some unfathomable reason. “And simple.”
She didn’t need to risk another glance at Clare to know a storm had gathered on his brow. A hysterical giggle wanted to bubble up, which she instantly quashed. She had serious business to attend in this room. A boy’s life hung in the balance.
Doyle must have sensed her shift. “What ye here fer, pet? Somehow, I don’t think it’s to have a laugh o’er yer new man.”
