Now he said, “Why don’t I go and have a word with him, shall I?”
A frisson darted down her spine, and she grabbed his arm before he could turn away. “Be careful, Alec.”
His teeth flashed in a crooked smile. “Don’t worry about me, sweet. You’d better worry about catching your quarry. It looks like they don’t want to be interviewed.”
“Damn!” she cursed, when she saw that the younger mudlarks had begun running, scattering in all directions. Hiking up her skirts, Kendra chased after a handful of the children running north. Sam, Muldoon, and the other Bow Street Runners were yelling and racing after the other kids. The mud sucked at her boots, hampering her progress. In contrast, the kids seemed to fly across the beach, as fleet of foot as a herd of gazelles.
To think she’d once prided herself on her speed at Langley’s racetrack and the laps she’d made around the FBI Hoover Building in DC. But a year of not running had taken its toll. The muscles in her legs burned as she sprinted after the mudlarks. Wind and rain slapped at her.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Several in the pack glanced over their shoulders, squealing. Smaller children peeled off from the older kids. Kendra made a split-second decision to go after the older children. She didn’t know how it was possible, but they seemed to increase their speed, lengthening the distance between them.
Gritting her teeth, she bore down and found a spurt of energy as the children ran toward a rocky formation that jutted like a finger from the embankment. She gained a few feet, but had no breath left in her lungs to order them to stop again. They were twenty yards ahead. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. Her calves screamed. Still, she gulped air and barreled forward, shrinking the distance to fifteen yards.
Then the kids disappeared around the jagged outcrop.
Kendra was running so fast that she nearly collided with a large boulder.Skidding, she corrected course around the stones. On the other side, she saw the mudlarks vanish into a yawning black hole cut into the embankment.
Ignoring the painful stitch burning in her side, she jogged the last few feet to the opening. It was a stone tunnel, at least seven feet high, five feet across. Large enough to accommodate her without forcing her to bend over.
She paused to catch her breath. Her ears were still roaring with her blood, but her heart was beginning to settle. Cautiously, she moved forward. The gray light outside rapidly diminished, and she stepped into the pitch-black. Did she hear the scurrying of running feet?
She stopped. Listened. Heard nothing except for the drip-drip-drip of rain outside the tunnel entrance. Either the children had stopped running or there was an escape hatch somewhere.
Lichen and seaweed crawled up the stone walls around her, hung from cracks on the arched ceiling. This had to be one of the abandoned aqueducts built by the industrious Romans when they ruled England. She walked another foot, glass, seashells, and gravel crunching under the soles of her half-boots. The strong smell of sea, sewage, rotting vegetation, and decaying flesh—animal, she hoped—felt like a punch to the throat.
She stopped again. “Hey!” she yelled. Her voice echoed back to her. “I’m not going to hurt you! I just want to talk!”
Nothing.
“I’m looking for Edwina!” she shouted into the abyss. “I need her help! I’m offering a reward!”
Straining her ears, she thought maybe, just maybe, she heard movement somewhere in the endless darkness. “I’ll protect her!” she tried again. “I promised Old Beatrice that I’d protect her!”
She took another step.
“My name is Kendra—Lady Sutcliffe. Twenty-five Bedford Square. Tell Edwina! Tell her that I will protect her!”
She held her breath. Silence.
Damn. She couldn’t advance farther without a lantern. She already felt like she’d been swallowed by the darkness.
She wheeled around and began walking back to the tunnel’s exit. It was darker now; she could barely see. Her boots splashed through a puddle. She froze. The tunnel had been dry when she’d come in—there should be nosplashing.
She picked up her pace. As she hurried forward, the light from outside pierced the gloom and she could see the rivulets surging between the rubbish and seashells that littered the tunnel’s floor. The rising water lapped at her half-boots.
Heart pumping wildly, she sloshed her way to the tunnel’s opening.
Holy shit.She stopped abruptly, her stomach dropping in dismay as she stared.
The tide had come in.
Chapter 38
The Thames’ icy water stole Kendra’s breath as it surged and swirled, twisting her skirts around her legs. Rain pelted her as she scanned the nearest embankment, the rocky outcrop that cut her off from everyone else, making her feel like she was completely alone in a desolate world.
Too steep. Unless she turned into a billy goat, there was no damn way she was going to scale those rocks. Her best bet, she decided, was to get to the end of the rugged outcrop, where the incline sloped downward.
