“He’s an artist.” Fanny waved a hand. “All artists are dramatic.”
“Tell that to the scullery maids who come crying to me,” Horace said.
“They come to you on account of your giant soft heart. And you had better not be offering them that brawny shoulder of yours to cry on, Horace Grier.”
A smile slashed through Horace’s beard. “Jealous, lass?”
That earned him a glare from Fanny that would have felled a lesser man.
Supper was carted in, interrupting the Griers’ banter. The delicious meal of chicken stew, herbed potatoes, and side dishes was accompanied by wine and easy conversation. As Cull was tucking into dessert, a creamy blancmange and assortment of buttery cookies, Grier brought up a more serious topic.
“’Ave you given any thought to my suggestion o’ ’iring on guards, lad?” the Scot asked.
Cull finished a cookie. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need guards.”
“Those larks o’ yours are excellent scouts. But they ain’t fighters,” Grier insisted. “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: a man who deals in secrets can’t be too careful. Should think it obvious, after what ’appened.”
Grier was referring to the incident two weeks ago when a carriage had nearly hit Cull as he was leaving the club. The vehicle hadn’t slowed after Cull had dived out of harm’s way. Cull knew it was no accident, yet he balked at hiring guards. Mudlarks managed their own business. He’d informed Long Mikey and the other team leaders, who were instructed to keep a sharp lookout.
He’d also started gathering information on possible suspects. He’d narrowed the list down to five bastards who’d long wanted to get their greedy paws on the larks: Melville, Crane, Hannity, Igden, and Squibb. The cutthroats were known to use violence to keep their gangs in line. They wanted to expand their power by absorbing the mudlarks’ territory and reaping the profits from the information trade.
Cull despised the blackguards. He refused, however, to start a battle that would turn into a massacre. As far as he was concerned, there were no winners in war; when he retaliated, it would be clean and efficient, as bloodless as he could make it.
“I’ve everything in hand.” Cull shrugged. “Danger is the price of doing business.”
Being products of the underworld, the Griers understood that as well as he did.
“Even so,” Grier began.
“Save your breath, luv,” Fanny said. “The lad has more pride than sense. Thinks he can handle cutthroats without shedding blood.”
“Killing begets more killing.” The inked tally on Cull’s back was a reminder of that fact, and he would do everything in his power not to add to it.
A mudlark never forgets.
The door was flung open, and Ollie scampered in, his spectacles askew.
Cull frowned. “What are you doing here? You should be keeping watch on—”
He cut himself off. The last thing he needed was for Fanny to find out about Pippa. Christ Almighty, he would never hear the end of it.
“Why aren’t you with the target?” he finished.
Ollie didn’t reply, mesmerized by the plate of cookies on the table. Sighing, Cull offered it to him. Ollie stuffed two buttery rounds into his mouth, pocketing the rest.
“I tried to tail ’er,” the boy said through a mouthful of crumbs. “But she pulled a fast one and disappeared.”
Bloody hell, that wasn’t a good sign. Where could Pippa have gone?
“Thank you for the hospitality.” Pushing his chair back, Cull got to his feet and bowed to the Griers. “If you’ll excuse me, I must attend to some business.”
Ollie showed Cull where he’d lost Pippa, at a busy corner of the Strand. As it was clear that there would be no picking up her scent, they headed back to the Nest.
The carriage wound through the narrow streets toward the mudlarks’ headquarters in the Devil’s Acre, located in the heart of Westminster. Here in the shadows of the grand old Abbey and Houses of Parliament lived real London. Reformers had taken to these low-lying streets near the Thames, documenting their outrage over the population of beggars, thieves, and prostitutes who eked out a squalid living, in the same neighborhood where bluebloods decided the fate of the nation (always and unsurprisingly to their own advantage). The do-gooders tried to start schools to educate the “heathen children” in the ways of Christianity.
Some campaigners even knocked on Cull’s door. Demanded that he release the children in his care…as if he kept them behind bars. The doors of the Nest were open for mudlarks to come and go as they pleased. The children Cull took in were like him: products of the stews, who’d survived poverty and loss and worse. They were outsiders who valued freedom and lived by their own rules.
One time, a crusader had kidnapped an adolescent mudlark named Matches from the Nest, forcing him to join one of the “ragged schools” designed to reform poor children. Knowing Matches could take care of himself, Cull hadn’t been too worried. Sure enough, the boy returned two days later, smirking, his spiky dark hair singed from the hobby that had earned him his moniker. The do-gooders never did rebuild the burned-down school…nor did they come back for Matches.
