The reformers couldn’t understand that, for some folk, liberty was more important than respectability. Choice more alluring than security. And those who chose the way of the mudlarks knew that their soul was worth more than new clothes and bowls of gruel.
Since Cull had become the leader, he’d done his best to steer his group away from the darker trades. The prince before him had begun to shift the work of the mudlarks from scavenging and theft to dealing in information, and Cull had pushed that agenda. The decision had proved a profitable one. Fanny hadn’t been wrong when she said the gang’s coffers were overflowing. Cull had instituted a system whereby each of the larks had a share of the profits, based on their years of service and contributions. The funds were kept tucked away at Gruenwald’s Bank until they were ready to fly the coop.
Increasingly, mudlarks were choosing to stay on into their adult years. Cull had been working on a program to train the older larks in a profession that would provide them with a sustainable future. He hoped, in time, to create a legitimate enterprise, one that would permanently lift his brethren out of the dangerous streets while providing them with the autonomy they craved.
The carriage drove by sagging flash houses and gin shops, alleyways teeming with vice and danger. The swirling fog carried the stink of the streets and the Thames and might have offended some nostrils, but to Cull, it was the smell of home. They arrived at the Nest, a riverfront property that had once been a tenement. Cull descended first, turning to see a hackney pull up behind him.
The door opened, and a slender trouser-clad figure hopped down.
Bloody hell…Pippa? What is she doing here?
He stared at her, wondering if she was a figment of his feverish imagination. As she came up to him, the scowl on her face confirmed that he wasn’t fantasizing. She was no less gorgeous when she was angry, however; from beneath her cap, her eyes blazed with heavenly fire.
Those eyes suddenly widened. “Cull, behind you!”
Her panic made Cull spin around. A brute had emerged from the shadows; face hidden by a kerchief, he aimed a pistol straight at Cull. As Cull tensed to spring away from the danger, a shot tore through the night. A moment later, a force rammed into him and sent him to the ground.
7
Once again, Pippa found herself on top of Timothy Cullen, the breath knocked out of her. Since she’d done the knocking down this time, she supposed she couldn’t complain. She twisted her head in the direction of the shooter; the villain was gone. Absorbed back into the shadows of the alleyway from which he’d emerged.
A wise move on his part. The driver of the carriage was now on the ground, a pair of pistols in hand. The little bespectacled mudlark who had exited the carriage after Cull was blowing frantically on a whistle. The shrill call summoned his brethren, who were spilling out of their flash house, armed to the teeth.
Pippa peered down at Cull. “Are you all right?”
Framed by his mask, his eyes were dazed.
“Pippa?” he said hoarsely. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your hide, apparently,” she muttered.
Judging that he wasn’t harmed, she rose and dusted off her trousers. Before she could offer him a hand, he was on his feet. When he pushed her behind him, putting himself between her and where the shooter had been, she rolled her eyes at his belated gallantry.
“The assailant took off down that alleyway,” she said. “Did you recognize him?”
Cull shook his head. “A cutthroat for hire, by the looks of him.”
“Who hired him?”
He continued scanning the environs for danger. “The list is too long to get into now.”
A pair of mudlarks came running up. Pippa recognized the curly-haired girl with the striking amber eyes and the gangly brown-haired lad, both of whom had been on the boat last evening.
“We’re ready to go after the bastard, Cull.” The girl’s words were as fierce as the way she slapped a cudgel against her palm. “We’ll show ’im what ’appens when ’e attacks one o’ us.”
“No, Fair Molly,” Cull said firmly. “You’re not to pursue.”
The lad scowled. “Fair Molly ’as the right o’ it. We should make whoe’er is behind this pay…in blood.”
“Violence isn’t the only way to exact retribution, Long Mikey.” Cull’s tone brooked no refusal. “I want the two of you to set up a perimeter: six larks out front, six in the rear, rotating every two hours. No outsiders in or out. Get the others back inside.”
As Cull gestured to the milling larks, Pippa noticed his slight grimace. Then she saw the tear in the right arm of his coat. A stain darkened the fabric.
“You’re hurt,” she said with concern. “Why didn’t you say anything? Did the bullet hit you?”
“It’s a scratch,” he said dismissively.
“A physician should look at it. Wounds can fester—”
