He was so sceptical. The boy had likely never been able to trust anyone. “Kirby, you need not make a deal with me. Besides, I am already in your debt.”
The boy swallowed thickly and blew out a long breath. Mrs Watson returned with an entire cake; she must have reconsidered her opinion about the boy lurking outside her door. Darcy allowed Kirby to busy himself with the cake and hide his relieved emotions.
“Mrs Watson, this is Master Kirby Ramer. He will stay with us until I can arrange for him to be sent to a school. He will also need a room and a new suit of clothes.”
She nodded and smiled in Kirby’s direction, but he was too busy devouring the cake. Darcy wondered when he last ate.
“Is Master Kirby to sleep in a servant’s room, sir?”
“A guest chamber,” he said to make his point. “He is to have free rein of the library.”
Mrs Watson curtsied and left, and by the time she did, half of the cake was gone. Kirby wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked like a weary little boy.
“Kirby, before you rest, can you tell me what happened after you left the Bull and George? What changed your mind about fleeing your uncle?”
He rubbed his eyes reflexively, flinching as his knuckles hit the bruise below his eye. “My uncle was furious when he realised those men were in Dartford to rescue you. His entire plan had fallen apart. He was so angry, like when my father was arrested or when they killed that excise officer.”
Kirby leant his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. Whatever had happened, it was nothing a child should have to bear.
“Why do you not start at the beginning? You arrived in Gravesend without us or Steamer. Your uncle struck you out of anger…”
“And then my uncle and Conway and I went to Dartford to find you and Steamer, like I said. He wanted to kill you both in your beds and be gone before anyone realised he was there. But your friends came, so we left. Steamer had been found along the toll road and brought to a surgeon. His leg was in a fracture box and he had a wound on his neck and was all bruised from the fall, but the surgeon said he would recover.”
The boy looked wretched. He was now tapping the fork tines against the plate, and Darcy had to repress the urge to snatch the fork from his hands to make the noise stop. “Kirby, what happened next?” he asked. “What made you leave your uncle?”
“We left Steamer with the surgeon. We could not move him, of course. And then Colton met us in Gravesend not long after my uncle and Conway and I returned. Colton had the reply from the woman who never got the proper papers for the brandy that got my father arrested.” Kirby toyed with the fork, pushing crumbs about. “Is the lady who crossed my uncle really your aunt?”
“Yes, she is.”
“But she is not Nan’s mother?” Darcy shook his head. “That is what Colton’s letter said, that the lady would pay foryoubut that she needed time to arrange for the family of the girl Steamer captured to get the money for her ransom.”
Tears pooled in Kirby’s eyes. “He was so enraged at Steamer for catching the wrong girl and for letting you get away. I have never seen him so angry. He often lashes out, but this was different. When we were done with the cargo in Gravesend on Monday, he and I went back to Dartford.”
Tears were now streaming from his eyes. Darcy handed him his handkerchief, his stomach churning as he waited to hear what happened next. “What happened to Steamer?”
“My uncle killed him,” Kirby said hoarsely. “He told me to go into the apothecary shop and ask the surgeon to look at my bruised eye. I didn’t know what he was going to do!”
“Of course you did not,” Darcy said consolingly.
“The apothecary-surgeon and I were in the front of the shop, and my uncle must have gone into the surgery through the back. We heard a horrid sound, and me and the surgeon ran in…and my uncle had slit Steamer’s throat!” He dried his eyes and took a deep breath. “There was blood everywhere! He relied on Steamer, said he was the best of his crews, and he just…”
Darcy was horrified, and yet not surprised that Markle’s impulse was to turn to violence.
“If he did that to his friend…” Kirby seemed to have turned inward and was talking aloud. “What might he do to me? What would he do to me if he found out I let you go? That I don’t want to be a free trader? That I can’t kill people? He will kill me too.”
After sitting in silence for a while to give Kirby time to calm himself, Darcy asked, “How did you flee him?”
“After he killed Steamer, Uncle met me with the horses and told me to return to Shoreham to await the next load from France. He said he intended to put me to work, that he needed me more than ever with my father in jail, and now that Steamer had failed him.” The boy looked green, and Darcy feared he might cast up everything he had eaten. “But while he rode to Gravesend, back to Colton and Conway, I left the horse at the Bull and George and found a man with a cart to take me to town.”
“It is Tuesday afternoon. Where did you go between Monday night and now?”
“You mean after your housekeeper turned me away the first time?” he said with a hint of bitterness.
“I am sorry that happened, and from now on you are to come in through the front door.”
This seemed to console him. “I wandered about. I slept in Hays Mews just behind here. I tricked someone into thinking I was a new stableboy. I would have found your carriage if you called for it. Since you never asked for it today, I tried the door again.”
“You slept in the stables?”
