The youth sighed and dropped Eoin’s pocket watch into Hannah’s fingers. The lad’s gaze darted to Eoin. To Eoin’s surprise, the urchin did not appear to be terrified of Eoin’s immense size. Instead, the adolescent seemed to be carefully assessing how best to escape.
“I listened. Will you let me go now?” the lad demanded in the rough accents of the streets.
Instead, Hannah pushed up the boy’s sleeve, revealing bruises. The child broke free of her grip and yanked down the soiled and ripped material.
“If you ever get tired of working for a kidsman, stop by the Black Sheep Coffeehouse,” Hannah told the boy. “There’s a benefactor there who will pay for small tasks like delivering messages and gathering information that isn’t dangerous to obtain.”
The youth jerked his head, but the nod seemed perfunctory. He feinted a move to the right but then ended up darting to the left. Within seconds, he disappeared down another alley.
“We should probably head to our destination before you suffer another mishap. It’s a bit like I’m leading a lamb through the marketplace.”
“I feel like one,” Eoin freely admitted, as they drew closer to the raucous noise emanating from the tavern. Yet Eoin swore most of the sound was coming from below street level rather than from the open windows. He scanned the surrounding area and his gaze locked with the flat, cold eyes of a man guarding a set of sunken steps. The fellow was nearly as big asEoin, and his smashed nose looked like it had been broken at least several times.
“That’s likely not the entrance for us,” Hannah told Eoin in a low voice. “I am curious, too, but we won’t find answers by barging into places where we’re not wanted. Our best chance of learning about your mother is to talk to one of the older serving maids.”
“What do you think is happening down there?” Eoin asked, as a vague unsettled feeling took up roost in his chest.
“On this street?” Hannah said. “Any number of unsavory things. It’s best not to think too much on it and to focus on our mission.”
Yet how could Eoin not be concerned? Over twenty years had passed since his mother had worked at the Horse and Hen, and perhaps this street had been more presentable then. But Eoin couldn’t help worrying that she might have been forced to participate in whatever required a fearsome-looking sentry.
Chapter Seven
For a man who was allegedly stoic, Foxglen was very emotive, at least around Hannah. She could easily read the anguish in his eyes as he gazed around the narrow alleyway. Unlike many of his class, he wasn’t judging or even pitying the destitute folks around him. Instead, he seemed to keenly feel their desperation, perhaps because he was imagining his own family suffering in the filth and squalor.
Hannah wanted to reach out and squeeze his arm like she would one of her cousin’s. But although she’d cuddled next to Foxglen to dissuade the two prostitutes, she didn’t want to physically soothe him. She must remember that he wasn’t her ally, even if they were temporarily working together.
Unfortunately, the wretched man kept inadvertently endearing himself to Hannah. Foxglen might look like a tough prizefighter, but he bumbled around Covent Garden with the shyness of a schoolboy. Although the women in the windows had clearly embarrassed Foxglen, Hannah hadn’t detected rage, disgust, or even prurient interest rising from him. More surprisingly, he hadn’t exhibited a modicum of anger when that street urchin had picked his pocket. Foxglen had simply allowed Hannah to deal with the matter instead of hollering for the youth to be shipped off to the Colonies.
Yet the duke was determined. It showed in the way he boldlypushed open the door to the tavern—even though he didn’t know if he would find painful answers inside.
What greeted them, instead, was ominous silence. As soon as the patrons’ eyes fell upon them, they immediately stiffened and stopped their conversations. Even the servers froze despite their heavy-laden trays. The entire place reeked of stale beer interspersed with the sharper scents of juniper. Evidently, the Horse and Hen still sold the aromatic swill.
It could be that the duke’s massive build had quieted the crowd. The men were definitely sizing him up over their brimming tankards. Yet they were watching her with almost equal suspicion. A weighty wariness hung in the air and, with it, a tinge of danger.
Hannah was suddenly glad that Sophia knew of their destination. She hadn’t thought searching for a duke’s mother would be perilous, but apparently, she’d been mistaken.
“Do you wish to turn around?” Foxglen asked in a low tone that only she could hear.
“No,” Hannah told him at the same volume. This wasn’t the first hazardous situation that she’d faced.
Slowly, Hannah and Foxglen stepped into the dark, malodorous tavern. Even though it was still light out, no sun penetrated the dark, almost cave-like room lit by only a few tallow candles. Given the stench wafting from the tapers, the fatty wax had gone rancid.
As Hannah and Foxglen slunk in the direction of an empty table, every single patron glared. The tavern maids ignored them, but the man behind the locked bar glowered the most. Although Foxglen always walked with his back painstakingly straight, he seemed to somehow make himself even more unrelentingly large.
When they reached their destination, Foxglen pulled out achair that was as spindly as it was wobbly. He hesitated, likely trying to determine if the pathetic piece of furniture would bear his weight. With a sigh, the duke gingerly sat down. The wood creaked but thankfully didn’t break.
Hannah sat too. Slowly, the customers’ conversation resumed, but the discourse was still obviously stilted. Occasionally, hollering and shouting drifted up from between the cracks in the floorboards. Whenever it did, the occupants of the tavern slammed their drinks down or stomped their feet.
The establishment clearly wasn’t just a place to grab food and drink. But even though it was patent that these folks were intent on hiding secrets, it was much less certain if the enigma pertained to Foxglen’s kin. After all, more than two decades had passed since his parents had met, and this area of London was constantly experiencing deterioration, rebirth, and deterioration again.
But Foxglen’s father had been a notorious reformer—one who’d plotted with Jacobites to overthrow the current King George to place a Catholic king back on the throne. Perhaps the Horse and Hen had been a haven for like-minded men. It stood to reason that the tavern might still harbor budding demagogues, but that explanation didn’t feel completely right to Hannah.
A man dressed in rags shuffled in, and Hannah recognized him as one of the beggars that they’d passed in the alley. No one seemed perturbed by his presence as he headed over to a crowded table. The seated men shifted to make room for the older fellow, and a serving maid instantly walked over to take his coin and handed him a tall mug of ale.
“No one is coming to serve us.” Foxglen once again pitched his voice so low that only she could hear.
“Yes,” Hannah agreed as she glanced around the poorly litroom. Most of the women looked too young to have been contemporaries of Foxglen’s mother.
