“Ursus,” Eoin said as the sentry’s words replayed in his mind. “This is who the guard was referring to when he said that Pan might not be welcomed.”
“Not dinner!” the parrot screeched again.
“Why don’t you walk on the other side of me when we pass Ursus,” Eoin suggested. “It might calm both bear and bird—or at least not excite them more.”
“I’m happy for you to play the gallant gentleman this time,” Hannah admitted as she again reached up to stroke her pet.
Eoin nodded, not wanting to admit that he also wished to protect her. There was likely no danger, but it was stillunsettling to pass so close to a predator. Eoin wished he could sling his arm around Hannah’s shoulder and curl his form over her smaller one, but he had no idea if someone was watching them in this dark corridor. Such a gentlemanly gesture could damage Hannah’s disguise as a lad. Moreover, Eoin didn’t want to trample her independence. In many ways, she was more capable than him of defending herself in London’s underbelly.
Ursus thumped his big body against the bars as they rushed by. Roaring his displeasure, he stomped his feet. The dirt floor shook under the beast’s impotent rage, but the cage otherwise held firm.
“It’s telling that this establishment forces its patrons to pass by Ursus,” Eoin said.
“Not dinner!” Pan flapped his lime-green wings. Thankfully, the ornery bird didn’t take flight. It seemed even he could be cowed.
“The bear is definitely a warning,” Hannah agreed, her voice so low and dark that Eoin had to bend even more to hear. The cries from the bowels of the Horse and Hen had grown louder. Their frenzied tone worried Eoin even more than the trapped bear to his side.
As soon as they passed Ursus, Pan—the cheeky imp—swiveled his head so that he faced back toward the bear. With his one beady eye fixed on the bruin, the parrot opened his gray mouth wide and then roared.
Ursus, however, was not impressed by the mimicry. He snarled, but that only seemed to amuse Pan, who danced happily on Hannah’s shoulder.
“Shhh!” Hannah admonished. “Don’t torment Ursus.”
“How does a parrot sound so much like a bear?” Eoin asked, trying to focus on anything but his own mess of misgivings.
Hannah sighed. “He’s visited my friend’s menagerie andhas listened to the bears and the resident lion. Pan discovered that his mock-roaring annoys Sophia and me, so the little devil likes to repeat the sounds.”
As if to prove Hannah’s statement, Pan bellowed even louder. The sound bounced around the narrow space that they were traversing. The passage seemed to be a purposefully squashed affair—with a crude wall to the right and the building’s foundation on the left. It reminded Eoin of a castle’s narrow circular staircase—a structure designed to make an invasion difficult. Were the owners of the Horse and Hen expecting an attack? And why?
An incongruously pleasant glow beckoned at the end of the torch-lit hallway, yet part of Eoin wanted to stay in the darkness with the snarling beast. He didn’t know what he would discover in that light, and what it would mean about the fate of his mother and his sister.
A cool hand briefly touched his, and Eoin turned to find Hannah smiling at him. “I will stay by your side, Eoin. No matter what we learn.”
Eoin swallowed as a bolt of warm emotion slammed into his heart. Since childhood, Eoin had faced everything alone. Yet leaning on Hannah, trusting her, came easily. Perhaps too easily.
Eoin couldn’t help but give her fingers a quick nudge back. Then he drew in his breath and marched in lockstep with the woman beside him.
Chapter Twelve
Hannah could not shake a sense of utter doom as she and Eoin entered a surprisingly extensive chamber. Men crowded shoulder to shoulder, forming an almost impenetrable wall around whatever they were watching. A few of the coats were of fine silk, while others were serviceable linen, and still others were threadbare with patched holes.
The place reeked. Of mold. Of sweat. Of stale ale. Of old gin. Of blood—fresh and long dried.
The atmosphere was stifling and not just due to the putrid odors. Desperation, greed, violence, and unholy excitement hung like an almost palpable miasma. Hannah had experienced unsavory places. She’d grown up in Covent Garden after all. But she’d rarely sensed a darkness this cloying.
Hannah was suddenly very glad that Eoin was standing next to her. She’d never thought a man—a nobleman at that—could offer her fortifying comfort by his mere presence. Yet she felt buoyed by his nearness and not just because of his massive build.
“This room is too large to fit under the Horse and Hen.” Eoin practically shouted the words near her ear, but the din was so great that she still struggled to hear. “It must extend under several buildings and even across the alley itself.”
Hannah nodded. She’d been thinking the same. The tavern was smaller than her coffeehouse, yet her cellar was nowhere near this size. The ceiling was propped up by rickety, improvised pillars that appeared to be constructed of whatever scraps were handy at the time. The results looked akin to a child heaping a bunch of twigs together to make a tower. Those haphazard structures held up equally crude wooden beams that looked nothing like the sturdy rafters of the Black Sheep. Between the questionable supports were wooden planks where men sat, their legs dangling in the air, their faces red from drink or excitement or both. Their mouths were contorted in angry shouts and jeers. Below them were the heads of other spectators, who peered around or through the slapdash columns to watch whatever entertainment was holding them in thrall.
Hannah shivered. It was as if someone had moved the St. Giles rookery indoors and underground. The whole building was one spark or push away from an inferno or devastating collapse.
“Do you think this place existed when my mother worked at the Horse and Hen?” Eoin asked, and Hannah had no trouble detecting the worried pain in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Hannah admitted. The mess of uneven wooden stakes, poles, planks, and logs could have been built ages ago and shored up over the decades, or it could be a new construction. “But we can’t hover here in the shadows if we wish to learn more. Do you think you can make a path through the crowd?”
Normally, Hannah would just slip through, but with Eoin’s size, that wasn’t a possibility. Thankfully, due to his hulking frame, he was the type of fellow that other men quickly sidled away from.
