There was unconcealed impudence in the tone. Gideon threw a quick glance at him, saw the smirk on the dirty face and said icily, “How is that your concern?”
It appeared to the pieman that the thin soldier had grown in both height and menace. He replaced the tray on his head and retreated a few paces. “’Cause I’m grateful as it ain’t mine,” he jeered. “And if you’d like ter know, yer home ain’t just along the street. Not no more it ain’t. The high an’ mighty Rossiters don’t live there no more. Come dahn in the world, they has! A long way dahn!”
His anger supplanted by anxiety for his family, Rossiter sprang to the saddle and turned the hack. Fearing reprisals, the pieman took to his heels, his shrill voice echoing after him, “Rossiter! Yah! Boo! Fer shame!”
Several people had paused to listen to this exchange, and a man said sharply, “What did he say? Is that fellow a Rossiter?”
Another man shouted, “I’ll lay odds he is! One of ’em was in the army I heard!”
“Seize the thieving bastard!”
“Pull him off that there nag! Quick! ’Fore the Watch comes!”
They surged towards him. Someone snatched up a brick and threw it. Rossiter ducked and a passing horse squealed and bolted. Another brick flew. Surrounded by rageful faces, he decided that this was no time to take a stand. He touched home his spurs. The hack bounded forward. The crowd scattered, shouting in alarm. A third brick caught Rossiter across the back of the head, the impact sending his tricorne flying and half stunning him. Dimly, he heard a triumphant howl. The pain was blinding. He had lost the reins somehow. Bowing forward, he clung to the hack’s mane, determined not to fall… The morning was growing strangely dark…
“There, I think he’s coming around now.”
“Poor fellow. Badly wounded you say, sir?”
“Yes, sad to tell. I believe he’s just now returned home. Must have hit his head when he tumbled out of the saddle.”
The words echoed at first, gradually becoming clearer. The final voice was familiar. Rossiter tried to smile and said rather feebly, “Hello, Tio. That you?”
A hand gripped his shoulder. “’Tis myself in all my glory.”
Rossiter blinked up into a pair of green eyes with laugh lines at the corners. The aristocratic features were uncharacteristically grave at the moment, and Horatio Clement Laindon, Viscount Glendenning, son and heir of the powerful and formidable Earl of Bowers-Malden, went on in a very gentle voice, “What a slowtop you are, to be riding when you ain’t fit to go. Came down from your hack right under the hoofs of my team. My poor coachman nigh suffered a seizure.”
The mists surrounding his lordship faded away, and Rossiter found that he lay on a settle in a low-ceilinged room. Several men stood watching him with sympathetic curiosity. One of these individuals, wearing a grubby white apron, was holding a rag that dripped water, but the rest were either customers of this ordinary (for such he guessed it to be), or pedestrians who had come in from the street. “Oh—egad,” he muttered, and horribly embarrassed started up.
His head seemed to split in two. An arm was about his shoulders, supporting him.
Glendenning said sharply, “If one of you gentlemen would be so kind as to lend a hand, I’ll take him to my rooms.”
“I… can walk…,” declared Rossiter thickly, and managed somehow to stumble where they led him.
He was being half-lifted into a carriage. The door slammed. A flask was at his lips. He drank, choked, and swore. But after a few minutes he was able to gather his thoughts.
The carriage was moving smoothly, and the noise seemed to lessen. He opened his eyes and saw trees and the green of well-kept lawns.
“Feeling better?” asked his lordship.
“Much.” He peered out of the window. “Where are we going?”
“My flat, off the Strand. Shall that suit?”
“No.” Gingerly investigating the back of his head Rossiter muttered, “Hold up a minute, will you please, Tio?”
Glendenning pulled the checkstring, and called to the coachman to turn onto a quieter side street. “Not going to cast up your accounts, are you, Gideon?” he asked uneasily.
“No, I promise you,” said Rossiter, with more conviction than was altogether warranted. “It was jolly good of you to —to help. Did I really… fall under your team?”
“You came very close, dear boy.” The viscount turned his neatly wigged head, scanned his companion’s pale face and asked, “What happened?”
“A brick. Deedily tossed.”
“Curious.” His lordship tapped a handsome amber cane against his chin. “I think I know you well, but after all this time I’d not have recognized you at first glance. I wonder anybody else did. You’re—something changed, dear lad. Bayonet?”
Rossiter grinned faintly. “Shell.” And then, in sudden hideous comprehension, “Jove! My apologies, sir! You’d best let me out at once. I think my presence must be an humiliation, and—”
