After a few minutes, the boy on her right, a lad they called Pinky, crossed in her path. Char had to stop.
“What?” she said, letting her exasperation show. It was better than allowing them to see her fear.
“Leo wants you,” Pinky said solemnly.
“Tell him I will talk to him later. We will make an appointment.” She tried to sound cheery.
“Leo wants you now,” the boy behind her said. He was Danny and had been her first contact at meeting Leo. He was as tall as she and far stronger. “The sooner you see him, the sooner you can be finished, my lady,” Danny said.
Of course they knew who she was. The Seven knew everything that happened in the area around Mulberry Street.
With a great show of impatience, she nodded. “Let us go then.” She was certain of what Leo wanted and knew she could not escape this interview.
She’d run afoul of the gang the first time she’d gone out to pick pockets. Apparently, the criminals of London had divided the city into territories. She was in the Seven’s territory for petty crimes.
The Seven were children really. Leo was the oldest and he could not be more than sixteen, which didn’t truly make him a boy, but the others were as young as eight. They all had one thing in common; life had made them hard.
The boys took her to another long, narrow alley that was much the same as the one she’d used to escape Whitridge. One had to walk sideways in order to pass through this one. The alley gave way to a large courtyard hemmed in by buildings. Wooden boxes, barrels, and crates were stacked together as if they formed small rooms against the far wall. As her party entered the courtyard, boys crawled out of their hiding places. Three pairs of eyes solemnly watched her approach the largest of the boxes. A cloth flap on one side was pushed out and Leo emerged.
He was rapier-thin and wore what had once been a gentleman’s green velvet evening jacket. Around his neck he’d knotted a black scarf, and he sported achapeau brason his head so that he reminded her of nothing less than a very young, slyly menacing Napoleon. He liked to carry a riding crop, which she had witnessed him use on the younger boys. He had his crop in his hand now.
His voice was always soft but she had a sense that he could harm her. To date, he had been careful with her, almost respectful, and she prayed her luck held.
“Lady Charlene,” he said, bowing with a courtier’s mocking grace.
“What do you want, Leo?” she answered, taking this moment to push her hair up under her hat.
“Besides the money you owe me for working in the Seven’s territory last month? It was a guinea, my lady. A fair price and you have not paid it yet. However, today you have cost me extra. You went over the boundary into someone else’s territory this afternoon. They want tribute from me. They want four guineas.”
“Four guineas? For nothing?” she protested.
“They claim you were successful.”
“I wish I had been.” She wondered if lying was a sin if one lied to criminals. She needed the money in that purse. “I thought I had a fat pigeon but those flapping chickens the girl was carrying were in my way. I missed the purse.”
“Why did that man call you thief?”
“Because he thought I had nabbed it. I didn’t. Once he realized his mistake he let me go. Pinky can tell you the truth of what I say if he saw me chased into the alley. I walked out as cool as you please.”
Leo studied her a moment. She couldn’t tell if he believed her. She did know one thing; if he did place his hands on that purse, he would take it all. She would not give it up without a fight.
Suddenly he turned and walked back to his lair. “Very well. I want a fiver from you, my lady, along with what you already owe.”
She waited for him to demand she pay it by a certain date, but he didn’t. Instead, at the “door” to his abode, he faced her and said, “You are going into debt quickly. That seems to be a family trait. Some of the gents were very familiar with your father.”
Whenever he spoke of “gents,” she knew he spoke of those on the next level up from him. He aspired to be one of their number.
“They were there when he was pulled from the Thames. Bad luck that.” There was no sympathy in his voice. “Be wise, my lady. Be very wise.” He let his words sink in and then said, “You are free to go.”
He did not have to repeat himself. Char backed up, keeping her eye on all seven of them. She tried to appear calm but inside, she was shaking.
Did Leo suggest that her father had owed money to the criminal element in London? That his death might not have been a suicide but a murder? That she, too, could meet such a fate?
She did not want to think on it. She ducked into the alley and once on the road, almost ran home to Mulberry Street. Now she didn’t know if she was fortunate to still have the money purse.
When she reached her back gate, she looked around to be certain no one was watching before letting herself through. She ran across the damp ground to the door leading into the kitchen.
Mulberry Street was a shabby but respectable neighborhood. The house had two floors other than the ground floor and a basement. There were three bedrooms, a front room, a dining room, and then the kitchen. The foyer was little more than a landing with steps leading upstairs. A second set of stairs behind a door ran up from the kitchen. The rooms on the ground floor all opened up to each other, and overall, it was a cozy place to call home.
