“Why?” Jack finally asked as they strode down Denmark Street, almost free from the Rookeries. “What had she done?”
Dusk had fallen, cloaking them in a leaden fog that choked one’s snout and stung one’s vision. The narrow lanes had quietened, people rushing for home before the encroaching malevolent dark.
The marquess had been utterly silent as they’d traversed St Giles, obviously thinking the worst of him. They always did and he usually cared little, but for once, he didn’t want to endure this affable lord’s disgust.
Gads, what was wrong with him? He had one friend in the Earl of Kelmarsh; he didn’t need another.
One could have too many friends.
Exhaling, he halted his stride. “That slumbering goliath was twitching, not slumbering at all. No one sleeps in the Rookery without one eye open.”
Jack peered at him, dumbfounded. “I thought–”
“Yes, I know you did, but when I grabbed her, I told her about the hospital. I must be careful, however, as two years ago, it was robbed by a disgruntled cock bawd. Men like that could destroy all our work if they think their women are disappearing.” He stripped off his gloves and flexed his fingers.
“Lud,” Jack said aghast, “all this ruthless posturing, but underneath you have a–”
“’Ello there, m’dimber coves, fancy a tumble?” A slattern in shabby green silk wangled her way between them, patting their arms.
“I prefer my women to have washed within the last decade,” drawled Rakecombe as he removed the lady’s wandering hands and ignored Winterbourne’s smirk.
Heavy footsteps sounded from behind… More than one.
“Somefin’ wrong with our women, fat culls?” a booming voice demanded.
“Lawks, Jimmy,” the female octopus replied. “I were jus–” She said no more as a thickset hand wrenched her away, shoving her to the gutter.
Rakecombe heaved a sigh. Oh, for God’s sake, and they were scarcely twenty yards or so from the St Giles boundary.
Turning leisurely, he observed a man looking markedly like the slumbering oaf from the gin shop emerge from the shadows, his form lit by a small lamp outside one of the houses – probably a brothel, the only ones advertising their doorways.
“You two look well fed,” the oaf said, smiling and dangling what transpired to be a large cudgel. “And I know someone who pays ten quid for a decent body. Eh, lads, let’s mill the bastards.”
Two men, this time scrawny, appeared like wraiths.
Another time, another night, intruded before his eyes – blood, tears, Gwen’s screams – but he willed the scene away.
Control.
Grasping air where his cane should be, he instead looked to his bare knuckles in faint regret – so common but needs must, and he didn’t fancy his innards being clandestinely dissected on the morrow by some eager quack.
“The ladies tell me I look bettersansclothes,” jested Jack, peeling his leather gloves off.
Rakecombe slid a hand down. He didn’t have his cane, but he did have…
The Jim lookalike sniggered. “I’ll be having that red waistcoat off you, pretty boy.”
Holding a hand to his chest, Jack gasped, although Rakecombe then saw his fingers slip inside the damn frippery. “I don’t know which to be more offended by, old chap? The fact you think I’m a boy or that you don’t recognise coquelicot.”
Rakecombe reached into his own pocket as Jack distracted them, feeling for the solid hilt of his dagger. He’d known that bloody, red silk eyesore would cause trouble.
“Cock wot?” the oaf snarled, swinging his cudgel. “Oy, are you raggin’ me?”
“No, no. Co-quel-li-co,” the marquess enunciated as his fingers slid out, now with a metallic glint to them.
“Give the man your waistcoat, Jack.”
“It’s hand-painted silk from China! Little worms gave their lives for this cloth, and that man will have no idea how to wash it. Miggens my valet is the only one who knows how.”
