October 25th, 1805
Grosvenor Square, London
Charlotte was working on the Somerset ledger when Cosgrove entered the study. The earl walked across to her desk and stood staring down at her. He didn’t smile, didn’t offer a cheerful greeting. His gaze was cool and assessing.
As if he doesn’t know whether he trusts Albin any longer.
Charlotte swallowed. “Good morning, sir. How are you?”
Cosgrove ignored the question. “Did you purchase new boots?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And a greatcoat?”
She nodded.
“Then come along, lad. Let’s be off.”
Charlotte pushed back her chair. “Where to?”
“Aldgate. To find the Smiths.”
The Pig and Whistle was empty of patrons so early in the morning. Mrs. Westrup was mopping the floor. She wheezed as she worked. Bedraggled blonde hair escaped from beneath her mob cap.
“Good morning, madam,” Cosgrove said. “Can you tell me where I can find Abel and Jeremiah Smith?” A silver shilling gleamed between his fingers.
Mrs. Westrup straightened. “They’s gone, sir. Them and Hector and Ned. Left Lunnon yesterday.”
“What?” Cosgrove’s eyebrows drew together. “Nonsense.”
“It’s true, sir! Cross me ’eart. All over Aldgate, it is, sir.”
“What is?”
“Well,” Mrs. Westrup said, leaning on the mop. “The way I ’eard it, they’d been in a fight. Jeremiah was in a terrible way, bleedin’ and groanin’, and Abel ’ad broke all ’is ribs, but they wouldn’t stay more’n a minute at their lodgin’. They reckoned the devil hisself was after ’em. They was all for gettin’ out of Lunnon as fast as could be.”
“Where did they go?”
Mrs. Westrup shrugged. “Dunno.”
“You said they took someone with them?”
“Yes, sir. Hector and Ned.”
“And who are they?”
“Hector’s their cousin, sir. He broke ’is head in a fight a few weeks back and’s been laid up in bed ever since. And Ned’s ’is son.”
“Skinny lad? Good runner?”
Mrs. Westrup nodded. “That’s ’im.”
Cosgrove handed her the shilling. “Would you be so good as to direct me to the Smiths’ lodgings?”
Mrs. Westrup tucked the shilling into her bodice. “Abel and Jeremiah’s been rentin’ a room from ol’ Martha Hill.” She left her grimy mop and came out into the street to give directions to the coachman.
Mrs. Hill lived in Buckle Street, above a dealer in pickled tongues and oxtails. She looked as old as Methuselah, her skin folded into a thousand wrinkles, her mouth sunken and toothless. She confirmed what Mrs. Westrup had told them: the Smiths had left London, abandoning all but the most portable of their possessions.
“Yesterday?” Cosgrove asked. “What time?”
“On dusk, it were.”
“Did they say where they were going?”
Mrs. Hill shook her head. “Jus’ that they wanted to put as many miles between th’selves and Lunnon as they could. Right scared, they was.”
“Did they leave by stagecoach?”
Mrs. Hill shrugged. “I dunno, sir. They ’ad enough money. The last few weeks they’s been mighty flush in the pocket.”
Cosgrove’s expression sharpened. “Did you ever hear them speak of their employer? Did they mention his name?”
Mrs. Hill considered this question for a moment, her wrinkles deepening, her eyes almost lost in folds of skin. “They called ’im ’is nibs. Never ’eard no name other’n that.”
“Did you ever see him? Did he come here?”
“They allus met in the city.”
“Do you know where?”
Mrs. Hill shook her head.
For a shilling, Mrs. Hill gave them access to the room Abel and Jeremiah had abandoned. It was furnished with a ramshackle collection of items: two mattresses, a lopsided table, chairs. Bloodstains made a pattern on the bare floorboards.
The earl crouched and examined a pile of discarded clothing. “They may have left something behind, instructions from their employer, a note—”
“They couldn’t read or write,” Charlotte said, and then realized her mistake: Christopher Albin shouldn’t know that. “At least . . . I wouldn’t think they could. Could they, Mrs. Hill?”
“Eddication?” The old woman shook her head. “Ain’t none of us got that. What’d we want it for?”
They searched, but found nothing to tell them where the Smiths had gone or who their employer had been. The earl swore under his breath, a muttered word Charlotte’s ears didn’t quite catch. “They have a cousin, I believe, Mrs. Hill. A man called Hector.”
“Yes, sir, I knows ’im.”
“Can you provide me with his address? Or the address of his son, Ned?”
Charlotte bit her tongue. She knew where Ned Smith lived. She’d been there as a dog. Crutch Street. She looked down at the floor and rubbed a stain with the toe of her boot, while Mrs. Hill gave directions.
“Whitechapel?” Charlotte said, once they were in the carriage. “Is that wise, sir? You said yourself it’s not a safe place—”
“Worried?” the earl said, his tone sharp, sarcastic. “You can always change into a bear if we’re threatened.”
Charlotte flushed. She looked down at her hands.
Cosgrove sighed. “I beg your pardon, lad. That was uncalled for.”
She glanced up, shook her head.
“We are this close—” Cosgrove showed her with thumb and forefinger. “This close.” Frustration was fierce in his voice. “We won’t find anything. I know that. They’re gone. But damn it, I’m going to follow this trail to its end!”
He blew out a breath. With it, his anger seemed to deflate. He leaned back on the upholstered seat and grunted a laugh. “If I can without getting my throat cut again.” His smile was wry. “I count on you to protect me, lad.”
Her heart clenched in her chest. With my life, sir.
Crutch Street was less frightening than it had been when she was a dog. It was still wretched and squalid and miserable, but no longer terrifying. The overflowing gutters, the dilapidated houses—those things were the same, but there were no knots of sullen, staring, dangerous men. The carriage lurched over potholes. Charlotte opened the window and peered out. The stench of the tanneries pushed into her mouth and nose. “I don’t see many people, sir.”
“Still abed, probably. Sleeping off last night’s libations.”
The carriage slowed. She heard the coachman ask a question, saw a barefooted boy point, saw a penny flipped down to the child. The carriage advanced three more houses and halted.
A footman opened the carriage door.
Cosgrove climbed down. “Which house, Howard?”
“That one, sir.”
Yes, the warped, unpainted door was familiar. Ned Smith’s scent had led her here four days ago. But even with her boots planted in filthy muck, it felt less dangerous than it had last time. Because I’m a man, not a dog. And because she wasn’t alone. Cosgrove, the footmen, the coachman—they made her feel safe.
“Turn the carriage around,” Cosgrove ordered. “We’ll be as fast as we can.”
An elderly man answered their knock. His face was whiskered, grimy. The odor of Crutch Street clung to him—sewage and tanneries—as if he hadn’t washed in years.
For half a crown, he showed them the room Hector Smith and his son had rented. He also offered his name—Pa Hitching—and a swig from his gin bottle, an invitation the earl politely declined.
Hector and Ned Smith had lived in one room, filthy and dark, with broken floorboards. They’d abandoned their lodgings in haste. The bedding was turned back, as if someone had stepped out to use the outhouse and would be back any moment—except there was no outhouse here; a filthy bucket in the corner served that purpose.
“Hec’s been laid up in bed with a broken ’ead,” Pa Hitching said, and took a long swig from his gin bottle, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat.
“A broken head? When did that happen?”
“Couple o’ weeks back. Mebbe three. I misremember exactly.”
Cosgrove nodded. He surveyed the room. “What happened yesterday, Mr. Hitching?”
“Abel Smith come a runnin’. In a right state ’e were!” Pa Hitching cackled with laughter, showing brown stubs of teeth. “Said Satan hisself was after ’em all.”
Cosgrove stirred a pile of discarded clothing with the toe of his boot. “I understand Hector and his son had been working for someone recently. Did either of them mention their employer’s name?”
Pa Hitching squinted in an effort of memory, and shook his head. “Can’t say as ’ow they did.”
“Did Abel say where they were going yesterday?”
The old man shook his head again. “He jus’ said they ’ad to get out of Lunnon as fast as could be.”
“Do you know how they intended leaving? Stagecoach? Hired coach?”
Pa Hitching shrugged. “They left ’ere by ’ackney.”
“Thank you.”
They emerged to find a small crowd on the street. The mood—curiosity mingled with belligerence—made Charlotte’s skin prickle. This could turn ugly. The horses had sensed it. Their ears were back, the whites of their eyes showing.
The glossy coach and liveried footmen looked unreal amid the squalor, as if a children’s storybook had opened and shaken Cendrillon’s golden carriage from its pages.
The coachman greeted them with relief. “Sir!”
“Let’s go, Beaglehole. Drive slowly, mind! There are children about.”
The carriage made its way back down Crutch Street, plowing through the potholes. Half a dozen ragged boys ran alongside, shouting shrilly, daring each other to touch the lacquered panels. Charlotte heard the slap of their hands on the door, heard the footmen shout, trying to scare them away from the scything wheels.
She glanced at Cosgrove. His face was hard-angled, his mouth grim.
He caught her glance. “No one should live like this.”
“No, sir.”
A stone hit the side of a carriage with a crack of sound like a gunshot. Charlotte flinched. Cosgrove’s expression became grimmer.
They swung into Rosemary Lane. A second stone hit the carriage, a duller thud this time. The coach picked up pace. The shouting mob of boys fell behind.
At the end of Rosemary Lane, the earl rapped on the roof. The carriage slowed. He lowered the window and leaned out. “Anyone hurt? The horses?”
“Just the paintwork, sir.”
The earl closed the window. He took off his hat and threw it on the seat. “Tell me, Albin . . . if you were born in Whitechapel, would you kill to leave it?”
Charlotte opened her mouth to reply No, and then closed it again. “I don’t know, sir.”
The earl touched his throat, where Jeremiah Smith had cut him. “I might.”
Charlotte thought back to the dark, filthy room Hector and Ned had lived in, with its broken floorboards and foul air. The smell had been more than the tanneries, more than sewage. It had been the smell of poverty and violence and despair. A more wretched existence than any creature—man or beast—deserves.
Charlotte frowned. She looked down at her lap, and plucked at one of the buttons on her new greatcoat. Where had she read that phrase recently? A more wretched existence than any creature deserves.
The answer came: in one of Cosgrove’s speeches.
She lifted her head. “Sir . . . the West Indies . . . is it worse than Whitechapel?” Surely nothing could be?
“For the slaves? Much worse.” Cosgrove grimaced, his lips flattening against his teeth. He glanced out the window at the crooked line of roofs, at the coal smoke staining the sky. “One battle at a time, lad. One battle at a time.” His grimace faded. He curled one hand into a fist, a slow, meditative gesture. “Hector Smith was the man who almost killed Lionel.”
“You broke his head, sir?”
“I did.” Cosgrove clenched his hand until the knuckles whitened, then relaxed his fingers. “Where the hell have they gone?”
“We could check the coaching inns, sir.”
“Do you have any idea how many of them there are?” Cosgrove leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes.
Charlotte’s heart squeezed in her chest. She wanted to reach over and smooth the frown from his brow. “They’d be memorable, sir. Three injured men. I’m sure if we tried—”
“It’s of no matter.” The earl opened his eyes. His gaze, gray and direct, seemed to pin her to her seat. Surely he could see inside her? Could see she was a woman, not a man. See that she loved him. “We don’t need to find the Smiths to know who hired them. After yesterday there can be no question.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t be obtuse, lad. Who has the most to gain from my death?”
“But . . . Mr. Langford has no money to pay—”
“He must have promised payment upon his succession to the title.”
Charlotte twisted the button on her coat. “Do you truly think he’d kill you, sir?”
Cosgrove rubbed his forehead, as if his frown hurt. “Do you truly think he wouldn’t?”
Charlotte turned the button one way, then the other. “But . . . but he’s your family.”
“You think it’s more likely to be Brashdon or Hyde?” The earl shook his head. “People don’t murder over differences of political opinion.”
“There’s a lot of money at stake, sir. The plantations—”
“I’m not the only person fighting for abolition of the trade. If they got rid of me, they’d have to get rid of Grenville. Fox. Wilberforce. A dozen others.”
“But what about Monkwood, sir? He hates you. If you were to die—”
“I’ve no doubt he’d be delighted—as would Brashdon and his set—but he’s not so mad as to perpetrate it himself. No.” The earl shook his head again. “Phillip is the only one with sufficient reason to wish me dead.”
His flat, certain voice overruled any argument she might make.
Charlotte turned the button between her fingers while the carriage traversed Cheapside. “Will you let it go to trial, sir?” she asked, when they turned into Newgate Street. “If you find proof it’s Mr. Langford?”
Cosgrove was silent until they reached Holborn. “I don’t know. Maybe he could be sent to the colonies. Australia.” He rubbed his forehead again. “I don’t know, Albin. I don’t know.”
At Grosvenor Square, they climbed down from the carriage. In Whitechapel, it had gleamed, as bright as gold; here it looked bedraggled, the paintwork splashed with foul mud, smeared with handprints.
Cosgrove stood, watching the carriage rattle over the cobblestones on its way to the mews.
An icy wind tugged at Charlotte’s clothes and slipped cold fingers beneath her hat, trying to flip it from her head. She clutched the hat brim and hunched her shoulders. Her toes were numb inside the new boots.
The carriage clattered out of sight. Still Cosgrove didn’t move. He was frowning, his eyes narrowed in thought.
Wind gusted through the square again. The tall houses shivered, the trees behind the iron palings shivered, the gray clouds scudding across the sky shivered.
Cosgrove didn’t notice. He stood motionless. Frowning. Thinking.
“Sir?”
The earl glanced at her. “You asked what I’ll do once the slave trade is abolished. Do you remember?”
Charlotte nodded, clutching her hat, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering. She remembered the place—St. James’s Street, on the way to Lord Brashdon’s club—and the earl’s reaction—the bemusement, the shrug.
“I think I’ve found it.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Inside with you, lad. You’re freezing.”