Jess had already scouted the Belgravia address of Catherine Cusack by the time I arrived. I was late, having stopped along the way to pay the food accounts for our much-increased household. I was still grumbling about the size of the baker’s bill.
Jess snapped something about growing children, and then directed my attention to the fact that it appeared someone was home. We both realized it was probably best to go through the front door rather than try to break in.
“You’re going to have to bloody my lip then,” I said to Jess, as I stood in a doorway hidden from view of the flat.
She stared at me in surprise. “Why?”
“A woman alone would be foolish to open the door to a man for no reason. A man who’s been hurt has a much better chance of being allowed in to be helped.”
Jess rolled her eyes at me like I was the biggest idiot she knew. “A man carryin’ a child that’s been ‘urt ‘as an even better chance of getting’ into the flat than a man with a bloody lip.”
“Indeed,” I said dryly. Ten-year-old pickpockets could be annoyingly clever.
She stuck her tongue out at me and then fainted dead away.
I barely caught her in my arms, and very nearly panicked. “Jess?” I said frantically. She cracked an eyelid.
“Shut it and go ring the bell,” she murmured.
She was good, I’d give her that … right after I throttled her for scaring me – again.
“I’d be surprised if she keeps anything of value in that flat, otherwise, why allow Westfield to have the address?” I staggered a little as I rang the bell.
“One way to find out,” Jess whispered, just as the door opened.
“This child just collapsed in front of your house. Can you help me?” I said in a frantic voice as I pushed myself into the doorway. The young woman who answered the door backed away.
“I’ll get my mistress,” she said as she ran up the stairs.
I followed her up, and was tempted to hurl Jess over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was heavy. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned quietly.
“You’re a lump,” I murmured, shifting her in my arms.
“Get stronger then,” she whispered back.
Thankfully, there was a sitting room just at the top of the stairs. I laid Jess out on the sofa and immediately scanned the room for whatever information I could glean.
The place reminded me a bit of my own secret flat above the accountancy office near the river. I had only been there once since Charlie and I had moved into Grayson House, but it was part of my old life as someone whose only responsibility was to himself and the business of staying alive. Here, there were stacks of books on the floor and on every available surface, with papers tucked between their pages. There were drawings pinned to the walls – architectural drawings that reminded me of my days as a thief, when studying the layout of a building was essential to finding its exits. The furniture was old, but of fine quality, and a tattered quilt of heavy plaids lay spread over the back of the sofa.
I had only enough time to flip two books open and look at the papers stuffed inside before the sound of footsteps in the hall alerted me to an approaching woman.
The woman.
My first impression was of the very aptly described riot of red curls, and in that moment I understood the use of hair as a distractionary device. I also had the vague impression that I knew her from somewhere, which was odd, because though I may have seen her hair at the Langham Hotel, I had never seen her face. My second impression was that of my own heart slamming in my chest. I was nervous to meet her, and the thought actually made me smile at my own ridiculousness. My third impression was that she wasn’t surprised to see me, though perhaps the smile did throw her a little.
“How is the child?” she said in a low, breathless voice. The voice was an act meant to seduce, and it would have worked very easily had I been remotely vulnerable to seduction. Catherine Cusack, if indeed that was her name, was a few years older than I, of average height, above average beauty, extraordinary hair, and something electric that sizzled just under the surface of every movement and every expression. At the moment, her outward expression was one of concern, but underneath it was something closer to excitement. I felt it too, so I recognized it for what it was.
She knew of me and was intrigued.
I made a show of feeling Jess’s forehead as though checking for a temperature. “Waking up, I think.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she ignored me and went straight for the source of the voice. I thought Jess was as eager for a glimpse of the woman as I had been.
“What ‘appened?” she said in a groggy tone. Jess was a fair actress, and I would have believed her if I’d been gullible. But no one in the room was, and the woman seemed to come to the same conclusion. She rocked back on her heels and then held out her hand to me.
“Ringo Devereux, I presume? And Jess, your newly adopted pickpocket. It is interesting to finally meet you.”
I shook her hand and was surprised to find it so cold. “I am sorry. My disadvantage is that I’m not quite sure what to call you. Catherine Cusack seems to do well for social situations, and Mrs. MacFarlane for legal ones, but as this circumstance is neither, I am at a loss.”
She smiled at the parry, but it was still a mask. “MacFarlane is my grandmother’s name, and as she raised me, it is my legal name. Cusack is the name I was born with, but you can call me Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth MacFarlane. I don’t suppose I’ll find any record of a family history with that name?”
This time her smile was genuine. “You can try.”
Jess sat up on the sofa and was watching the conversation with avid interest as Elizabeth perched on the edge of a chair and relaxed herself into a pose that looked practiced. It was very attractive on her, so I assumed she had found good use for it in the past, but I was much more interested in the fact that she seemed to think it would work on me.
“Why Westfield?” I asked with far less tact that one generally should when questioning someone’s taste in partners.
“A means to an end.”
“He wants his letters back.”
She smiled again, the way a feral cat smiles at the rat it intends to disembowel. “He can’t have them.”
I shrugged. “Makes no difference to me, except that if I don’t give the letters to him, he has promised to send far less interesting goons than I to harass you.”
She sighed dramatically. “Ah, but he can be tiresome, can’t he? The woman he’s about to marry is perfectly dreadful and will take his family for all the money she possibly can when he dies. Really, I should let her have him without a fuss, but an intact fortune is so much easier to steal than one that’s tied up in legal proceedings.”
“So, mere theft then? That hardly seems sporting when you’re clearly so much better armed than he is, and it doesn’t really explain the document theft at Barings.” I studied her carefully for the slightest twitch to give away her true objective, but she was very, very good.
“Doesn’t it? Ah, well, you’re not looking at the big picture. And here I thought you were at least as well-armed as I. Poor Ringo, the guilt money left to you by a noble half-brother just doesn’t seem to fit your circumstances, especially as the older brother still lives and has no idea who you are. I’m sure a well-placed word in the right ears might make for a very interesting visit from a herald at the College of Arms.”
As well-informed as Elizabeth MacFarlane was, she didn’t know everything – like, for example, that Archer was not actually related to me by blood, and there was definitely no guilt involved in the bestowing of his name.
She turned to Jess and said sweetly, “go find Mathilda and ask her for some biscuits for yourself, darling. I’m sure he hasn’t thought to get you lunch yet today.”
Jess met my eyes very briefly before she cast them down and left the room. Once she’d gone, Elizabeth’s voice lost its sweetness. “Stay out of my way, Mr. Devereux. You will not enjoy the cost of thwarting me.” Her emphasis on my name made it very clear what that cost would be, and I disliked how deep the pit of my stomach felt at her words.
I stood and reached into my trouser pocket, and Elizabeth flinched. As angry as she’d just made me, I didn’t care for the fact that she reacted like a beaten dog. “I have a message from Lady Morcar,” I said, as I held out the carbuncle. “She asked me to give this to you, and she wishes you had gone to her directly. She would have given you whatever you needed.”
I’d struck a nerve, and Elizabeth reached a tentative hand out to touch the gemstone. She almost didn’t take it, and I could see pride and avarice at war on her face. But then she plucked it from my hand and slipped it into her own pocket.
“I heard it rattling around in her teapot, you know. An ingenious way to return it,” her voice was very quiet, as though she spoke to herself rather than to me.
“Why did you stay at the hotel after Ryder told you we’d found the carbuncle?”
Elizabeth scoffed in a very unladylike manner. “Ryder was a foolish man who sought my favor. I actually hoped to intercept whoever would be returning the stone.”
I scowled. “To steal it again?”
She met my scowl with one of her own. “To bring it to the countess myself, and thereby remove any need to leave her service.”
Suddenly, the maid burst into the sitting room, and the smell of smoke came with her, filling the space. “Mistress! There’s a fire in the kitchen!”
I knew better than to look at the maid. Instead, I watched Elizabeth, and I saw her eyes dart at the mantle of the fireplace, to the left pillar, and with that look, I knew where she’d hidden the letters.
Just then, someone pounded on the front door below us, and Elizabeth and I stared at each other. She moved swiftly to the window, and I joined her there to see two men with the build of dockworkers getting ready to kick the door in. “Westfield’s men,” I said. In my anger at the duke, I had not convinced him that I would get the letters, so he had taken matters into his own hands. I turned to Elizabeth and was startled to find her face so close to mine. “Run!”
I wasn’t sure why I wanted her to escape them, except that they would likely hurt her. And besides being somewhat innately chivalrous in my instinct to protect women, I found that my curiosity about her was an oddly provocative motivation to see her safe to match wits with another day.
“I need—” She was suddenly frantic, and her eyes leapt to the fireplace mantle again.
“Just go!” They were pounding up the stairs now, and I rushed to the side of the entry. Elizabeth grabbed Mathilda, and they raced toward the back of the flat just as two East End thugs slammed into the room carrying clubs.
The first one rushed in without spotting me, and I tripped the second one so he went down hard, falling forward and tangling with thug number one on his way down.
The first thug wrestled his way free and swung at me. I dodged behind the sofa and was rewarded with the crack of wood where the club hit the frame. The other man was struggling to his feet, but his club had rolled in my direction. I grabbed it before he could, and swung.
My blow was hard enough to crack bone, and certainly hard enough to make a man howl. Thug two went down again, holding his knees, and thug one faced me across the room.
“Ye don’t want to do this, mate,” he growled at me. He wasn’t wrong. I really didn’t want to do this. But even less did I want to leave these two to their own devices in this flat. I didn’t know whether Jess and the women had escaped, or even if the fire Jess must have set in the kitchen was still burning, but my first priority, after dodging thug one’s club, was to get to whatever Elizabeth had hidden in her fireplace.
He lunged at me, which was predictable given that he was twice my size and weight. He hadn’t expected my agility though, and I launched myself off the sofa and over him, dropping the club I still held on his head as I leapt. It was a spectacular move, even if I did say so myself.
The contact was enough to knock him down, and even better, he dropped his own club. I lunged for him, but Elizabeth, appearing as if from the ether, got there first, his club in her hand, and she struck. His head sounded remarkably like the wooden frame of the sofa had done, and I winced at the thud his body made when it hit the floor. Thug two cried out and curled into a tight ball, protecting his head as if he knew he was next.
Elizabeth looked at me, almost as if ascertaining whether I’d been hurt. A club remained in each of our hands. I thought it likely that she was prepared to use hers, but I was next to the fireplace, so I took a risk.
Still facing her, with my club in one hand, I reached the other behind me and felt along the woodwork.
“What are you doing?” she asked me, though she knew the answer already.
“Relieving you of your letters so more of them—” I indicated the two men on the floor, “don’t come for you.”
She scoffed. “So it’s an altruistic motive then, is it?” She took a step toward me, and the club in her hand raised an inch or two.
“Something like that,” I said, just as my fingers found the catch. I pressed it, and a piece of the wood trim popped open behind my head.
“Don’t do this, Devereux,” she said in a voice that sounded almost like a plea wrapped in a snarl.
Thug two tried to crawl toward the door, and I used the momentary distraction to remove a stack of documents from the cubby and stuff it into my pocket.
Elizabeth screamed in frustration, and she swung the club at thug two, who just barely darted out of the door and ran away down the stairs. Then she stalked toward me, the club raised like a fist. “Give me the letters, Ringo!” It was definitely a snarl this time, and I had to tap her club out of the way as if it were a sword.
She swung again and connected with my club hard enough to jar my arm. “I will hurt you, and I will hate myself for a minute because you’re a worthy adversary. But then I’ll get over it, and you’ll still be injured … or worse. I don’t want to do that, Ringo. Give me the letters!”
I edged back again, and Elizabeth stalked toward me, the rage writ loud on her face. “The letters!”
I took the packet of baker’s receipts from my trouser pocket and flung them into the fireplace. Elizabeth screamed and dove after them as I darted down the hall and into the kitchen where Jess stood with the rear window wide open and a piece of burnt toast in one hand.
“Took ye long enough,” she said calmly as she leapt out of the window, onto the rear balcony, and down the ladder to escape into the back alley. I was right on her heels and just barely caught the sound of Elizabeth’s furious voice as she screamed, “RINGO!!!”