Chapter Eight
Any time George needed a respite from his thoughts, he came to the walled yard behind Ardmore House. Here he had once hung a block of wood and painted target circles upon it for a bit of archery. He could fire a few arrows to one side of the yard, away from the bustle of servants going to and from the small garden, the shed with tools, the washtub and boiler, the cook’s small flock of chickens.
Here he was solitary, but not alone. On this particular morning, barely past dawn, he couldn’t be alone. His thoughts were too persistent. Intrusive, really. Obstinate. Unexpected.
Much like Cassandra Benton.
Since that night of the Harroughs’ ball, he’d never been able to forget the sight of her bared skin and scattered clothing. She wasn’t only Miss Benton anymore, or resourceful Cass. She was a woman, lovely in her trust of him. He held it gingerly as he would a glass ball, unwilling to let it go, unwilling to do anything that might harm it.
Caught by it.
He took up bow and arrow. Nocked the arrow, tightened his fingers around the string. Held the tension, tested it, let the arrow fly.
Shh-whup. His ears caught the whisk of the arrow through space, the thump of its metal tip into the wood target.
It was a short distance to shoot; hitting the target was as easy and unsatisfying as cracking a rotten nut. But it kept his arms in good trim. And that was more important day after day: his grip on the glass ball had become ever more determined—and ever more slippery.
The more he thought about it—Cass—trust—those discarded stockings . . . the more difficult it was to remember that she was here because of a case. A genuine need; a true danger.
Peck. Scratch. Peck peck peck.
Little taps and scratches on George’s boots drew his notice downward. A feathery back, a dainty head with a leathery comb. Peck peck peck.
The cook’s precious chickens. Let out of their coop each dawn, they pecked at George’s boots with mild interest.
“There aren’t any insects on my boots,” George informed the chickens. “Or seeds or whatever it is you love.”
The chickens ignored this sage insight and continued abusing his boots.
George scowled. He attempted to ignore the attack on his footwear, aiming and letting another arrow fly. Shh-whup.
Ting!
Uh. Hmm. That one had bounced off the stone wall, rather far above the target. It lay on the ground now like a reproach.
“Stop pecking,” he told the chickens. “You messed up my aim. You’ll be put into a soup if you keep that up.”
Again, the chickens ignored him. They did, however, lose interest in the boots when those items proved not to be edible, and they swaggered away to peck and scratch outside the kitchen door.
Now George did feel alone. There were too many questions on his mind, and he wanted to forget them. He wanted them, really, not to exist at all.
But they did, and no number of arrows or chickens would undo that.
Was he right about the case? Wasn’t he? He’d doubt everything if it hadn’t been for that note left beside his wounded godfather. FOUR LEFT. But there were five survivors left still, and when would the person who’d left the note—attacker or assassin or trickster—do something more?
Why was he trying to protect his father, who clearly disbelieved in the danger?
Why was he living here still, when both of his parents needed help and neither would take it?
And why should anyone trust in his judgment, when he’d never done anything more significant than waste paper and chemicals on failed experiments? His recent experiment with the camera obscura had imprinted vague lines on treated paper, an image of Cavendish Square if one squinted and prayed. But after a few minutes in daylight, it had darkened and faded into nothing. As apt a symbol as any: everything he tried led eventually to nothing.
He asked too many questions now, and thought too much about the answers. The influence of one Cassandra Benton.
Narrowing his eyes, he fired another arrow. Shh-whup. Thump.
This one hit the target.
A breeze ruffled his hair. This passed for fresh air in London in summer: damp gusts with the promise of rain, then a heavy whiff of acrid coal. This passed for leisure: arrows fired at a bit of wood amidst every pedestrian and unpretty item necessary to run the household. He wasn’t solving anything this way.
All right, then. Why shoot? Because arms in good trim were worth having. Because the sound of the arrow twanging on the bow string was pleasant. Because a marquess bred and raised to a title from birth couldn’t give rein to temper and annoyance, but he could fire an arrow into a block of wood and yank it out again.
So he did. He retrieved the arrow from the ground, then yanked out each of the arrows he’d fired into the target. He touched his fingertip to the wounds left in the block of wood. Eventually it would be shot so full of holes that it wouldn’t hold an arrow anymore, and he’d have to replace it.
When he turned in the direction of the house, hand bristling with arrows, Cass was standing at his heels.
His shoulders jerked. “Ah—good morning. Didn’t hear you approach.”
“Of course you didn’t. I have the velvet tread of a panther.”
George raised an eyebrow. “Velvet tread? Have you been into my gothic novels?”
“Maybe. It’s also possible you were distracted playing Robin Hood.” Her mouth was a tight line, pulled not by humor but something more prosaic. Distraction? Preoccupation? “I have to leave for a while. I just wanted to tell you because we had planned to go to Gunter’s today.”
He squinted at the colorful sunrise sky. “Surely not before six o’clock in the morning.”
“No, but I don’t know when I’ll be back. I received a note last night from Bow Street. There’s a case I need to work on.”
You’re supposed to be working on my case, he thought, but he refrained from pointing this out. She’d never hidden her need to continue her brother’s work during his recovery. At the moment, dressed as she was in a plain dark gown that Selina’s modiste would never have touched, she was clearly not Mrs. Benedetti. She was Miss Benton, the Bow Street Runner.
“Has something happened?” he asked, curious.
“Something is always happening, and I need to find out what it is. I’m meeting an informant in Billingsgate. And after that?” Her shrug was elegantly noncommittal. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”
“Billingsgate? Where people sell all the fish? It must be . . . how far?” As George tucked away the arrows again, he tried to calculate the distance in his mind, then gave up. “Well, it’s some miles from here. Would you like use of the carriage?”
“Oh, no.” Now Cass did smile. “I can’t go to Billingsgate in a crested carriage; what a spectacle I’d make. I’ll walk a few streets to get away from the nobs, then hire a hackney.”
The nobs. He snorted. He liked getting away from the nobs sometimes himself. “Would you like company?”
“I can go on my own.”
“I never doubted it. You’re the investigator, and you don’t need my presence. But I’m very handsome and you might like having me around to look at.”
A chicken scratching nearby paused, regarded George with a beady eye, then stalked away.
Cass appeared no less skeptical. “You say the most sensible things, then the strangest things.”
“Part of my appeal,” George said. “But my question was sincere, and no more nor less than what I meant. I know you don’t need company, but would you like it?”
“Would I like it?” She sounded bewildered by the question.
“Yes. Company. Would you? I ask because I know you are used to working with your brother as a partner. Of course you would not request my presence because you want to gaze upon my masculine beauty. At least, not only because of that.”
“You praise yourself more than you do any lady,” she said, but she was smiling again. Which was, of course, why he’d made such foolish jokes.
“Come along if you like, then,” she agreed.
Which was also why he’d made such foolish jokes. On that, at least, his mind was clear and he’d no questions.
Stowing his bow and arrows in the cluttered shed, he noticed a slouchy gardener’s hat. He clapped it onto his bare head, then joined Cass in slipping through the back gate and into the mews. From there, they made their way around to Cavendish Square. It was all but empty at this hour, its green expanse and walking paths peaceful and silent under the rosy-pale sky. Behind the quiet facades of each grand home, George knew servants were already bustling about, their work never done. Sleep and peace were privileges for the few.
But look at the sky one missed if one slept the day away; look at the company one missed. At George’s side, Cass strode quick and determined. Her marvelous hair was covered by a simple hat of cloth and straw. The shoulders he’d seen bare were garbed in a sensible spencer that buttoned under her breasts and did little to make him stop thinking of them.
His mind was a bordello around Cass Benton; it had been ever since the Night of the Stockings. The Night of the Torturous Undressing. It deserved capital letters in his memory.
Not that Cass needed to know that.
“Do let me know when we’ve gone far enough from the nobs,” George said lightly, “so that we might hail a hackney.”
They’d reached a street corner already awake and busy. Cass looked up and down the street, then nodded. “This will do.” With her blessing, George hailed the first vehicle he spotted, then directed the driver to Billingsgate.
“You can pay him as well,” Cass said once they’d settled onto the worn, greasy squabs. “Since you’ve a mind to be so involved in this case.”
“I was trying to be polite and helpful,” George pointed out.
“Paying the driver would be both.”
With this, he could not argue. Fortunately he always carried a notecase in his coat. It was almost the end of the quarter and his purse was thin, but he’d money enough for traveling around London.
He looked about him with interest. Grimy windows, through which the streets outside appeared a hazy dream. Stubs of candle within smoky lamps, unlit now. Seats on which innumerable other arses had planted themselves.
When had he last taken a hackney? His Oxford days, maybe. Ripping around the streets half-drunk and laughing with friends. Pursuing pleasures instead of his studies.
A private carriage was another luxury he hadn’t thought about much. Like sleeping when one wanted to, working when one wished. He really did get his own way a lot of the time.
“So what is this case?” George broke the silence. “Do you think it has to do with the tontine, your meeting with the fishmonger informant?”
Cass was clearly deep in thought, her mind already at her destination. “She isn’t a fishmonger,” was all she said.
“She? How intriguing. I thought you were one of a kind. That is—you are one of a kind, but I thought you were the only—”
“It’s all right. You needn’t talk yourself into a fit. I know what you mean.”
This was all she said, though, so he tried again. “Is this rather dangerous?”
She blinked. “Buying fish? Not really.”
George folded his arms. “Buying fish? So we’re cooks’ assistants now? I mean meeting an informant, of course.”
Her hand strayed to her gown pocket. “Sometimes. But you needn’t worry; I’ll protect you. I’ve a pistol, and I’m good with my fists.”
“Oh, I remember.” He rubbed his midsection, recalling how she’d turned on him in the surprised dark of Deverell Place. Less than a fortnight ago, yet long enough for the memories to become essential to him. “Is it strange that such talk is attractive to me?”
She rolled her eyes, but did not look displeased. “No. It’s not strange to want someone else to manage trouble for you.”
But that wasn’t what he’d meant. He’d meant the attractive bit. Cass was splendid, with her pockets and her weapons and her matter-of-fact ways.
Before he could say some of this, or maybe even all of this, the hackney jolted to a stop. Cass craned her neck to look out the window, then nodded. “We’re here. Hop down, my lord—you’re about to become a Runner.”
* * *
Cass hadn’t meant that literally, that George would become a Runner. Or a runner, without the capital r. Almost the moment they descended from the hackney, though, a boy brushed against Cass’s side.
She knew the move well: a pickpocket’s bread and butter. She slapped a hand to the pocket of her gown. Empty! Her pistol was gone. And worse, her miniature of Grandmama. She’d been foolish to bring it, but she was in the habit of having it with her.
She’d been careless.
Lunging, she snatched for the boy’s collar, but he was quick as mercury and slipped from her grasp. The crowds about the wharf were thick. She couldn’t lose him. Shouldering her way after him, she cried, “Catch him! He stole—”
Before she spoke another word, George was off in pursuit. With his broad shoulders, he made a path through the crowd; his gloved hands reached, his legs scissored in long strides. Cass gathered up her skirts above her ankles and pelted after him.
It was like running through a tunnel, crowded and odorous. The wharf squatted on a hairpin bend in the Thames, hemmed in by huge buildings of brick and stone, then open to the water. Porters carted fish around; fishmongers laid it out on tables and booths beneath low wooden sheds over which they watched with gimlet eyes. And people crossed and laced and ducked and wove, and somewhere in the crowd was Grandmama’s picture. George was pulling ahead, and Cass’s skirts were tangling about her ankles, and the cobbles were slippery under her feet. She lost sight of them both in the crowd for a moment.
Blindly, she shoved, not minding the famously coarse language of the fishwives. Where had that boy got to? Where was George? If only she’d been quicker, she could have prevented—
And then she slipped past a ruddy-faced woman, hands on hips and squalling, and it was as if she’d walked into a different part of London. The crowd had backed up, making a perfect open circle, and at its center stood George. And the struggling boy. And, surprisingly—or maybe not?—Janey Trewes, swaddled and swathed as always, whom Cass had arranged to meet here, and who had a gift for being exactly where she was needed.
Cass shoved past the muttering onlookers to join the little group at the center of the circle. Somewhere George had lost his odd hat, and his gloves were dirty. They were clenched on the boy who’d picked Cass’s pocket: one on the boy’s shoulder, and one about his wrist.
“Smart,” Cass said, nodding toward the double grasp. “In case he slips out of his jacket and tries to run for it.”
“Lemme go!” yowled the boy. “I didn’t do nufink!”
He was small and thin and grimy from soot and mud. Likely not an errand boy fetching fish for a household, but an opportunist. A thief, come where the crowds were.
“Check ’is pockets,” Janey said. “If he’s innocent, off he goes.”
Cass crouched before the struggling boy. “I’m going to check your pockets. And if you have my things, I’m taking them back.” His glare was pure hatred.
His jacket, threadbare and too short at the arms, yielded a wealth of goods. Cass’s pistol, yes; Grandmama, in her gold case. There was a spill of coins, too; Cass looked at them dubiously in her hands.
“Those is mine,” said the boy. “Can’t prove they isn’t.”
“True.” She stood, slipping her possessions back into her pocket—then, thinking better of it before onlookers, held fast to them. “What’s your name?”
He said a word that would have made a fishwife gasp.
Janey laughed. George murmured, “Odd choice on your parents’ part.”
Around them, the crowd began to break up. If the running lady had got her items back and was asking the boy’s name, there was probably not going to be a fight or a killing, or even a knocked-over booth of fish. How dull.
Pasting on her sternest expression, Cass replied, “I’m not calling you that. You deserve better. And a word of advice: you’re good, but not good enough. I felt the dip as soon as you made it. Either get better before you start stealing again, or go to Ardmore House in Cavendish Square and ask for a job.”
Now George laughed. “My father would love that.”
“I could teach ’im,” Janey said thoughtfully. “How to pick a pocket, like, so’s no one ’ud notice.”
“That is not why we arranged to meet this morning,” Cass reminded the younger woman. “You already have apprentices enough to fill half of London.”
“Could always use another,” Janey said cheerfully. “Hold now”—she referred to the boy by the filthy word—“I might have a jacket as’ll fit you better.” She began unwinding a rolled garment from around her head, where it had perched like a turban over a white maid’s cap. It proved to be a series of child’s jackets, knotted at the sleeves. She wrestled one free and held it out to the boy.
George released him. His eyes, pale and mistrustful, darted from George to Janey to Cass to Cass’s handful of items, then back again.
“Jemmy,” he said sullenly.
“Is that your real name, or are you under the impression that’s how you say ‘thank you’ to the lady?” George asked.
“A lady!” Janey sounded delighted. “Go on, then.”
Jemmy scuffed his bare foot on the cobbles. “Thank you,” he mumbled, then snatched the jacket from Janey’s hands. He dragged it on over his old one, then folded his arms tightly. “Can’t take it back now.”
“Of course not,” Cass said. He really was so thin, so dirty; he must be cold. Likely hungry, too. In a moment, she decided. “Here. These are your coins.” One by one, she dropped them back into his eager hands, keeping a wary grip on her own pistol and miniature. “Mind you don’t take anyone else’s, now.”
“I won’t!” This was almost certainly a lie, of course. He took a step to flee; Janey caught his shoulder, bent to whisper something in his ear, then nodded and set him free. He hared off, lost in an instant among the ceaseless movement of people.
Cass looked doubtfully at Grandmama. Her pistol. How to keep them safe?
Shrugging, she slipped the miniature into her bodice, where her spencer and stays would hold it tight. The cold metal went instantly warm against her skin. She hesitated over the pistol, not liking the idea of stuffing it into her garments.
“Do you want me to carry that for you?” George asked. “I could put it in the pocket inside my coat, where a pickpocket couldn’t get it.”
“Then we couldn’t reach it easily.” Cass tapped it against her palm, then handed it over. “But it’s not loaded at the moment, so I suppose it won’t be much help anyway. Thank you.”
He tucked away the little gun. “I told you I’d protect you, didn’t I? Yes, I’m pretty certain that’s how our conversation went.”
When he winked at her, she smiled. “That’s not how I recall it, but it’s what you did. At least—you protected my belongings, and that means a great deal to me.”
“I should love to see what you keep in that little gold case.” Holding her gaze, his blue eyes were warm. Did he mean the gold case protecting the miniature? Did he mean he’d like to undo her bodice, where she’d stowed the precious item?
Or was she being wishful, thinking he might be looking upon her with desire? Especially when all around them was tumult, and the odor of fish so strong it almost covered the stench of the river.
“I . . .” She fumbled for something to say that would not sound ridiculous.
George rescued her. “But never mind that now. Will you introduce me to your friend, if she will allow it?”
Naturally, Janey allowed it. The pretty young woman was all impish flirtation as she made the acquaintance of George, Lord Northbrook, who used far better manners with her than he had ever displayed with Cass.
“I need to speak with Janey for a bit,” Cass then said to George. “Bow Street business.”
“Right. I’ll make myself scarce, shall I? I’ll just . . .” He looked around. “Buy some fish? Yes. I’ll buy some fish.”
Off he went, and Cass eyed Janey curiously. “Did you tell that boy where he could find you?”
Janey shrugged. “No harm in that, was there? I’ll teach ’im to be good.”
“What sort of good? A good boy or a good pickpocket?”
“Why not both?”
Cass had to allow this. Janey was indeed a good woman and the finest pickpocket in London. So she asked, “Why did you want to meet at Billingsgate?”
“Got to meet somewhere.” She twisted the knotted row of jackets back into a coil, then wrapped it around her head like a turban. “And I wanted to be gettin’ a fish for me dinner. Charles would have it as a treat, and Missus Jellicoe said as she’d cook it for us.”
So her brother was Charles now. It was only fair, as they’d always called Janey by her first name—but again, Cass had the feeling of events passing her by. Charles was making connections without her, and those would make her old life new and unfamiliar when she returned to it. “Where is Charles getting the money for fresh fish?”
“Coins all over his washstand,” Janey said, as if this were perfectly normal. “Keeps one in a broken cake of soap, too.”
“He keeps a coin in his soap? Still?” How well did Cass remember jamming it in there on end, a fruitless gesture of annoyance. But it had fallen to the floor, and she’d replaced it on his washstand.
“He is washing,” Janey said. “See him every other day, I do, and the soap is smaller ev’ry time. Must be as he puts the coin in again each day.”
“Charles,” Cass muttered. Using her wages to buy fresh fish. Keeping a coin in a cake of soap. What was he about?
She had to grant that fish was not an extravagant purchase, though it was an unusual one for her brother. And if he drove the coin into the soap, just as Cass once had, then maybe he had taken her words to heart. Maybe he was trying to be a bit wiser with money, or more careful about work.
Or maybe he thought it looked smart. One never knew with Charles.
Cass shook this off and returned to the subject of work. “You’re helping with the Watch case? Is that what you speak to Charles about?”
“Whatever’s needed. But mostly that, aye.” Janey nodded, looking grave. “Some toff was asking about a girl who disappeared. Lord Randolph, ’is name was. She was some servant that had run off to London, and he said he wanted her back because he was worried for her, and me friend Mary Simpkins said as she’d heard he was cruel to young women, so the lass probably ran away—lass, that means girl, that’s just how Mary talks.”
“I know the word,” Cass said drily. “And I know Lord Randolph’s reputation.” It had been soured around the time of the famous theft from the Royal Mint. Lord Randolph had lost himself a mistress and, in retaliation, set up a bawdy art exhibition in the wilds of Derbyshire. He didn’t move often in society, but when he did, he was a discomfiting sort. “So Mary thinks Lord Randolph is responsible for the girl’s disappearance?”
“No, no. Mary thinks the Watch is being more careful, now, because there’s a toff nosing into the matter. So there hasn’t been any more girls gone as we know of.”
“That’s . . . good? Yes, that’s good,” Cass said. Better for London’s young women to be safe, even if the case stayed open longer. Just as it was better for George’s father and his old compatriots to remain safe, even as the tontine case ground to a halt.
And Cass seemed never in the right place to help with either. Not even able to hold on to her own belongings.
But able to count on George to retrieve them, on Janey to follow the case. This was a strange sensation, not only to lay one’s trust upon another person but to have it repaid.
“Thank you,” Cass said for the second time in a short while. “You’re a great help to Bow Street, and I’ve no doubt to my brother.”
Janey made an unintelligible sound like faughhhhh. “It’s my attun-mint. You know that.”
“The reason doesn’t matter. It’s a great help.” She asked Janey about the other cases before Bow Street, those Charles had been working as well as those that had come up since both Bentons had absented themselves from the courtroom. Janey’s memory for names and faces was good, though she’d yet to master the legal jargon of the courtroom and stumbled over many of the words.
With a pang of envy, Cass said, “By the time Charles is well, you’ll have made yourself indispensable to Fox.” It was such a good feeling to be needed.
Janey flashed her charming grin. “And haven’t I been indis—like you said—all along? Best informant that Mr. Fox has, he says.”
“Then it’s true. Fox never exaggerates or lies.”
Janey looked doubtful at this description of such a paragon of honesty; then her grin returned. “Ah, that lord of yours is back! And what a big fish as he’s sportin’.”
“Uh,” Cass replied, now rosy herself. She wheeled in the direction of Janey’s gaze to see that yes, George was making his way back to them, and he was carrying a large flopping fish—thank the Lord, not in his arms, but in a straw basket he must have bought off one of the fishwives.
When he reached the two women, he thrust the basket at them. “Here. I bought a fish, just as I said I would. Its eye is staring at me and I don’t like it. Which of you wants to take responsibility for it?”
Cass tucked her arms behind her back. “Not I. You could give it to your cook.”
“Or you could give it to me,” said Janey hopefully. “I was goin’ to buy one, but now I won’t have to.”
“The lady wins.” George surrendered the basket to Janey, a look of relief on his face. “Happy birthday, for whenever your birthday is, and don’t say Lord Northbrook neglected that occasion.”
“It’s next week!” Janey beamed at him. “Thanks to ye, and I’ll be off.”
As quickly and subtly as the boy Jemmy had slipped away, Janey and the basket and the fish were gone.
“She’s going to give that fish to Charles,” Cass pointed out. “Basically, you bought my brother a fish.”
George lifted his brows. “That sounds like a euphemism, but I cannot imagine for what.”
Cass chuckled. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” She dusted her hands against each other, not that this did her soiled gloves much good. “Well, what now? I should have kept a few of Jemmy’s coins to hire us a hackney back to Cavendish Square.”
“Not yet.” George looked down at her, bareheaded and rumpled, with a mischievous twinkle in his light eyes. “We look disreputable—at least I do—and I’m not ready to stop enjoying it. If you’ll permit me to ask a question that I do want the answer to, might I take you to breakfast? I know the perfect place.”