Carla Kelly (3 page)

Omega did not
enlighten the man who bullied her into the taproom. She did not
even glance at him as she found herself pushed gently down into a
chair.

“
I
really must protest,” she said faintly to the landlord. To her own
ears her voice sounded no louder than a cricket sawing on the
hearth. Miss Omega Chartley, who by the mere shifting of her eyes
could send a whole rank of fourth-form students to the brink of the
valley of the shadow, was reduced to complete
submission.

Omega stared
straight ahead, and a red-whiskered man intruded upon her view. He
smelled of cigar smoke and horse sweat, with the odor of greasy
leathers thrown in. She could not bring herself to stare at him,
but abandoned herself to the perusal of his muddy boots, which,
from the looks of them, had never met the acquaintance of a
blacking rag.

When he spoke
again, his voice was kind enough. “I did not mean to give you a
start, miss, but I’m speaking to everyone at the inn, ladies not
excepted.” He sat down directly in front of her. “It has been my
experience that ladies are more acute observers than toffs, any
road.”

“
How,
sir, may I help you?” she said in a frosty voice that would have
sent her brother, Alpha, into a fit of giggles.

He said nothing,
only watched her. It was not an unkind stare, merely a businesslike
one.

Omega folded her
hands in her lap. “What is it that you wish from me, sir?” she
asked again.

He leaned toward
her, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m a Runner, ma’am, from
Bow Street. Have you heard of it?”

She nodded and
looked down at her hands, unclenching them slightly when she
noticed how white her knuckles were. He followed her gaze, but made
no comment.

“
You
have the advantage of me, sir,” she said. “What is it that you
wish?”

“
I’m
asking all the patrons at every inn, lodging house, and flea palace
between here and Oxford. Have you seen a lad about ten with black
hair and brown eyes?”

She had. “Sir,
you could be describing half the little boys in England. Does he
have a name?” she temporized, not wishing to answer him if she
could help it.

“
Answers to Jamie. James Clevenden. He’s a runaway,
miss.”

The sap in a log
popped on the hearth and Omega jumped. The Runner watched her.
“Have you seen the lad, miss? Answer me, now.”

She opened her
mouth, but someone else’s voice came out.

“
Yes,
she knows him. Ask her how she let him escape from me.”

It was the man
from the road. Omega didn’t bother to glance around. She wasn’t
sure that she could have. Her body felt as though it had turned to
ice.

The Bow Street
Runner said nothing to her, only looked at her. Everyone in the
taproom was silent. The occupants of the room did not look at her,
but she knew they were listening, judging, forming their own
opinions.

“
I
came across the boy where the road forks,” she said in her quiet
voice. “He was scraping about in a midden.”

“
Tell
the Runner how you gave that cutpurse a push and told him to run
when I tried to do my citizen’s duty and stop him,” insisted the
man.

“
You
were hurting him,” she protested. “I would do the same for
anyone.”

The silence
thickened like pudding. The Runner slapped his knees again and
stood up, towering over her. “Could you tell me where he went?” he
asked.

She shook her
head.

“
Does
that mean you don’t know, or you won’t tell me?” persisted the
Runner.

Omega stood up to
face him. On her feet, she felt as though she were standing in a
hole in front of him. What would a big man like this do to a boy
like Jamie if he found him? She didn’t want to consider
it.

“
It
means, Mr. ... Mr. ...”

“
Timothy Platter, ma’am.”

“
It
means, Mr. Platter, that I do not know where he went,” she said
steadily. “It also means that even if I did know where he was, I am
not sure that I would make it my earnest desire to enlighten you.
He was terrified of something, or someone, Mr. Platter. And now, if
you will excuse me, I really have nothing more to say.”

The Runner
adopted a more placating tone. “Miss, it is my charge and duty to
return him to his uncle, who misses him surely. He means the boy no
harm; nor do I. This is my job, and it keeps my wife and kiddies
from eviction.” She could not doubt the sincerity in his eyes. For
the smallest moment, she felt a wavering of her own conviction. But
only for a moment. “I still have nothing to say, Mr. Platter.
Please excuse me.”

The Runner put
out a hand as if to detain her. She stared him down, grateful that
he could not see how her knees were trembling. Omega turned and
swept out of the taproom, pausing in the doorway and gazing for a
small moment at the two women who stood between her and the
stairway. Head high, she stalked past them.

“
Omega
Chartley,” said the younger woman. “Omega Chartley.”

“
Yes,”
Omega Chartley whispered back, and fled up the stairs, her courage
gone.

In the safety of
her room, she could only lean with her back against the door. Omega
listened for footsteps, but no one followed. Gradually her
breathing became calm again. With steadier fingers she undid the
ribbons of her bonnet and set it carefully on the bureau. She
looked in the mirror and sighed. Her brown curls were all wild
around her face. Absently she twisted one curl around her finger
and let it spring back.

“
Botheration!” she exclaimed out loud, touching her curls
again. There had been a time at the opera when Matthew Bering,
bored beyond belief, twisted her curls around his fingers until she
was in whoops and the Prince Regent himself stared at them from the
next box, his quizzing glass raised.

“
Botheration,” she said again. Botheration that after eight
years, one little difficulty could set off a flood of memories.
Omega could still remember his fingers gently twisting the curls on
her head. She remembered how she had gone so peacefully to sleep
that night, sniffing the odor in her hair of the lemon-scented
Spanish cologne that he always wore.

Omega moved away
from the door and sat down at the table. The English grammar she
had abandoned was open on the table. She lit the lamp and pulled it
closer, feeling as put upon, tried, and tested as one of her own
pupils.

“
I
wish people would leave me alone,” she said, and copied that
sentence in a neat, round hand onto the page in front of her. She
put down the pen and looked at her handiwork. A reluctant smile
came to her lips, and then a chuckle. “Omega, you are a goose,” she
said. “You would have your holiday, so you had better enjoy
it.”

In another moment
she would be telling herself to write fifty times, “I will not
think about Matthew Bering anymore.”

“
Or,
at least, only five times a day instead of ten,” she amended. “That
would be progress.”

She went to the
open window and leaned her elbows on the sill. The sky was dark
now, and all was quiet on the street. “Jamie Clevenden, where are
you?” she wondered to herself. The evening was fine enough, but it
would be cool before morning.

“
Do
look out for the Runner, lad,” she said quietly.

As she spoke,
someone lit a match below her window. Soon the smell of cigar smoke
drifted to her nose. She looked down. She could discern the bulky
shape of the Bow Street Runner, standing under her window as calm
as a deacon.

She leaned out
farther and grasped the shutter. “You will likely rot your lungs
out with that foul weed, Mr. Platter,” she said quite distinctly in
her best educationist’s voice.

Omega Chartley
pulled the shutter closed with a bang, but not before she heard
Timothy Platter laugh.

Omega took off
her dress, shook it out, and draped it over the chair. Already it
was sadly wrinkled from only two days of travel. Tomorrow she would
trade it for her other traveling dress, and when she arrived in
Oxford, would pause for a general laundering, if the inn was
respectable and the price not too dear.

She pulled on her
nightgown and tucked her wayward curls under her sleeping cap. On
her knees, she clasped her hands and rested them on the edge of the
bed. On a typical night she prayed for the poor mad king, the
prince regent, the armies of Wellington, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Alpha and Lydia Chartley, and the little
Chartleys.

Tonight she began
with the Chartleys and then proceeded directly to Jamie Clevenden.
“Keep him safe, mighty God, and for goodness’ sake, direct him to
return home before he gets all of us in trouble.”

Omega paused for
a long time and then rested her cheek on the bed. She couldn’t
bring herself to say it out loud—she never did—but she thought it.
And, Lord, please bless Matthew Bering, wherever he
is
.

The sun woke
Omega the next morning. She burrowed deeper into her blankets for a
moment, and then reached for
Rochester’s Guidebook of England
for Ladies
. She turned to the chapter on the Cotswolds, running
her finger down the list of villages. Bisley, Sapperton.
Cirencester, Siege of 1643.

Omega slammed the
book shut. How singular it was that the tempting vision of sieges
and castles that had kept her going throughout Plymouth’s gray
winter had so little attraction for her now. She put her hands
behind her head and stared at the ceiling. “You’re being
out-of-reason foolish, Miss Chartley,” she scolded herself. Jamie
Clevenden was probably curled up in a warm hayloft right
now.

She picked up the
Guidebook
again, resolutely shutting out of her mind the
picture of a hungry boy scratching about in a garbage heap. She
would travel as far as Cirencester today, replaying in her mind the
battle of the Cavaliers and the Roundheads as she wandered through
the town. The next day it would be Chedworth, and perhaps a glimpse
of the famous Roman mosaic floor. And so on to Oxford, to Amphney
St. Peter to visit the Chartleys, and eventually Durham, and then
the term would begin.

Omega presented
herself in the taproom to request a small breakfast in her room.
Timothy Platter was there, dirty boots propped up on the table,
head well back, mouth open, snoring.

“
Will
he
never
leave?” Omega whispered.

“
Exactly what my wife is saying, miss,” the landlord said. “And
he told me he wants to see you again. I told him, ‘What can a lady
have for you?’ and he gave me such a wink. Miss Chartley, we’d all
prefer to see his back.” He brightened. “Can I have my wife fetch
you some breakfast?”

She had been
hungry before she spotted the Runner. “No, no, I think not. Tell
me. When does the mail coach arrive?”

“
Give
it a few minutes, Miss Chartley.” The landlord glanced over at the
snoring Runner. “We’ll see you make it.”

She thanked him
and wandered outside the inn, hoping that Jamie Clevenden would be
long gone. The air was cool and Omega wondered if the boy had a
coat somewhere.

She turned the
corner and found herself nose to nose with the Bow Street Runner.
He had come so silently that she had not heard him. How such a big
man could move so quietly on his feet provided a moment of marvel
that was quickly replaced by anger.

“
Who
would set a Runner on a small boy?” she
cried.

“
You’d
have to ask Lord Rotherford,” snapped the Runner, obviously as
tired of her as she was of him. He touched her sleeve as if to
detain her. “If you have something to tell me ...”

She shook him
off. “You’re the last person I would ever tell, even if I did know
anything, which I do not!”

She stomped
inside, up the stairs, and slammed the door, hoping that Timothy
Platter would hear it. Omega sat down on the bed and waited for
cold reason to wash over her.

It did not. The
more she thought about Jamie Clevenden, the more she wanted to
march back down the stairs and slap Timothy Platter silly. And that
would never do.

She had seen
beggars before. Plymouth was full of them, old sailors too fuddled
to climb a ratline anymore; young hard-faced women reeking of gin;
children scarcely old enough to walk, sleeping in doorways. Omega
had closed her eyes all her life to England’s little miseries. Why
was Jamie Clevenden so different?

“
Because he has a name,” she answered herself, “and he reminded
me of someone.”

And what on earth
was such a well-dressed boy doing rummaging through garbage? And
didn’t that dreadful Mr. Platter mention something about a Lord
Rotherford? The name was vaguely familiar to her from those days
before she became a teacher.

Omega’s agitation
increased. She stalked about the room until the landlady scratched
at her door.

“
My
boy will come for your baggage.”