Forged by Desire (7 page)

“That he knew of,” Garrett replied. “Why those two girls? And why the factory? How does that play into this?”

“Time to go back to the factories then,” she said. “We need to find that connection.”

The rocking of the carriage lulled him into a brief sleep during the journey back to the East End. By the time the carriage disgorged them into the bustling streets near the factories, workmen swarmed the streets, heading home—or to the nearest pub—for the rest of the day. He and Perry worked their way through the costermongers and barrow boys, questioning them about anything they might have seen that morning, before meeting back by the corner of Craven Street and Old Bailey. It was cold work, and though he didn’t feel it as strongly as a human, he tried to breathe some warmth back into his cupped hands.

“No luck?” Perry asked him.

“Someone mentioned a creature prowling these streets that he called ‘Steel Jaw.’ He reeked of gin though, so I’m not inclined to believe him.”

“Steel Jaw?”

“Someone along the vein of Spring-Heeled Jack.” Garrett shrugged. There were dozens of so-called mythic creatures and devilish murderers prowling the stews.

“Ha’penny for your luck, guv!”

Garrett stopped in his tracks, his attention focusing on a brash young lad sitting on the stoop of a disused shop. The moment their eyes met, the boy jerked his chin with a wink. “Why, a rum cove like you, bet you’re sharper ’n a shiv.” He gestured to the box crate set up in front of him with three chipped cups on it. Swiping one cup out of the way, he revealed a bottle cap and then tossed it in the air. “Think you can guess which cup she’s under?”

A second later the bottle cap was gone and the cups were in motion, dancing under the boy’s nimble fingers.

Garrett knelt down, leather straining over his knees. “This one?” he asked with a slightly questioning lilt, tapping the middle cup.

The lad snatched it out of the way, revealing the bottle cap. “Aw, strike me blind, guv. They says you gotta watch you Nighthawks. Here, again. A flatch, sir?”

“You’ve got deep pockets,” Garrett drawled, reaching inside his coat for his change purse. He flipped a brightly polished ha’penny onto the top of the crate. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Tolliver.”

“Off you go then, Tolliver. Let’s see how good you are.”

The cups started their madcap dance. Perry stepped closer, leaning over Garrett’s shoulder to watch. For a moment he almost forgot what he was doing, feeling her breath on the back of his neck.

“Which one, sir?”

“Hmm.” He reached out, hand hovering over one of the cups. Then the other. The lad’s eyes brightened but his expression stayed the same. He might have been all of eight.

“This one,” Garrett said, picking the cup on the right.

The bottle cap gleamed underneath it. The lad begrudged him the chink, and Garrett tapped the crate to say, “
Again
.”

“You do know thimble-rigging’s illegal?” Perry murmured under her breath. “Why are you encouraging him?”

Because he knew what it was like to have no other way to earn coin. The prince consort’s brutal crush on the streets dated back to Garrett’s time as a lad, when the prince had been nothing more than an advisor to the king, before he’d overthrown him and married the young princess. Humans became little more than cattle then, the blood taxes doubling, and even honest men forced to supplement their trade with dishonest work.

Or children.

Garrett tapped the crate. The cups moved faster this time, the boy determined. Any man watching would barely be able to tell which cup was which. Garrett won another coin. And another, disappearing them into his coin purse. The boy’s brows drew together, the world vanishing around them as he moved ever quicker. “And now?” Tolliver challenged.

“I think…I think it’s right…here,” Garrett said, flicking the bottle cap out of the crease between his thumb and palm and tossing it on the crate.

The boy gaped as the bottle cap danced a jig. Then he snatched up the cup he thought it was under. Empty. The other two yielded the same results. “Blimey, ’ow’d you…” The thimble-rigger’s voice trailed off, his eyes narrowing. “You bloomin’ cheat! You think I’m gulpy? You owe me five ha’pennies.”

Garrett fetched them out with a smile, holding out his hand. The boy cupped his palms underneath and the ha’pennies poured forth, along with a couple of shillings, and even a pound note or two. They vanished just as swiftly.

“Good show,” Garrett said. The boy gaped up at him, a hole in his ragged coat.

“’Ere, ’ow’d you do that?”

“You got used to me tapping the crate,” Garrett replied, feeling generous. “You didn’t even see me swipe it.”

“Aye, but you ain’t s’posed to—”

“Nick it?” Garret asked, with a faintly amused grin. “That’s because you didn’t expect it.”

A smile split that smudged face. “Thought you was a Night’awk, not a broadsman.”

“Weren’t always,” Garrett countered, tipping his head toward the north. “Grew up in Bethnal Green. Dipped my share of pockets. This your stretch?”

“Aye. Lease it good an’ proper off Billy the Pyke.”

A self-appointed landlord, no doubt. “Lot goin’ on with them drainin’ factories. Were you round abouts when they went up?”

The boy launched into an excited diatribe about the night the humanists burned down the draining factories, complete with expansive hand gestures. “…Like the fires o’ ’ell, all blazin’! Why, you could see nigh on nothin’ for miles, there were so much soot and coal in the air.”

“Bet you see a great deal, hmm?”

“Everythin’ on this stretch. Keep me nose out for Old Tom Piper.”

“And them murders. More excitement by the look of it.”

“Bloody nobs,” the lad agreed. “They says them girls were of the Great ’Ouses, if’n you can believe.”

“Aye, I can. You see anythin’ this mornin’?”

The lad shook his head. “Only the usual. Old Man Mallory up and about, Mr. Sykes, and the milkman passin’—”

“Mr. Sykes?” Garrett frowned. “The overseer?”

“Stopped in at half two. ’Ad a lush dove with him, both of ’em swayin’ like they was three sheets. No doubt she charged double. He’s no flash gent.”

“He took a whore back to the factory with him?” Garrett’s voice sharpened. The logbook had indicated that Sykes had signed off at six the previous evening and not returned.

“’Appens regular-like. Got an ’earty appetite, ’e does.”

“Did you see them come out?” Perry asked.

Tolliver shook his head. “It were cold enough to freeze me old Nebuchadnezzar, so I were ’uddled right back under the stoop. Mighta missed it.”

“What did she look like?” Garrett asked.

“A whore. Rouged up and wearin’ a heavy cloak.” Tolliver shrugged. “It were
cold
.”

There was nothing else to be had. Garrett slipped the urchin his coin and told him where to find him if he remembered anything else.

“I bet Sykes didn’t enter that in the logbook,” Garrett murmured, leading Perry toward the factory. “Ten quid the ‘whore’ was Miss Keller.”

The feel of a set of eyes on him turned his head.

“What?” he asked, enjoying the look in Perry’s eyes.

“What was all that?”

“The people here don’t always trust Nighthawks. To them, we’re naught more than the Echelon’s fist. Now he knows I was one of his once. Besides, he needs the coin more than I do.” No doubt the poor little blighter slept on that stoop at night, something Garrett had firsthand knowledge of himself.

The draining factories loomed ahead, abandoned shells with workmen hustling over them like beetles on a carcass. Indeed, each bare spar looked like broken ribs, sheared off at the midpoint.

“I knew you grew up somewhere in the East End, but Bethnal?”

“Why not?” he challenged.

She tugged on his coat. “With all your cologne, fancy waistcoats, and polished boots, who would ever expect it?”

“People see what you present to them. I learned that early enough. I was sixteen when I found the Nighthawks,” he replied. “My grandmother was a weaver with a bit of book learning—enough to teach me some words. I used to mimic her finer speech as a lad, and when her and me mam died, I became one of the swell mob.

“When you’re born on the streets, you soon realize the only way out is up. And the only way to stay up is get rid of any trace of where you were born.” Like his speech. He often silently repeated the things blue blood lords or merchants said, trying them out for himself. It was rare that he slipped up these days, usually only when he was angry.

“That was almost frightening, the way you started dropping your
g
’s. You sounded fit to join one of the slum gangs.”

“Aye, well, when I was first infected, I actually considered it. The Devil of Whitechapel and his gang are the only ones who dare defy the Echelon. He’s got a certain swagger a street lad tends to admire.” And Garrett had been full of anger then—at the man who’d cut his mother’s throat and stolen her purse; at the Echelon; and most especially at the prince consort, whose crushing taxes had forced his mother into disreputable work.

“What happened?”

“I tried to pick Lynch’s pocket instead,” Garrett admitted with a wince at the half-remembered thrashing he’d received. “He made an impression. So I followed him home and sat outside the guild for a week. Lynch finally took me in. Anything to stop me from freezing to death on his stoop.” The smile on his face slipped slowly.

Perry saw it. “I’ve never asked,” she said hurriedly. “How were you infected?”

“Three months before I dipped Lynch’s pocket, I may have had a slight altercation with a set of young blue blood lads. Practically dripping lace, they were, which in my neck of town was worth a fortune. I ended up with three fat coin purses, a handkerchief or two, a pair of broken ribs, a slash across my face, a black eye, and a split lip.”

“And the craving virus, I presume.”

“A somewhat unwanted side effect. Obviously one of them was bleeding—and so was I.”

“You seem to have acquired somewhat of a nasty habit in your youth,” she said dryly.

“I’m completely reformed.” He slid a hand over the small of her back as he helped her around a semi-frozen puddle. Even through the smooth leather of her coat and corset he could feel the muscles working along her spine. What would it be like to run his hands all over her body? She wasn’t soft like most women—except in those places deemed desirable by a man—and the thought intrigued him. Strong, sleek limbs, meant to wrap around a man’s hips…

“You wouldn’t know what ‘reformed’ means.” Perry shot him a smoky look that burned right through him.

Garrett’s fingers danced over her waist, a smile lighting his lips. He liked her like this, warm and teasing. For a moment he managed to slip beneath the careful guard she held in place and to see within. And she was letting him touch her, which was a secret delight he’d never thought he’d own. How had he not been aware of this side of her?

Perhaps
because
she
didn’t want me to see…

“True,” he said, holding up her coin purse.

Perry’s hand shot to her hip. “How did you…?”

He tossed her the coin purse, and she snatched it out of the air. “I was a fingersmith, a good one too. Only man as ever caught me was Lynch.”

A trio of objects slipped from his sleeve, and he juggled them in front of her. Perry’s jaw dropped lower as she snatched a small gold lump out of midair. “That’s my ring!” She grabbed again. “And my pocket watch.” The moment she saw the last object he held in his hands, the color washed out of her cheeks. “Give that back!”

He caught a glimpse of a small round coin with a falcon’s head stamped on it, like one of the sigils the Echelon used. Fist closing around it, he held his arm high. “What’s wrong? Something personal?”

She grabbed his arm and spun him directly into the wall of an alleyway, yanking his elbow up behind his back. A knee dug into the back of his, rendering him incapable of moving. Not that he wanted to. Perry’s entire body pressed against his, her breath in his ear. “Give it back.”

She dug his fingers open but the object was gone. Snatching at his other hand, she opened it too and snarled in frustration. “Where did you put it?”

One last sleight of hand as she’d manhandled him. “You’re a Nighthawk,” he replied, swallowing tightly as he lowered his arm and pressed his fingertips against the rough brick. “Why don’t you find it?”

I
dare
you.

The silence practically blistered his ears. Then one of her thighs wedged between his and spread his legs. The shock of it stirred hot fingers of need through him, and Garrett turned his face to the side as she ran her slender fingers up his flanks. They darted into his pockets, coming away empty. Rough hands, jerking against his hips. Up his sides.

“You’re enjoying this,” she growled, her hands growing reckless with frustration.

“Of course I am. A man’d pay more than five quid to get a touch up like this elsewhere.”

He sensed the moment she realized what she was doing. One palm curled over his hip lightly, the pressure almost negligent. The sudden pounding of her heartbeat echoed in his ears. Tension vibrated through him and she felt it, he knew. How could she not? Every muscle in his body was locked steel, tight with desire.

Damn
you. Do it.

The pressure of her hand against his hip increased, a languid touch that almost became a stroke.

As if something had been decided.

Garrett almost lost his breath, his brain slowing to a crawl as everything inside him went molten. There was a tremor in his fingers, echoing through his whole body.

“You’ll owe me more than five quid then,” Perry replied in a voice that had turned to liquid smoke.

The rational part of him was arguing against this. But he’d finally found her again—finally found the
her
that was beneath that damned facade she kept erected against the world. And she was sex and sin and all manner of beguilement.

The shock of her hand sliding over his buttocks made Garrett’s hips jerk. He was hard in an instant, the ache in his balls so tight it almost hurt as he ground them against the harsh brickwork.

Each touch was torturous. A slow, leisurely glide down the inside of his thighs that made him tense.