My Lord and Spymaster (13 page)

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Authors: Joanna Bourne

BOOK: My Lord and Spymaster
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Quentin said, “The play is all in the discards, Claudia. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that.”
Kick him in the shin, Claudia, and pretend it’s an accident.
But it wasn’t going to happen. The gentry didn’t act that way.
Sitting quiet, eyes half-closed, Jess could hear distant comings and goings in the kitchen. Eunice would be down there, calm and competent and matter-of-fact, dealing with problems, blunting the raw edge of fear. This latest woman, whoever she was, had fallen into good hands.
If things had gone a hair different, it might be her downstairs. It scared her, sometimes, thinking how close she’d come to ending up in a brothel. Lazarus saved her from that when he made her a thief.
She hadn’t planned to stay in bed all day. It would have felt too much like obeying the Captain’s orders. Besides, she had work to do. But somehow she’d fallen asleep, fully dressed, stretched out flat on top of the covers, as soon as he left. She had a dream of women coming in and out of the room, touching her forehead, covering her with a quilt, walking with quiet feet. When she woke up, it was almost sunset.
Outside, night was taking over the neat trees and scythed grass of the park. Shadows bled into shadows till they made one big darkness. She didn’t want to be out in that.
I’ll see Papa tomorrow. I’ll tell him what I’ve been doing. Papa’s going to yell at me till my ears fall off.
The bright, strong fire in the grate kept her knee and her shoulder and the side of her face almost too hot. She laid her cheek against the nubbly brocade of the wingback and watched Quentin and Claudia play piquet. It was an interesting game. Quentin cheated.
Claudia didn’t glance up from her cards. “Ladies do not remove their shoes in the parlor, Miss Whitby.”
“I know. It’s your aunt’s idea. Maybe you can say no to her, but I haven’t managed it yet.”
“Eunice is a law unto herself. She is also the daughter of a duke.” Claudia chose a discard. “You, Miss Whitby, are in no position to copy her eccentricity.”
“Lord, no. Prosaic as a hen’s egg, that’s me.”
“Ladies also do not use barnyard metaphors. I suspect you are capable of considerably more decorum than you practice.” Claudia selected a card carefully, played, and lost again. No surprise, with Quentin dealing.
The wingchair Eunice had put her in was sturdy as a tree. This would be the special property of the Captain. She could see Kennett coming home from business at the docks, tossing his hat on that table next to the front door. He’d shed his coat and leave it draped over the banister. Then he’d walk in here in shirtsleeves and drop into this chair with a sigh and stretch his boots out to the fender at the fire. She could almost feel the imprint where his body had relaxed, day after day. Curling into this chair felt like being held safe in a big hand.
Ke {nt lt nnett’s rich house folded around her, giving her shelter the same way it protected that poor woman down in the basement.
In Egypt and the dry countries of the East, they took hospitality seriously. A guest didn’t root through his host’s saddle-bags, planning betrayal and death. A man’s own family would boot him out for being contemptible. She didn’t like to think what Mahmoud and Ali and Sa’ad would say if they could see what she was planning. They’d turn away in disgust, most likely.
There was no virtue in her. If there had been, she’d have traded it for the sailing date of a ship or a stray rumor from France or one scrap of proof against any of the men she was watching. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to save Papa.
Quentin felt her eyes on him and looked up. “You must be bored, watching the play. You should join us.”
“Not today. Maybe when I’m feeling better.”
Maybe when the moon turns green and jumps up and down in the sky like a frog.
“Soon, then. We’ll try a bit of whist. Claudia might have more luck with whist.” He did a top shuffle of the cards, leaving the bottom quarter unchanged. Planting the book, they called that where she came from. He wasn’t clumsy exactly, but she’d learned from experts.
She’d given up cardsharping forever when she was fifteen. It was a promise to Papa—her present to him on her birthday—that she’d never cheat at cards again. Papa was just determined to reform her.
There was no flavor to card games when you couldn’t cheat. “I don’t play much.”
Quentin finished his deal, smiling secret and superior. “I’ll teach you. It’s not too difficult for a woman to learn. I promise I won’t be too hard on you.” He’d lined five little towers of copper up in a neat row in front of him. He was raking in his sister’s pin money, ha’penny by ha’penny, cheating for farthings. What was she supposed to make of that? There were men living in round, black, goat-hair tents in the desert she understood better.
He dealt for himself and Claudia, taking some from the top of the deck, some from the bottom.
Claudia picked up the hand and studied it, selecting her discards, looking glum, as well she might. “I’m sure she knows how to play, Quent. She probably does it with a vulgar avidity.”
Why can’t I ever think of insults like that?
She snuggled into the shawl. “It’s vulgar then, winning at cards.”
“To a lady,” Claudia sniffed, “winning or losing is a matter of indifference.”
“Ah. My governess never said a word, and she was supposed to be cousin to some marquis or other. I’ve long suspected that woman diddled us finely.”
“My trick.” Quentin helped himself to the cards on the table, neatened the corners, and stacked them in from of him.
For an instant she saw—what?—in Claudia Ashton’s eyes. Sardonic humor? Anger?
Claudia {ze=on’ wasn’t a fool. She had to know her brother cheated. Did the Captain know? It must make for absorbing evenings, them at the card table, congratulating each other on being well-bred, and Quentin cheating nineteen to the dozen.
I’m not going to be bored here.
“Greed, of course, is the bane of the mercantile classes . . .” Claudia kept talking.
But Jess didn’t hear. She was listening to the silence. Downstairs, it had got quiet.
Silence, where it doesn’t belong, terrifies. Sets the hair on end. There’s the silence when the ship is still, all at once, in the eye of the storm. Silence in the woods after the distant
yip yip yip
of wolves. Silence in a tavern when somebody pulls a knife.
In the kitchen, at the back of the house, the murmur of voices and muted clatter suddenly stopped. She was already on her feet before she heard the crash and the sudden sharp scream that came up through the floor.
She took off, running.
JESS skidded down the kitchen stairs, full tilt, in her stocking feet. The treads were worn smooth from servants trotting up and down.
Hold on. Grab the railing. Hurry.
The big cavern of the kitchen was lit like a stage. Whitewashed walls blazed under the bright lamps. In a single glance, Jess took in the gray flagstone floor, copper pots boiling on the stove, blue-and-white crockery, long, brown wood tables with a white landscape of flour.
At the back door, Eunice faced a beefy, red-faced beast of a man, bellowing and drunk.
The cook and two kitchenmaids huddled in front of the fireplace. A girl in cheap red satin cowered on the floor, bawling her head off. There were no footmen down here. Nobody to help Eunice. The place was full of terrified, shrieking women.
“Gimme what’s mine!” He was unsteady on his feet. Savagely, brutally half-witted with drink. Only a born fool would walk into this house and threaten this woman. “I been good to her. Girl belongs ter me.”
Eunice was alone, confronting twenty stone of drunken brutality. Her body said,
You don’t get past me.
Said,
You can’t have her.
Just by standing there, she said it.
I didn’t realize how small she is. How old. She has bones like a bird.
“. . . sticking yer nose inter me business . . .” He raised a clenched fist.
He’s going to hit her. He’s drunk enough to hit her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid to touch Eunice—somebody Lazarus protected. Stupid to invade the West End to retrieve a girl. Drunk and stupid as dirt.
Jess rounded the bottom of the stairs. She yelled, “Look at me! Hey! You! Dogface. Look at me, you bloody pig!”
He didn’t hear. He wouldn’t hear if she shou {ar nt>ted it up his nose. Mindless drunk. He’d batter right through Eunice to get what he wanted.
“. . . wring your neck. Yer got no rights to what’s mine . . .” Staggering, he drew back, prepared to swing.
The cook and the maids screeched like parrots.
Why isn’t Quentin here?
Pots bubbled on the stove, giving off steam and the smell of onions and chicken. She grabbed a big one by the handle, using both hands to pick it up. Heavy as hell. Sloshed all over the floor. Soup. Something full of vegetables, anyway.
The handle was hot.
I’m gonna spill it on my bloody feet.
Soup splashed over the edge. Too hot to hold.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts
—Past Eunice.
Don’t slop it on Eunice, for God’s sake.
She swung the pot and sent an eruption of lumpy, hot soup into the drunk’s face.
He howled like a banshee and clawed at his eyes.
I need
—
What? What?
To the side, by the door, shawls and coats hung. She grabbed a big black cloak off the hook and threw it over his head. He doubled over, yowling, and plunged across the kitchen, charging from side to side like an enraged bull. He crashed into the table. Dishes skittered and toppled to the flagstones, shattering.
“Run, for God’s sake.”
The kitchenmaids did. The girl who was the cause of all this sat with her arse glued to the floor, mewling like a cat, while Eunice struggled to pull her to her feet.
God save me from fools.
“Get her the bloody hell upstairs. ”
The pimp fought free from the cloak. He came out roaring like a fiend, brick red, dripping vegetables. The swollen, half-blind eyes were holes of madness. He shook his head and saw her . . .
Never hurt a man,
Lazarus used to say.
Kill him or run. Never just hurt him.
He charged. She had no chance to run or dodge. Eunice was still behind her. She needed something to fight with. Anything. Her hand found a big pitcher on the table. She heaved it at him and hit him square on the nose.
He didn’t even wince. He just kept coming.

 

Twelve
ROUGH HANDS GRABBED FROM BEHIND AND pushed her out of the way. Cold panic drenched her. She started to hit out.
The next instant, she knew. She knew the size and shape and the brusque sureness before she had a good look at him. It was the Captain. She’d never been gladder to see anybody.
He put himself between her and all that mad rage. He stood between her and the vitriol dribbling through those thick, blistered lips.
“. . . sodding bitch . . .”
“Out.” The Captain cut through curses like a knife. He knocked aside the fist aimed at her, grabbed the upraised arm, and twisted it backwards. “Out of my house.”
The table shuddered as men knocked against it. Plates and bowls crashed. A howl trumpeted from the drunk as Sebastian’s knee connected with his groin. He bent over, gasping and bleating.
The Captain gripped the man by his leather coat and spun him around and sent him stumbling out the kitchen door. He fell, sprawled on the sharp corners of the entryway steps.
A last housemaid, ducking and bobbing in the shelter of the pantry, shrieked like a whistle. The drunk groaned and hugged the bricks. When the Captain followed him outside, he frantically crawled his way up the stairs on his belly, yowling. Before he got to the top, Kennett picked him up by the scruff of his neck and tossed him bodily onward, down the path, to land flat on his face on gravel.
“I didn’t do nuffin’. I didn’t do—”
The Captain hauled him up. “If I ever see you . . .” The Captain slammed his fist into the man’s ribs. “. . . near my house. If I see you . . .” He took the jerking, spasming body by the throat and shook him like a dog shakes a rat. “. . . near my family. If I see you near any woman in my household. If I pass you on the street . . .” He held the figure upright and punched a final, short jab. “I will kill you.”
This wasn’t a fight. This was Kennett punishing a man. He threw the bloke away like offal and turned his back on him. He didn’t even bother to watch as, shambling and weaving and crying, the man staggered forward and fell against the back gate and fumbled it open and fled.
She’d followed the fight out of the kitchen, up the areaway stairs, just to see if the Captain ended up twisting anybody’s head off. Always better to know what was happening than to try to figure it out later. In the garden, she laced her fingers into the iron railing and held on, taking it all in.
Behind her, in the kitchen, sobs receded in stages. Eunice was finally getting that damn, damp parcel of misery upstairs.

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