The Love List (37 page)

“I was to meet the Tsar.  Before . . .” Brynne let the words trail off.  “Nice enough, I suppose, but it’s the thought of all that food on just the other side of that wall that grieves me the most just now.”

“Food?”  Just as she’d thought, she’d caught his interest.

“Yes.  I’ve had nothing since this morning.  One of Hestia’s girls makes the most heavenly meat pies, but even flaky crust and rich gravy can’t fill you for the entire day.”

His stomach loudly growled its agreement.

“I’m not all that accustomed to going without meals.”  She said it with a certain, delicate petulance.

“Nor me either!”  Rent rose nicely to the bait.  “Hatch pays well and I eat regular nowadays.”

“I went backstage in a theater once,” she said dreamily.  “My father wished to congratulate the principal pair of actors.  We saw the Green Room, where they occasionally have biscuits and wine for the visitors.”

Rent looked over his shoulder at the quiet corridors.  “What sort o’ biscuits?”

“All sorts.  But the performer’s dressing rooms are where the real spreads are set out.  And the higher their status, the more pampered they are.  The lead actress had in her room enormous baskets, piled high with fruit, fresh bread and croissants, lovely cheeses and a whole platter of tiny little frosted cakes.”  She sighed.

“All of that?”  He sighed too.

“Perhaps I should have run away to the theater,” she said doubtfully. 

“P’rhaps we should go have a look now, while everyone is busy,” he suggested.  “We’ll just grab a loaf or two.  Or a tiny cake.”

She frowned.  “But Hatch—”

“Will never know.  It’ll take forever for her to get to the marquess, if he’s even got here yet.  I’m getting’ me some o’ that spread right now—and I ain’t plannin’ to leave you here so you can run off.”

Still balancing her bound hands in front of her, she got to her feet.  “I wouldn’t mind a a nice, fresh loaf,” she said hopefully.  “Or some cheese.”

“Go ahead o’ me,” he ordered.

They moved through the antechamber and into the deserted corridor.  A rush of footsteps sounded above their heads.  Brynne worked the bonds at her wrists until she thought she could get free with one good wrench.  She jumped when a small boy darted from an intersecting passage and ran toward a set of stairs at the end of the corridor, dragging several false firearms with him.

“The primary performers will have their dressing rooms on the next level up.  There should be a few down here, though,” she whispered.  “We should look for the largest one, it will likely have the best selection.”

They turned a corner and passed an empty carpenter’s hall.  A wardrobe room lay beyond.  Inside a woman sat, frantically sewing.  She didn’t look up as they passed.

Another corner and Brynne sighed in relief.  “Here they are.  Look, that must be the one we want.”  The door furthest away had a larger, gilt-lettered sign instead of just a painted label on the door. 
Mrs. Sherman
, it said.

Rent turned the knob and peered inside.  Brynne peeked in, too.  The place was a mess, covered in old newspapers and discarded clothes.  Several half-ironed gowns lay abandoned on an ironing table.

“There’s the wine!” she said brightly, pointing toward a bottle on the vanity. 

“Aye.”  Rent surged forward.  “But where’s the—”

He went sprawling as Brynne stuck out her foot and tripped him.  He landed heavily just beyond the door.

“Francis!” Brynne hissed.  She jerked her hands apart and twisted until the leather bonds gave way.  She tossed the tangled straps to the floor.

The big man groaned and braced his arms to pick himself up.

The girl dashed out from behind the changing screen.  She carried the heavy iron from the table in her hand.  Before Brynne could get out a word, she’d darted over and thunked it over the back of Rent’s head.  With a moan, he collapsed flat.

Brynne caught Francis’s hand as she raised the iron again.  Gently she held the girl’s arm and shook her head.  It took several long seconds for her tight grip to relax enough to remove the heavy object.  A tremble went through the girl’s small frame.  Without a word, Brynne gathered her in close and held her.

Francis allowed the embrace—for about half a minute.  It was like holding a wild thing, all frantically beating heart and shaking limbs.  Then the girl twitched and pushed away.  “Come on, then,” she said gruffly.  “Let’s go before he wakes up.”

Together they shifted his feet so that the door would close and lock.  Brynne retraced her steps.  Francis followed until they reached the intersection with the first corridor.  To the left lay the antechamber and the door into the courtyard.  To the right lay the stairwell that led to the upper level.  Francis turned to the left and tugged Brynne’s hand.

“Wait a moment.”  Brynne knelt, grateful when the girl allowed herself to be gathered in close.  “You must go,” she said quietly.  “I don’t want you hurt.”  She looked toward the stairs.  “But I have to do what I can to stop Marstoke.”

“Don’t be daft.  You can’t stop him.”  Impatient, she pulled Brynne’s sleeve.  “C’mon.  I know a safe place.”

“You must go there, dear, as fast as you can, but I cannot.  I have to try.  Hatch was right; there are people up there who know me.  Someone might help.”

The child looked at her with old, sad eyes and laid a calloused little hand on her bare arm.  “They won’t help,” she said bluntly.  “Ye ain’t one o’ them any more.”  Her tiny hand gripped tight.  “I’m sorry, but yer no better’n a whore in their eyes.  They won’t listen to ye.”

Behind them, a stair sent forth a creak of protest.  They froze.

“But you should listen to the girl.”  It was a man’s voice, accented and faintly amused.  “For she is exactly right.”

Twenty-Three

For several months it continued.  I will not speak of the horrors I suffered.  I escaped twice, but if there was a house or hamlet within miles, I failed to find it.  Both times I was found and dragged back.

—from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

Brynne looked Francis in the eye.  “Go,” she whispered.  “Run.  Find Aldmere if you can and bring him here.”

She rose to her feet and spun about to face the stairs, keeping the girl tucked behind her skirts.  Hatch descended, glaring knife-sharp fury with each step.  At her side came a tall gentleman Brynne did not recognize.

“Where the hell is Rent?” Hatch demanded.

Brynne didn’t hear a step or feel even a wisp of air, but suddenly Hatch’s anger was directed past her.  ‘You little shite!  Get back here!”  The other woman brushed past Brynne as if she meant to give chase.

“Hold!” the gentleman commanded.  “It is but a child.  Let it go.  We have no time to waste on unimportant matters.”  He left the stairwell and crossed to Brynne.  He stood too close, his gaze following the trail of embroidery on her bodice and pausing to linger on the expanse of flesh the gown left bare.

Her face aflame with anger, Hatch rounded on him.  “Don’t think to tell me what is important and what is not,” she hissed.  “What do you know of the matter—or anything of how we have accomplished so much here?  I know how to handle my own people and that light-fingered little whore-in-training has interfered with me twice—”

Brynne gasped as Hatch’s words were cut short by a vicious blow.  The pimp flew backward several feet and landed in a heap against a wall.

“You will hold your tongue and keep to your place, woman!”  The foreign gentleman’s words had lost their smooth quality.  His lip raised in disgust.  “In my country you would be shot before you would be allowed to parade about in such a costume.”  He crossed over to her, nudged her pant leg with a foot, then reached down and grabbed her by the jaw. 

“Men’s trousers!” he spat.  “I do not know what Marstoke is about, involving you in these affairs, but you will follow orders when they are given.”  Hatch’s eyes were dazed, blood ran from her mouth and nose.  He tossed her head roughly back to the floor.   “And you will do it quickly and without venting your spleen upon your betters again!”

He turned and walked back to Brynne, danger and tension melted away from him, the transformation quick and startling.  He raised a suggestive brow.  “Now, this one?  I know exactly what Marstoke wants from her.”  A sickeningly familiar light began to grow to life in his eyes.

Brynne had learned her lesson in hard school.  Without a word or a moment’s hesitation she turned on her heel and ran.

The echo of his laughter followed her.  She put on a burst of speed.  She’d nearly reached the antechamber when he slammed into her, forcing her against the wall.  Grabbing both her wrists, he spun her around, raising her hands above her head.

She tried to raise her knee and strike him a blow in the genitals—another trick learned from the girls at Hestia Wright’s house—but he avoided her easily.  She struggled to free her hands, but he held her tight.  The bastard’s eyes were alight again.  He enjoyed her struggles, relished her helplessness.  She strained to turn her head away, refusing to gratify him.

“I see, now, why two such men would squabble over you,” he mused.  He bent down to put his face close to hers.  It was what she had been waiting for.  As his head descended, she whipped her head back around, hard and fast, and struck him in the nose with her temple. 

“Ungh!”  He reared back.  She tried to yank free, but he held tight.  He transferred both her wrists to one hand and pressed up against her as he gingerly pinched his nose, then, gripping her jaw, he forced her chin up. 

Above their heads a great, cheering tumult began.  The foreign dignitaries must be taking their seats in their box.  The man holding her—surely a member of that entourage—paid it no heed.  “Spirited indeed,” he said thickly, the weight of him crushing her into the wall.  “No wonder Marstoke had some difficulty with you.”  He grinned.  “He was melancholy when you left him.  He shall be happy to have you back tonight, though.  You shall not be so lighthearted, I fear, for his plans are—”

A soft click sounded. With her neck stretched so unnaturally, Brynne could only see the barrel of a pistol press behind the stranger’s ear.  Her eyes widened.  It was a small and delicate barrel, in fact.  The same as the pistol she’d carried her cloak pocket earlier.

“I believe his plans were to give her over to me.  Untouched.”

Aldmere!  Relief and a fierce joy thrummed through her veins, though none of them moved an inch.

The pistol stroked down, beneath the foreigner’s ear and up to his temple.  “Stop touching her,” Aldmere ordered.

The stranger’s hands slid away.

“Aldmere!” she gasped.

“I didn’t have to go far—I found him at the front entrance,” Francis piped up from behind him.

Brynne slid back against the wall, her knees too shaky to hold her.  The foreign gentleman stepped away, his hands in the air.  “Alas, I deemed it uncivilized to bring my dueling pistol into the theater.”

“Blücher!  Blücher!”  Above them the entire theater shouted their approval for the arriving Prussian general—and both men ignored the cries completely.

Aldmere, his eyes never leaving the other man, reached down and pulled Brynne to her feet.  He turned his handgun around and held it out toward her.  “If he touches you again, kill him.  Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Their eyes met.  A hundred unsaid things passed between them.  His hand was warm and comforting on her shoulder.  She reached out to take the pistol—and the foreign stranger struck her wrist hard, sending the gun skittering across the corridor and into the antechamber.  In shock and dismay she saw it slide under a tangle of stacked furniture.

“Now,” the stranger grinned at Aldmere with satisfaction.  “We shall end this here.  I knew earlier that you and I would have to settle things between us.”

“No!” Brynne protested.  She tugged at him.  “Aldmere, listen to them up there!  We’ve more important things to worry about!”

Clearly he did not intend to take his eyes off of the foreigner again.  He shook his head.  “Go.  Do what you can.  I’ll join you after I’ve dealt with him.”

Brynne hesitated.  Whoever this stranger might be, he was dangerous.  She couldn’t leave Aldmere if there was a chance . . .

“Go, Brynne!”  She jumped as Aldmere barked the order.  “Take the girl out of danger.”

She swallowed and beckoned Francis to her.

“No!”  Suddenly the stranger held a blade in his hand and he leaped forward, slashing it toward her.  She gasped and fell back, pulling Francis with her. 

“The woman does not leave.  Not until I take her to Marstoke myself.”

* * *

Aldmere swept Brynne and the girl behind him.  He pressed her hand for a moment, letting the warmth of his touch say all that he could not.   There was no time for anything more.

Marstoke’s foreign ally had sunk down into an experienced fighter’s crouch, his knife already in hand.  Aldmere reached down to pull the knife from his boot.  His opponent, casting aside a gentleman’s rules, lunged, aiming a long swipe right at his face.  Aldmere leaned back, just far enough.  He let the blow go by him, then struck a hard punch to the man’s kidney.  He followed up with a boot to the arse that sent the man stumbling—far enough so that he got a chance to draw his own blade.

Rodya—yes, that was the name Marstoke had given him earlier this evening—didn’t waste time or breath on words.  He charged back, poised for an efficient thrust to Aldmere’s gut.  No doubt, the stranger knew what he was doing.  But Aldmere had a longer reach, damn near equal speed and a better reason to win.  He spun away, keeping the motion smooth and controlled.  He shot out a quick try for his opponent’s flank, but the bastard knew the trick and twisted away.

Overhead the applause had died down at last.  The orchestra struck up.  The first act had begun—the grand tribute to the foreign dignitaries—one of whom he was trying to kill.  Footsteps sounded above again.  The theater people, all those not on stage for the Spectacle, had got their peek at the grand visitors and were beginning to drift back to work.  They had to finish this quickly.