Chapter 8

8

Joshua had not spent so much time in taverns and the dark alleys of London since he first arrived as an ambitious musician at the age of eighteen. Then again, he'd never allowed himself to be dragged from one low, disgusting place to another by a ten-year-old boy either. Not that he hadn't seen the inside of some of these places before tonight. He'd boxed for money at the Lamb and Flag, often called the Bucket of Blood, more than once as a student home from school and as a penniless composer too. Home being Lady Camilla's St. James Square townhouse. Once his father disowned him he'd never returned to the family estate in Hampshire again.

None of that mattered now. All that mattered was Sophia and her safety. Yes, she'd lied to him, but she'd confessed. Her husband's cruelty incensed him, and he deeply regretted the man was dead. Not that he'd told her that bit of news. One of his many sins of omission against her. The idea of lying to her, of his real reason for moving into her home and her life, gnawed at him like a hungry terrier. He'd see her safe first and then tell her the truth. She deserved that much.

He loved her. He knew that now. She cared for him and even if she could never love him, that would be enough for him. It would have to be. He'd awakened to an empty bed after their tryst in the music room, but things had been wonderful between them—stolen kisses, composing together, meals with long talks about music and his ambitions for his opera house. And torrid nights in his bed where he did his best to show her how beautiful she was in every way that he could. He sensed he was standing ever closer to a precipice and that the fall would destroy him. He didn't care.

"Are we going to stand out here in the rain, guv' or are we going inside before we drown?" The night had turned frigid and the rain fairly sluiced down from the starless sky.

"Drowning might be safer," Joshua replied as he and the lad, Dickie Jones, made their way to the back entrance of the Prospect of Whitby. Even in the dark, the sound and smell of the Thames told him they were well and truly heading into one of the more dangerous taverns in London.

"Yer right about that. 'Specially when the Runner and the earl find out I brung you here."

"Tell them I bribed you."

He snorted. "They know that without me telling 'em. I don't do nufink for nobody without my palm gets crossed."

"You helped Mrs. Hawksworth for nothing," Joshua reminded him as they squeezed their way through the crowd at the back of the tavern. The stench of stale beer and stale bodies came at him in waves.

Dickie turned and glared at him, his expression half anger and half surprise. "That were different. I wouldn't have come back here for anyone else."

Come back here? Dickie's ominous, almost fearful tone gave Joshua pause. Lads like Dickie Jones weren't afraid of much at all, but he was now. Afraid of this place.

"The Rutherfords told me, in case you're wondering." Joshua told the boy as he perused the tavern. "How do you think I tracked you down at CB's dispensary this afternoon?" He sidled into a chair behind a table and Dickie dropped into the chair next to him. The battered walls and scarred floors closed in around him. How the devil would he find Sophia's brother-in-law in this sea of the dregs of humanity?

"I'll be having words with those light-fingered rattlepates."

"I think they told me out of revenge for you taking all their blunt at cards." Joshua leaned against the wall and pulled his worn woolen cap down to hide his face.

"Bugger the whole crew. If the earl and his two errand boys see us we'll be in the soup right and proper."

"Two ales, please." Joshua gave the serving wench a guinea and his most seductive smile. "You wouldn't know if Martin Green has been by, would you?" Dickie broke into a coughing fit.

"Don't know no Martin Green." She offered a gap-toothed grin and adjusted her considerable bosom. "Can I do something else for you?"

"Perhaps later. For now, just the ales, please."

"What are you doing?" Dickie asked once she'd gone on her way. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Do you have another way to find this man?" Joshua continually studied the people coming in and out of the tavern. Dickie had told him Col was supposed to pay the blackmailer tonight. He was not nearly as interested in the blackmailer anymore as he was in the vicar's brother. "Colwyn and Forsythe will be happy to hear themselves called errand boys."

"I've called them worse," Dickie said. "Stop asking about Martin Green. I know what he looks like. I'll let you know if he shows up." Now it was Joshua's turn to start coughing.

"You didn't tell me you'd seen this man."

"You didn't ask," the cheeky miscreant replied. The buxom wench plonked their ales on the table and went toward the front of the tavern, hips swaying like an East India cutter. "Saw him this afternoon at the dispensary. Some of the regulars said he were in asking about Mrs. Hawksworth."

"He asked CB and no one thought to tell me?"

"Course not. Don't think this cove's the type to speak to someone of quality. He were asking the people who come for help. I watched him leave and followed him, but he went into a rooming house on Rose Street and didn't come out so I went back to see what he were asking."

"You didn't tell CB." Joshua slumped down in his chair as he saw a familiar trio of men enter the tavern and spread out amongst the crowd.

"He don't need to be in this. He's busy with his dispensary. And he and Mr. Charpentier bring leftover food from that fancy cunny warren of a club to St. Giles to feed those what need it." Dickie shifted in his seat. The men at the next table began to argue. One of them knocked into Dickie's chair. A tavern wench on her way by steadied the chair and patted Dickie on the head.

"Careful, lad," she said. Dickie scowled at her.

Joshua choked on his ale. "You don't want them to get hurt," he said once he'd recovered as he kept his eye on Framlingwood, Col, and Sythe dressed like dock workers. "That's why you didn't tell them."

"We're the ones about to be hurt, guv'." Dickie nodded to where Archer Colwyn was edging his way through the crowd of sailors at the bar. He did not appear happy to see them.

"Evening gents," Col said as he pulled a chair over to their table, ducking under a tavern wench's tray full of ales as he did. "I'll have one of those, Betty," he said as he lifted one of the tankards from the tray. She was a dark-haired, big-breasted beauty who gave Col a serious assessment. God help her if she ever met the man's wife. The infamous chess mistress was one formidable woman.

"Gone on with yerself." The wench bumped her hip into Col's shoulder and leaned down until Joshua thought her breasts might fall out of her bodice onto the table. "Do ye have summat for me, sirrah."

"I might," he replied. "Come back in a bit." She narrowed her eyes and gave him a knowing look. Once she'd returned to the bar, Col turned on Joshua, his smile fixed, but his eyes blazing. "What the devil are you doing here?" He turned on Dickie. "Is this your doing? Stop ogling the wench's diddies. What the hell possessed you to bring him here, tonight of all nights?"

"Guineas, Bow Streeter. Several of 'em. Nufink else would make me come back here. Not with the earl in the offing." He nodded to where Framlingwood stood leaning against the bar and staring daggers at them. Forsythe had stationed himself at a table next to the street entrance to the tavern. The one Dickie had been nearly frantic to enter before Joshua dragged him around to the river entrance.

"You knew we were paying the blackmailer tonight. You knew we hoped to catch him. This is a disaster." He sipped his ale and made a face.

"I know you're after the blackmailer," Joshua said out of the side of his mouth. "I ‘m after Sophia's brother-in-law. He's been all over Seven Dials looking for her. He's even been to CB's dispensary. That's too fucking close, Col. That smacks of desperation, and I want to know why before he finds her. We've been to the Lamb and Flag tonight, and someone overheard Martin Green say he was meeting a man here to talk about their deal."

"You didn't think to tell me all this, you duplicitous figger?" Col kicked at Dickie's chair.

"He's looking out for Mrs. Hawksworth. Yer looking out for the earl's blunt. I sent a note to yer office. Fair gave me the heaves to get that close to Bow Street again." He sat up and stared toward the front of the tavern.

"You're going to get a lot closer if you don't come to me first with this information. I'm trying to…What is it?" Col sat up as well. Joshua followed their intent gazes. A wiry man in the garb of a country gent down on his luck with greasy silver and black hair and a bulbous nose stood just inside the doorway, looking for someone. A man dressed entirely in black, with the collar of his greatcoat turned up to obscure his face came out of nowhere to grab the greasy-haired gentleman's arm and drag him through the crowded tavern almost straight for the table where Joshua, Col, and Dickie sat.

There was a commotion at the bar. The comely wench who had spoken to Col had bumped into Framlingwood and doused him with ale. She dragged a large handkerchief out of her bodice and began to wipe him down. For a split second she glanced at the man in black and the fellow who had caught Dickie's attention.

"Shite!" The lad leaned across to Col. "Tell me his nibs didn't bring the blunt with him."

"Didn't bring…" Col kept staring at the man in black as he swept past their table with the country bumpkin in tow. They were headed toward the back entrance of the Prospect of Whitby that opened onto stairs to the Thames.

"The bloody earl," Dickie said as he watched the bumpkin go past and then turned his attention to Framlingwood who had been joined by Forsythe. The tavern wench was nowhere in sight. "Did he bring the blackmail money with him?"

"Yes. He has the bank draft safe in his inside jacket pocket. Why?"

Col might not understand, but Joshua damned well did. He pushed to his feet.

"That bitch with the diddies is a rum diver, and she just made off with the blunt," Dickie all but shouted. "And the man in black just made off with the vicar's brother." He pointed toward the back of the tavern.

The argument at the next table erupted in a spray of chairs and tankards. Framlingwood and Sythe struggled to move around the combatants. Joshua turned toward the fleeing Martin Green only to be met by a wall of wide, thick-necked lumpers.

"Fuck!" Joshua growled as he dodged a meaty fist.

"Shite!" Col jumped onto the table and kicked one of the lumpers in the face before he dove onto the next one.

"Get Dickie out of here," Framlingwood shouted as he reached them. He picked the kicking swearing boy up and threw him at Sythe.

"Go!" Sythe shoved the boy toward the back door.

"No!" The lad's high pitch cry was hysterical. He continued to kick and struggle in Sythe's arms. "Not that way!"

"The front," Framlingwood said as his head snapped back as he took a punch from one of the lumpers. "Out the front, Sythe."

The barrister spun around and dropped the boy onto the bar. "Go! Dammit, who hit me?" He turned back to the fray swinging.

Joshua tasted blood as head snapped to the side. He lashed out with a sharp uppercut to the next man's nose. A spray of blood joined the ale and spit filling the air around them. He continued to jab and pinch as he tried to get past the wall of thugs. "Sythe. Ooh! Nice one!"

"They're trying to keep us from following the vicar's brother and his friend. Push forward." Col cracked a tankard over one man's head and slashed the next man across the chest with the broken shard attached to the handle. "Where's Framlingwood?"

"Buggered if I know." Joshua let loose a flurry of punches into a broad no-necked behemoth who smelled of rotten meat. He'd had enough. The man who might hurt Sophia was getting away. He beat no-neck into the floor and kicked him for good measure. He clasped a burly Chinese sailor's head in his hands and brought his knee up to break the man's nose and knock out his teeth. He heard Col, Sythe, and Framlingwood behind him swearing like dock workers. Men who grasped at the back of his jacket were dragged away and from the sound of it bludgeoned out of commission.

Joshua punched and jabbed to the point his knuckles were split and bloody. His lip was split and one eye was swelling shut. He took a punch to the head from his blind side and saw stars. When he turned to retaliate he watched the very proper Earl of Framlingwood pick the cull up and toss him onto a table that collapsed beneath the weight of the now insensible attacker. He glanced back and saw the entire tavern had exploded into a noisy, violent fray.

He clutched the back of the earl's jacket and steered him toward the rear of the tavern. "Martin Green fled this way. Come on. Sythe! Col! This way." The other two men wrestled free of the continuing melee and followed as they burst out the back door and down the rickety steps to the river. Col and Sythe took off to the right. Joshua and Framlingwood went to the left. But as the planned diversion was intended, they found no sign of anyone, neither up and down the river or around the sides of the tavern.

"Nothing," Joshua growled as they met on the street at the front of the Prospect of Whitby.

"We lost them." Framlingwood bent over and braced his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. "The damned scoundrel hired those men to keep us from pursuing them."

"That's not all we lost," Joshua said. He took the handkerchief Syth handed him and wiped the blood and sweat from his face before handing it back. "Check your pocket."

Framlingwood looked up at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't beg," Col said as he pulled the earl upright and began rifling through his jacket. "Where's the bank draft?" Framlingwood did a frantic check of all his pockets, turning them out and shaking them.

"What the devil?"

"The wench who ran into you. Betty. She lifted it whilst she was cleaning you up. Then she disappeared, likely to meet our blackmailer," Col said.

"Bugger me," Sythe muttered.

"Not even CB will bugger you, Sythe. We had to pay your wife to take you on. So what have we learned?" Sythe shrugged Col's punch to his arm and turned to walk up Wapping High Street. "Where'd we leave the carriage, Framlingwood?"

"You milksops came in a carriage?" Joshua asked as he fell into step with them.

"We weren't chasing shadows all over Seven Dials, Norcross. Wait." Col stopped and looked up and down the street. "Where's Dickie? If we've lost that boy CB will flay us alive and then turn us over to Lady Camilla." They fanned out across the street and looked into the alleys along the way. A little ways up from the Prospect of Whitby Joshua saw a diminutive shadow standing halfway down an alley, standing eerily still.

"Dickie?" he called. The others came to join him. They traversed the alley slowly, taking care to keep their footsteps quiet. Framlingwood fetched a torch burning in a rusted metal holder on the front of the building next to the alley. When he reached the boy's side Joshua put his hand on the lad's narrow back. Dickie was twisting his cap in his hands. Once the earl shone stepped beside the boy with the torch they all saw what had his stupefied attention.

Lying sprawled on the cobblestones were the dark-haired wench and the country dressed gent. They lay in reflective pools of black, blood under the light of the feeble moon. Their throats had been slit wide open. The woman's expression was one of repose. The man's face was fixed in an attitude of horror. He'd seen the knife coming.

"Is it him, Dickie?" Joshua asked gently. "Is it Martin Green?"

"Aye, guv'. That's the cove what was asking after Mrs. Hawksworth."

"How do you—"

Col put his hand on the earl's arm. "We'll explain later." He knelt and rummaged through the wench's clothing and then the man's. "The bank draft is gone."

"I think it is safe to say the man in black is your blackmailer, and he did these two when they were no longer useful to him," Joshua said. "What do we do now?"

"We leave this mess for the watch," Framlingwood said. "Won't be the first bodies they've found in this part of London." Dickie glanced up at the earl who reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Some communication passed between them, and Joshua decided these two had a secret worth knowing.

"You three leave and take the boy," Col said. "I can't. I must report this." He fixed Framlingwood with a steely gaze. "This is serious now. We know this man will kill to get what he wants. And he has the ability to use others and hire anyone he needs to succeed."

"I know." Framlingwood's voice was hollow and cold. "We have to stop him, Colwyn. We must."

"We will. Go now. Lady Camilla will kill us all when she discovers what we've been about with her favorite spy." He gave Dickie and awkward pat. "Go along, lad."

Dickie swiped his sleeve across his eyes. "Green has a room on Rose Street. In Mrs. Ray's rooming house. Might something there if you manage to get in before she hears he's dead and tries to sell his goods for rent." Col nodded and waved them away.

Joshua, Sythe, Dickie, and Framlingwood walked in silence to the street where the earl's carriage waited. The coachman looked them over whilst the footman hopped down to open the door and lower the steps. Joshua had to admit they were likely a sight—beaten, bloody, dishevled.

"Did you give as good as you got?" the cheeky footman asked.

"They did," Dickie said. He nodded at the earl. "His nibs here is a dab hand with his fives." The coachman chuckled. Joshua and Sythe settled in the rear facing seat whilst Dickie and earl took the front facing.

"Footman a Rutherford?" Joshua asked as he rested his shoulder against the plush squabs.

"Their cousin." The earl grinned. An icy ball of shame lodged in Joshua's stomach. He liked the Earl of Framlingwood. He was a decent man doing his best to take care of the women in his employ. And Joshua was ready to go to war with him to keep Sophia for himself.

"Drop me off at Grosvenor Street, then you two can take Dickie home."

"Coward," Sythe said. "You should be the one to deliver Dickie and explain what you and he have been about this evening to CB, Nathaniel, and Lady Camilla."

"Let Framlingwood do it," Joshua suggested. "This is his carriage."

"I'd rather face the mob back at the tavern," Framlingwood said as he closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his seat. "Better chance of survival."

"You've got the right of it there, guv'. And I'm blaming all of this on you three coves."

His tone was cheeky, but Joshua suspected the boy was not as sanguine as he appeared in spite of his hazardous upbringing. Perhaps Dickie knew like he did that this was not over. Not over at all. And the worst was likely yet to come.