Chapter 12

12

When a tall,thin man purposefully walked towards the house on Petticoat Street, Spencer detached himself from the corner of the building he was leaning against and leisurely walked across the row between the market stalls in his direction.

The man wore clothes that wouldn’t distinguish him from the inhabitants of Whitechapel: a coat that used to be perhaps green but had faded to brown, seamed and patched breeches that must have been made twenty or so years ago in the fashion that used to be popular. He had a long, dirty-blond braid, which reached the tops of his shoulder blades, but a bald patch on top.

The man paused at the door, casting cautious glances left and right down the nearly deserted street, dotted with only a few street urchins and people hurrying, likely to Mass that started a quarter hour earlier. Wind flapped the canvases over the market stalls and chased clumps of debris across the wet dirt ground. Angry, dark clouds rolled through the sky, the air heavy and smelling like rain. The market had only just begun to set up, but, surprising himself, Spencer had found some good quality pomegranates that he bought and left in the carriage with Carl.

He would offer them to his Persephone… The memory of her blazing eyes as she was bound to the chair in his bedchamber, the sight of her alluring figure etched into his mind. The thought made him take a deep breath to calm himself.

Later, he told himself as he watched the thin man fiddle with the key. He needed to wait only a little more before his prize would lie ripe and open for him to collect. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to anything quite as much. Not his boxing matches, not his dream of coming back to Penelope, and not even the thought of finally putting his feet on firm ground.

What was this woman doing to him?

He needed to be careful. He reminded himself, it had to be all about lust, satisfying the need in his body that had accumulated over the months at sea. He didn’t want to feel anything or open his mind and heart to anyone. So this pull she had on him had to be just physical, and once he satisfied it, he wouldn’t think about her anymore.

When the door under the man’s hands finally creaked open, Spencer was on him in a moment. With a final glance around to make sure no one was watching him, he pushed the man inside the house and shut the door behind him. The thin man whirled around, his eyes wild. He had a birdlike, crooked nose, and a small rabbitlike mouth. He gulped as he took Spencer in.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

“Doesn’t matter. Just tell me why you come here every Sunday, and you won’t be harmed.”

The man paled to the color of freshly washed sheets and darted down the dark, narrow, and empty hallway, fleeing deeper into the house. Cursing, Spencer sprinted after him, inhaling the musty, moldy air no doubt coming from the wet black patches growing on the walls of crumbling plaster and the ceiling, where bare, rotten wood showed through the chipped paint.

The man dashed into what must have been a sitting room at the end of the hallway and ran in a large circle around the only furniture—two chairs that stood in the middle of the room. Foreseeing his trajectory, Spencer darted to the side, at the expense of using his injured thigh, and groaned angrily as the pain didn’t allow him the proper lunge forward. His fingers grazed the man’s coat, but his fist was left empty.

With a high-pitched yelp, the man hurried down the hallway, his feet thumping against the creaking wooden boards. Spencer ran after him, reaching forward to grab the man before he would reach the door, but the man was faster. He flung the door open and fled into the stormy gray daylight.

The man turned to his left and sprinted as fast as he could, the soles of his shoes flashing. With the empty streets, the man had no obstacles, and clearly both of his legs worked very well. Spencer, however, pressed on, ignoring the agony he was putting his thigh through, the sweat of pain misting his back and his forehead. Damnation. Before the war, he had been in top condition and would already have caught the man. Now, he was left hobbling behind.

The man turned left again at the next crossing. Whitechapel streets were crooked and dark, and once the man entered the labyrinth of the rookeries and slums, he could easily lose Spencer.

The man was now ten or so feet away, a dark figure at the end of the street. He kept turning his head back, his bald patch flashing in the dim light as he ran.

He turned right at the next corner, and Spencer’s stomach flipped with disappointment. If he didn’t catch him today, not only wouldn’t he claim his prize later with his delicious rival, but he might also spook the man forever. No doubt the news of his pursuit would reach Ashton, who may take even more drastic action against Spencer, and then everything Spencer lived for would be lost.

He called upon any reserves he had, commanding his body to ignore the pain, to run with it, to use it as his strength, then sped up. When he followed the man to the right, he ran into yet another crooked, dirty street. The fugitive was now perhaps fifteen feet away. Spencer saw a few rocks that had crumbled from one of the houses. He was always good at cricket, the strongest bowler. He picked up two solid rocks larger than his fists, and kept running. Aiming, he threw one rock, but it fell two steps away from the man.

Cursing, Spencer took the second rock in his right hand and threw again, aiming only to wound him enough to slow him down. The stone made a large arc and hit the man somewhere in the back. With another yelp, he fell forward, his hands flailing. Triumph surged in Spencer as he limped towards the man, praying he hadn’t killed him.

The man lay flat on his stomach, groaning and shaking his head in confusion. He had a bleeding wound on his head where he must have hit the ground. Spencer looked over his back, but his coat was not torn, and the man moved his arms and legs, which told Spencer he couldn’t have broken his back. Perhaps a rib, but that would heal.

“Come on, friend,” Spencer said as he helped the man stand up, wrapping his arm around him. “Time to talk.”

The man was barely able to move his feet but tried weakly to detach himself from Spencer a couple of times. One time he emptied his stomach, which told Spencer he must have given the man a concussion. Spencer had no sympathy for someone who contributed to Ashton’s crimes.

By the time he got the man back into the house and sat him on one of the chairs, his thigh was in agony. Spencer sat on the chair across from the man and eyed him. The wound just below his hairline was now raised in a bump and turning blue and purple. It expanded, almost as he watched, making the space under and over his eye swell and deforming his face. Having been hit his share of times in the boxing ring, Spencer knew the swelling would go down in a number of days and the man would likely be fine.

“Well, friend, what’s your name?”

The man blinked a few times as if thinking. “Joseph.”

“Joseph, had you answered my question from the beginning, no harm would have come to you. I know you visit here on Sundays during Mass. Why?”

The man’s small eyes were dark like a rabbit’s, and his gaze darted around, likely looking for another escape route. “I ain’t tellin’ you a thing.”

Spencer chuckled. “Fair enough. What if I offered you this?” He reached into his pocket and dropped a pouch of coins on the floor between them. The man’s eyes widened.

However, he didn’t make a move and looked at Spencer again. “No sum of gold’s worth my life, it ain’t.”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. Clearly, the man was terrified of Ashton, and Spencer understood that fear. The man was more motivated by fear than by money. Spencer nodded and picked up his purse, the man’s sorry gaze following Spencer’s every move. Then Spencer took out the pistol he had tucked behind his back, cocked the hammer, and pointed it at the man.

“Perhaps, then, this can persuade you,” said Spencer.

Joseph gave that high-pitched squeal again, and his eyes widened even further. He blinked rapidly, shrinking back in the chair.

Spencer felt neither joy nor satisfaction at the fear etched into the poor sod’s face. He had never intended to cause him actual harm. The first time he’d killed someone in the war had cracked something in his soul, something he knew would never heal. Every time his bullet or sword had pierced an enemy’s body, he’d changed a little. The weight of taking others’ lives would never leave him.

But he could still threaten the information out of this man.

“Do you carry messages?” Spencer took a wild guess.

“I know nothin’!” Joseph said, his voice rising high. “Never peeked in ’em! Readin’s beyond me, ain’t it?”

Spencer cursed. He was right about the messages, but that didn’t help much when the man couldn’t give him any information about what was written in them.

“Where do you take them, then?” Spencer demanded.

“It’s down by Tilbury Port, it is. Pottinger Shipping Company, that’s the name. I just slips ’em under the door, nothin’ more.”

Spencer leaned back in his own chair and exhaled a long breath. Tilbury was a small, emerging port down the Thames towards the ocean, a four- to five-hour ride from London. “Good. Our endeavors advance apace. Someone is paying you, are they not?”

“Every letter gets me a quid.”

“A pound, hm… Not much for the price of your life, as you say.”

“Wh-why?” he asked.

“Because, Joseph, by carrying those messages, you are helping a very powerful man commit crimes.” Though Spencer still had no clue what that crime could be… But surely no honest man would use such a system for sending information.

Joseph gulped loudly. “I’m just labor for a butcher, no more than that…” he squealed.

“Who found you in the first place? Who offered you this work?”

“Just a chap, see… I was havin’ a bit of ale in Portside with me mates…’bout two months past. He hears me moanin’ ’bout how to feed me new little one now me boy’s given up thievin’ and’s off learnin’ at that school Mr. Thorne Blackmore’s sister started up. He tells me it’s easy, just a bit of walkin’ is all. Says the fellow before me up and left. Gives me this key and says all I gotta do is show up every Lord’s Day, grab what’s there, and leg it to Tilbury to drop the papers under the door. Half a day’s march to Tilbury, then back, sleepin’ rough in the woods, but saves me payin’ for a stagecoach, and gets me a few extra pounds a month. Butcher only pays ten a year.”

Spencer nodded. “Do you know the man’s name?”

“No.”

“Have you seen him since that night two months ago?”

“No, ain’t seen ’im since.”

Spencer sighed and lowered his gun. He now felt sorry for the poor fellow. Joseph knew nothing, and Spencer had just injured him, probably making it hard for him to work if he had a concussion. He had small children, one of whom went to Jane’s school rather than stealing and committing crime. And Spencer had likely just endangered the man by interviewing him. Ashton’s spies could be watching the house right now.

“All right,” said Spencer as he took out ten pounds and handed it to Joseph. “This is for your trouble. Do not tell anyone what you told me, understood?”

Joseph nodded, eyeing the banknotes hungrily.

“Go,” said Spencer.

Joseph snatched them out of Spencer’s hand and stumbled down the hallway. Spencer stood up and walked down the hallway, tucking his pistol into the back waistband of his pantaloons, ready to leave, as well.

Just when he opened the door to walk out, he saw that two steps away from the house, Joseph had tumbled into Joanna, almost knocking her down.

Still in her seductive male attire, she watched Joseph, open-mouthed, as he ran away. Then she turned and her gaze locked with his. Spencer’s stomach flipped with a strange mixture of triumph, joy at seeing her, and anger.

“How in the world did you get out?” he demanded.

She squared her shoulders, her eyes watering with an emotion he couldn’t read. “You left a razor in your dressing room,” she replied. “But what does it matter when I’m too late. Congratulations, Lord Seaton. You won.”

Spencer had been looking forward to this since the moment he came up with the wager. But seeing her like this—defeated, angry, afraid—it didn’t bring him a sense of victory at all. For the second time today, regret churned in his soul. He truly felt like a heartless scoundrel…and he didn’t like it.

Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, and a cold gust of wind ruffled locks of Joanna’s hair loose from under her top hat. She was stunning in the strange clothes. Her trousers hugged her nicely rounded hips, and the man’s coat somehow accented her bosom, making it appear even more lush and inviting than before. Her eyes were bright and focused, her full lips set in a determined line.

“You think you’re the only one with a stake in this? I have my own battles to fight, Lord Seaton, ones you know nothing about.”

He had just opened his mouth to reply when a twinge of alert at the base of his neck made him look up. In the space between empty stalls, across the street, stood the same man he’d seen watching them four days ago when Spencer had followed Joanna here—the man with a scar across his face.

The man retreated into the shadows the next moment, and although Spencer had considered running after him, Joanna interrupted his thoughts, returning his attention to her.

“Would you at least tell me what you found out?” she demanded. “Who was that man?”

Spencer considered her request. Her voice shook. She had said something about protecting her family… Regret stabbed at his heart again. Was he too cruel not to share this with her? Was he selfish enough to pursue his goal regardless of how it would affect Miss Digby?

His leg ached as he shifted his weight, a forever reminder of all the losses he had suffered because of Ashton.

No. He had all the reasons to be selfish and to keep to his revenge.

Whatever Miss Joanna Digby’s reasons, he didn’t know her. She was a stranger, no matter how seductive and alluring.

He couldn’t put her wishes before his own. He couldn’t open up and feel anything for her.

As Spencer walked out of the house and closed the door behind him, the wind threw the first drops of cold rain into his face. It was clear he would not be going to Tilbury today, not until the roads had dried out.

He looked into Joanna’s face and suppressed a stab of regret and empathy towards her.

“I will tell you nothing, Miss Digby,” he said coldly. “However, I won and you lost. You owe me your virginity, and I will have my prize collected tonight. I expect you at Sumhall this evening after dinner. Use the servants’ door. You got acquainted with it earlier this morning.” He started to walk, feeling like a red-hot iron was being hammered into his wounded leg with every step. Angry at himself for showing his weakness so bluntly, he turned to her. “And if you do not show up, I will come for you at your home. Believe me when I say you do not want that.”

With that, he left her, limping. The shock and disappointment on her face were like salt in his wound. He should be rejoicing. He had achieved the goal he had set for himself today. He’d proved to her that he could win because he was wealthier, more powerful, and it was easier for him as a man.

But the joy of victory and anticipation of enjoying her body were gone. He was too weak to give up the reward of claiming her, even though all he wished for was to take her in his arms and shush all her fears away.