Chapter 3

CHAPTER3

Five months ago

“Jacob!”

The voice behind him made him stop and turn. Moonlight shone on the water of the Thames lapping against the embankment. It was late and he was drunk. He peered at the man walking towards him. He looked eerily familiar, but it couldn’t be. He was safely locked up in prison, where Jacob had put him! He took a step, listing with the slope of the embankment. Fuck he was drunk! Jacob staggered trying to recover his footing.

The man came to a stop in front of him and the moonlight revealed his features, familiar as his own.

“Elijah!” His heart thudded uneasily in his chest. He forced a grin. “How did you get here?” He put out his arms to hug his twin and Elijah grinned back, a baring of teeth, more than a smile.

“I escaped, no thanks to you! Prick!” Elijah’s fist connected with his stomach and sent him flying backwards into the mud.

Pain and nausea swamped Jacob’s body, and he turned, struggling to his knees, and vomited into the mud.

Elijah’s laugh brought him to his feet with a roar of rage, and he swung wildly. Elijah dodged and laughed again. Jacob staggered after him, sobering by the moment, his vision narrowing to dark, red rage.

“You gave me up, you bastard!” yelled Elijah. “I’ll kill you for it, you drunken, sodding fuck!”

Jacob fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a knife, flicking it open he advanced on his brother. “I don’t think so Elijah!”

Elijah closed with him trying to wrest the knife from his hand. The two men swayed and scrabbled, scuffling in the mud, each trying to overbalance the other. Elijah twisted Jacob’s arm up his back and with a cry he let go the knife before the bone snapped. Elijah got his arm over Jacob’s throat and squeezed.

Jacob’s head pounded as he gasped for breath. He stomped on his brother’s in-step with his boots and wrenched himself out of his grip. Turning he punched him in the stomach and Elijah stumbled backwards with an ooff, tripped over some driftwood and fell backwards into the water.

Jacob waded in after him. Pulled him up by his shirt and hit him square in the face. Elijah’s eyes rolled back, and Jacob let him go. He flopped back into the water, and his head hit something with an audible crack. His body rolled sideways in the water his head going under.

Jacob stood, his head hanging while he tried to bring his own breathing under control. He grasped Elijah’s shirt pulling him up again and shook him. His head lolled drunkenly, bloody water streaming off his collar length hair. Jacob dropped his hand into the water and found the rock his brother’s head must have hit.

“Fuck!” Jacob howled. He dropped to his knees in the water and shook his brother again, but there was no response.

Panic skittered over his skin, and he looked around. He didn’t think anyone had seen what happened. Feverishly he tore his brothers tattered and filthy clothes from his body and stripped off his own. Dressing the other man in his clothing took some time, and he kept looking around to ensure no one was about. When he had dressed his brother in his trousers, shirt and waistcoat, he towed the body out further into the Thames, where the current caught it, and it floated away from him.

He watched a moment or two, then sniffing, he sloshed back to the shore and put on his brother’s wretched clothes, a stained and tattered shirt, and breeches, not much better. He had kept his signet ring, boots and his purse.

He turned and hurried from the embankment up the steps and into the darkness. He needed to find a boat to take him up the river, away from here. Between this accident and the debt to Lovell, London was too hot for him just now. Better to lie low for a bit.