“How are ya, doc?” Nash spit down onto the carpet.
“Listen, I, I didn't mean, I–” Francis sputtered out the words, at a complete loss as to how he should proceed. It seemed like the jig was finally up, and he had walked right into it.
“I don't want to hear it, doc.” Nash sounded different; he didn't sound angry or excited, instead he was melancholic. Francis had never seen him in such a state, physically or otherwise.
“Please don't kill me.” Francis whispered.
“I ain't gonna kill you doc.” Nash looked back and forth in the room and located the side table holding the liquor. He limped there and picked up a bottle of what Francis knew to be terribly expensive brandy. Nash tilted it to his lips and took a large swig, only to spit it out all over the floor. “Why the hell is it so sweet?”
“It's brandy.” Francis whimpered.
“Huh, I never had brandy.” Nash looked curiously at the bottle, then limped back towards the window. “Listen doc, you've got to get out of London.”
“Yes, of course, whatever you say.” Francis was clutching the wine bottle to his chest as a sort of shield between them.
“Shut it, doc!” Nash shouted. Francis winced at the volume, knowing his wife may well have heard the commotion. “You ain't hearin' me! It's not me that's gonna kill ya, it's Riphook, and he's not so nice about it. You got to pack up your fancy armchair,” he glanced around quickly, “and brandy and get on out of here. Hell, no time for that even. Grab your money and get out! He's coming for you, Fowler, and he's coming for me. You did a fine thing not killin' that girl. Now get out of London before you'll be wishin' you had.”
“Francis?” His wife appeared in the door, nervously holding a lamp. The scene before her was a strange one to be sure.
“Hello, ma'am.” Nash waved lazily at the lady. She screamed out when she saw his burnt face. “Don't mind the interruption.”
Nash climbed back up on the window ledge and turned back to the room. Francis lay panicking on the floor, and his wife stood in shock and fear at the injured man in the window.
“Looks like the cat's out of the bag now, doc.” Nash laughed. “So much for keeping any of that a secret.”
“Francis, what is he talking about?” she screamed. “Francis, do you know this man?”
“Get out now, Francis.” Nash said, staring him cold in his eyes before he leapt out of the window. “Riphook's coming for you.” and he was gone.
Chapter 20
Leah had made her preparations, as few as they were. The moon was bursting out from between the wispy clouds, and Leah watched the branches outside her grand windows for a final time.
They shifted ever so slightly in the batting breeze, in what was almost a dance if she looked long enough. Inevitably she realized the spectacle for the distraction it was, and she made ready for her departure.
Leah took up one of the heavy quilts that lay folded at the foot of the bed and draped it about her shoulders as an improvised traveling cloak.
It will have to do.
Holding her breath, Leah pushed open the door to her room silently. It swung open on the hinges she had carefully dabbed with whale oil from a nearby lantern. The hall beyond was empty and still, and in the deep silence of it all, Leah felt her anxiety rise.
She took measured steps, both for the sake of noise and for her rib cage. The grand paintings on the walls around her seemed to glare downwards as she slunk by, sinking into her old stance.
At one point she creaked on a board, and the suspense the sound wrought down upon her left her immobilized in the dark, waiting to hear if anything was responding. Nothing was, and so, she kept moving onwards.
Leah came to the stairs, and then the front entryway. The house was silent still, only subject to the whine of wavering winds on the late summer night.
Then there were footsteps. Where are they coming from? There were in the walls, Leah realized. There are still servants awake in the passageways.
Leah, pressed up against the wall, inched slower than ever before. The entryway loomed in front of her, as if it were taunting her efforts.
A door clicked open, and Leah ducked fast behind a hallway side table. In the darkness of the house she could see a servant, illuminated by the small candle in their hand, as they crept quietly from one servant's door to the other.
No doubt they knew full well they were not to be in the halls at this time of night, and Leah realized that the servant she watched was likely just as afraid of being caught as she was. Well, perhaps not just as scared.
After the door clicked shut behind them, Leah turned back to the manor's front door.
She could feel immense despair, and frustration as she pushed the door open. I am running away again. But she reaffirmed her resolve and went out into the night. I must survive, any way I can. So, she went through the door and out into the night.
It was a long walk from the manor to the London road, but Leah had judged the distance from her window many times. She had planned her pace so that when she reached the road, the sun would just be rising. Farmers, especially those taking something to market, awoke earlier than Dukes and Duchesses, Leah full well knew.
As long as I can make it to the road, my chances are high of hitching a ride into the city with a cart.
She had placed all of her bets on that simple “if,” but it was the best she could do, and she was going to see it through.
Leah moved along the edge of the manor road, trying to keep beneath the shade of the trees lining the drive. Don't you look back. Each step was harder than the last, and her ankle was already sore from the half mile or so she had traversed on the gravel. You'll regret it if you look back. You have to keep on going.
So, she did. Leah made the punishing journey off the Worthington estate, and at the end of it, her feet and side vibrated with hot pain. She was exhausted; she had not used any of her muscles in this manner for weeks now, and she was ashamed at her lack of strength.
Leah slumped down and leaned her back against the stone mile marker set at the junction of the London road and the Worthington estate. She dared not look at the number engraved on the post, for she knew it would only break her resolve.
It was far too many miles to be walked, especially in her state, that much she knew.
“Where are you, market goers?” Leah muttered, leaning her head back on the sign. She wanted with all her heart to close her eyes and sleep, but she knew she could not.
“Up then, you think you can make it in Australia, you sorry slump?” Leah called out to herself, laughing a bit in her minor delirium. “Got to keep going.”
Leah began trudging down the road to the north, hauling one step after another, keeping her eyes strained over her shoulder for any sign of someone headed towards London.
There! Her bet was going to pay off, and she smiled a ridiculous grin at the sight of a large wagon rattling up the road behind her.
Leah eagerly began waving the quilt in the air as best she could, and sure enough the wagon came to a snorting halt beside her.
Pulled by a two-horse team, Leah could see a grubby-looking man on the ribbons. Behind him in a cart was a small lump of straw and a large hog.
“Whatchu' doin' out 'ere miss?” the farmer called out through a mouth of missing teeth.
“Brother’s pullin' a joke sir,” Leah answered, trying to bluff her way aboard. “Took off for Smithfield without me this mornin'. You haulin' him to market, eh?”
“Him? Oh aye,” the farmer grunted and glanced back to his hog. “Smithfield you say?”
“Aye sir, you headed there too I can see it,” Leah said hopefully.
“Oh, alright,” the farmer snorted. “Get on up then.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you.” Leah clambered aboard, wedging herself into the corner of the driving bench.
“Come on then! Ha!” The farmer pushed his horses onward, and Leah watched the countryside begin to roll past her.
Leah thought then of Ken
neth, and how he would be waking soon. She imagined his pain when he would learn that she had gone, and it tore into her, for she also felt it just as tight, only she knew that he would feel utterly betrayed.
She cried into her hands, sobbing out randomly at the hurt digging into her for running, for loving and wanting, and for placing her own survival above it all.
“There, there.” The farmer looked over, seemingly startled by her bout of tears. “Bein' late to market ain't nothin' to cry over. Your brothers are just bein' boys. Boys will be boys, and boys will be rotten turds.” He winked at her, no doubt thinking himself very clever and consoling.
“You're right.” Leah sniffled and wiped her eyes. With all of her willpower, she forced Kenneth to the back of her mind, and fell fast asleep against the farmer's shoulder.
London woke her. It was loud and rank and rowdy, and Leah was taken aback by the smell. She had lived in London her entire life until a few weeks ago, and the time away from the city had left her able to catch a proper whiff of what she had been living in all that time.
They rolled through the shantytowns outside the South Gates, and Leah tucked her head into the cover of her quilt so as to not be seen. It was morning, and everything was coming alive around her, but she could look at none of it as she huddled beside the farmer.
Leah could hear the sounds of breakfasts being prepared, doled out, and scarfed down. The sounds of the morning meal mingled with the splitting of wood and the hollering of children. Goats and chickens were everywhere, Leah could hear them. It was an environment that until recently, Leah felt at home in. Now, under the threat of discovery, she found it hostile and overbearing.
Further they went and the sounds and smells around her changed. She cycled through them as they went until they came to a halt in a place that stunk immensely like a butcher's counter, but at an excessive degree. The Smithfield Meat Market.
“Well miss–” the farmer had only begun to speak before Leah tucked out of the cart, leaving the quilt behind in a fluid motion, and was gone behind the corner of a nearby building.
I have to find somewhere to hide until nightfall.
Leah tucked herself in a tight alley space and hunched down behind a set of salt barrels. The market was winding up into its full capacity, and she knew it would not at all be safe here. The sound of hundreds of butcher knives carving beef and pork floated over the air, and Leah felt a pang of sentiment.
She had grown up in White Chapel, here around the market. It was one of the best places to hide in the whole city, just as long as she wasn't out in the open.
Leah waited for a butcher's wagon to move past her hiding place, and she ducked out behind it. Following the wagon at a hunch so that nobody behind or before her could see her face, Leah moved past four rows of butcher stalls.
She saw that the wagon was moving to make a right turn, and she slid out from behind it, stretching out against a flapping sheet of canvas.
There was a building just across the path from her, a building that she knew she could find security in. To reach it, she had to cross the ten yards of open dirt walk and bustling foot traffic.
Leah was about to make her move when she saw four of Riphook's thugs milling about just two doors down. She would have to keep her chin down. You can do this, keep on moving.
She went. Time was slow to her, taking those steps on her sore ankle, not daring to glance down the block to see if the thugs had reacted.
Then she was inside, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. The building was decrepit, and people were everywhere. It was a conglomeration of poor and starving Londoners, each huddled in their own packs.
It was a scene Leah knew well, and she knew that everyone here kept their heads down. It was often the case that one didn't want to see who was coming in or out, for fear of provoking the wrong bloke.
Leah pushed through the crowds and went down a set of crumbling stairs, and then another. At the bottom of the steps she climbed down a precarious shaft about ten feet deep, landing in a small underground chamber with an old marble floor.
There she pushed past a rusted-out iron grate that hung ajar. The creak of it brought her a flood of memories, and she bit her lip. Now is not the time to get emotional, she scolded herself, and disappeared into the old Roman sewers.
She spent that day hidden in a place she knew well; it was a hiding place she had cultivated as a child. She and Topper – her friend of a fence that went missing during Riphook's expansion – had found an old cistern, cut off from the rest of the network by a collapsed tunnel. They had found a way through and made their own little fortress of solitude.
Leah sat in this damp, dark, familiar place, and hugged her knees. She dared not light a lamp or lantern for fear of discovery. So, she sat in the utter darkness, holding herself, desperately waiting for the cover of darkness so that she might stow aboard an outbound vessel.
By now Kenneth will know I have gone, she realized, and the thought began to crush down upon her worse than the dampening blackness of the chamber. How I must have broken his heart.
The same feelings she had suppressed on the farmer's wagon before, now came bursting forth in a torrential rush.
I have broken my own, as well, she despaired. Tears began to flow, and she could do nothing to stop them. She cried and wailed and pounded her fists against the limestone floor. What have I done to the both of us?
Leah wiped away her tears as her shaking breath began to subside. She had to remain calm and alert if she were to escape London. I am surviving. she confirmed for herself. That is what I am doing.
Hours passed, and Leah grew frustrated with her inability to measure the time that was transpiring. The darkness was beginning to take its toll, and she felt oppressed by its unwavering blanket.
“Blast it.” she muttered, and fiddled to strike up a match. The light blinded her temporarily, and she squinted while she struggled to light a candle she had stuffed in her garments from the manor. “I've got to get moving.”
Holding the small bead of light, Leah climbed back through the mostly-collapsed passage, but as she was about to round the corner, she heard a group of voices. Nervously, she doused the candle flame and hugged her back to the wall. She could see the clear glow of lanterns from around the junction.
“You sure?” said a first voice.
“Sure, I'm sure. Gobs said he saw that Benson girl the boss is lookin' for.” a second answered.
“But we been lookin' all day. She ain't down here.”
“You're probably right.” a third voice said. “Chances are she's topside.”
“Fine, you sorry sods, go on up, I'll take another pass down 'ere.”
“Suit yourself, I 'ate it down 'ere.”
“Bugger off then! I'll get me the reward all by myself.”
“Right then.” the other voices mocked him, and then Leah heard them pacing away.
“Right grubby curs.” the remaining voice chewed, and Leah could hear him striking a piece of timber. “Bloody rank down 'ere.” the voice went on. Leah could smell the wisp of tobacco smoke drifting around the corner. “I'll get me that brat, I know she's down 'ere.”
Leah edged backwards until her back was against the rubble of the cave in. She could see the man now, taking large, clumsy steps down the tunnel. He was moving towards her, but she did not think he had seen her.
The light of his lantern bobbed with each uneven footfall, and the smoldering end of his cigar illuminated his grim face. She recognized him. They called him Gopher, and he was a mean bastard, but he was dumb as rocks.
Leah gripped a small pebble, said a short prayer to whatever was listening, and tossed it out of the shadows out of Gopher's view. It soared past him and skipped down the hall behind, clattering all the way.
“What was that?” Gopher exclaimed, twisting around to see what had made the racket behind him. “Who's there?” he held the lantern high, adjusting his stance. “Is that you, Leah?” he was fully turned around now, raising his lante
rn to peer deeper into the darkness.
Leah sprinted at him. The pain in her ankle faded away with the rush of adrenaline as she plowed into Gopher from behind, digging in her knee and shocking him off balance. He went down hard in the sloping trough of the sewer, and Leah swore she could hear the crunch of his elbow.
“Blast! Damn!” he screamed, clutching at his arm. “Christ! I'll kill you!”
Leah didn't waste any time. She blew past him and shot down the long hallway before her, past the junction back to White Chapel. The area above would likely be filled with Riphook's goons, based on what she had overheard. She had to find another exit.
The Ambiguous Enigma of the Hunted Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 21