by Edith Layton
Magnus flipped the sweep a coin when he was done and they stepped off the curb into the street. Even though the sweep had done his best, Cristabel had to raise her skirt and step with care because London’s streets were never really clean. She was daintily picking her way along, Magnus holding her arm, when she heard the horse approaching. The streets were always busy by day; at night there was less traffic. Tonight they had seen some coaches, sedan chairs, and pedestrians afoot, but few lone horsemen, and none in such a mad rush.
This rider bore down on them even as they heard him and picked up their heads to look. He was riding hell for leather. He was all in black, cloaked against the frosty night, and his horse was black as the night around them. Magnus drew Cristabel against himself and bellowed, “Ho!” at the horseman, to let him know that they were standing midstreet in case the mad fellow didn’t see them. He didn’t. Or didn’t want to, because he came straight for them.
Magnus picked Cristabel up and leaped to the side with her, and they fell together just as she felt the breeze of the racing horse like a slipstream current pulling at her as it tore by. She landed hard, on Magnus, and lay tumbled and bewildered in the gutter as the horse pounded on down the street. It never even slowed, although the horseman glanced back to see the couple he’d almost trampled. Then he spurred the horse on faster, and head down, disappeared around a corner. Magnus scrambled to his feet and stood over Cristabel with his sword drawn, looking after the horseman and cursing as Cristabel had never heard him do.
“Aye, you’d make a brave pirate, to be sure,” Cristabel muttered as she struggled to rise from the dirt. “I never heard a finer tongue-lashing.”
He was at her side in an instant, drawing her to her feet. “Are you hurt?” he asked worriedly. “That was quite a fall you took. I’m sorry, but I had no choice; it was a near thing as it was. He was either a madman or drunk with a cruel streak,” he said, his eyes narrowing against the dark as he gazed down the street again. “He was heading straight at us and didn’t even veer away at the last. Are you hurt?”
“My gown is,” she said, looking down at herself, seeing her fine gown torn and muddied, “meself, no.” She ran trembling hands down her body. “No, I be only shook. ’Tis you who must have taken the brunt of it. I landed on you and then rolled in the gutter… Are you hurt?” she asked suddenly, her eyes searching him fearfully. “Sometimes a fellow don’t feel a thing till the shock be gone. Why, I once’t heared of a man got his ear blowed clean off and din’t know till an hour later…”
But he didn’t look hurt so much as bedraggled. His tricorne lay in the mud, his hair was loose from its ribbon and flying all about his face, the white linen at his throat was muddied, his cloak was pied with dark stains she didn’t even want to think about, and his broad face was streaked with grime. And he was grinning, ear to ear.
“You look a sight,” he said. “I’m fine. I’ve suffered worse for sport. Don’t look at me like that—I still have both ears. But unless my eyes are deceiving me, Mistress Stew, you look like a mud lark.”
She glanced down at herself, and then up at him again. The fine gentleman she knew was gone. Now he looked more like the men she was used to: ruddy from exertion, disreputable, messy, and virile—and altogether wonderful. She couldn’t let him know it.
“Aye, just as me governesses always feared,” she said with a sigh. “They always did worry about me winding up rolling in the gutter with a gent.”
They stood in the center of the street, with a gathering crowd around them, and roared with laughter. Then he hailed a sedan chair and took her back home again. But not before questioning several witnesses to the incident.
“He saw us,” Magnus told her as he walked beside her chair, “but never turned from his course. In fact, some said it looked as though he aimed his horse straight at us. Don’t worry, once you’re home and you can wash and change your clothes, you’ll feel much better. I intend to do the same, although mine will be a very hot bath because I’m having a hard time staying upwind of myself. ’Od’s blood, but I never wanted to be so far away from myself as I do right now.” He waited for her to stop laughing before he went on. “I’m glad you’ve recovered enough to laugh at my misfortune, my lady, but I don’t think you should venture out again tonight. You may be merry as a grig now, but the bruises and shakes come after. But I hate to miss our evening out together. If you like, I’ll bribe Martin’s cook into bringing us a fine dinner we can share when I return.”
“I like,” she said with satisfaction. “Magnus,” she said a moment later, “I think he did mean to run us down. But why? Not for profit, surely, unless it’s some kind of rig they run here in London.”
“Bowling down pedestrians for their purses? No. Don’t worry. It was probably just as I said: a madman or a drunken fool.”
“Could it have been someone who meant you harm?” she asked.
“I doubt it,” he said lightly, too lightly.
“My father’s men…”
“Your father’s men,” he said, cutting her off, “are seafarers, not jockeys. They dealt with me directly last time they were displeased with me, not from the back of a horse. Whatever else you think of them, they acted openly. This was a craven deed, if it was on purpose. Besides, there’s no reason for them to be angry with me anymore. I was with you tonight, just as they said they wanted me to be. Don’t vex yourself. London’s a dangerous place, filled with drunkards and idiots. It was an accident. Besides, it was dark as pitch, too dark to be recognized except from up close, and we were the only ones crossing the street just then.”
She sat deep in thought as the sedan men bore her back to Martin’s house. Once there, she called for a hot bath as Magnus had suggested, and once immersed in the water, she sat back and let it soothe her bruised body. But it didn’t soothe her mind, because her thoughts were dark and troubled. No stranger to violence, she distrusted the word “accident.” God sent “accidents”: hurricanes and fires, tidal waves or a slip on a greasy patch on the floor. In her experience, the only way one man harmed another was on purpose. She was convinced that this accident had been deliberate. Although it had been dark and she had been cloaked and so had Magnus, he was still distinctive. Too distinctive. He was much too big for the horseman to have missed seeing—and much too big to be mistaken for someone else. Few men in London were his height and stature. Anyone looking to harm him would have seen that and known him.
She stepped from the tub, refreshed and resolved. If Magnus had enemies, then they were her enemies. And woe betide her enemies.
CHAPTER 13
At first it seemed an impossible task, but on second thought it was easy enough. London or the Islands, she only had to think of the devious way his mind worked and then about the greed and avarice of all men, and Cristabel knew exactly how to get in touch with Black Jack again. She had to speak to him at once; what she would do after that depended on what he had to say for himself. Though she’d dined with Magnus the night before, she hadn’t said a word about her intentions to him because she knew he would think he had to protect her, and she knew nothing she could say would change his mind. The way he felt towards her was flattering and very sweet, she supposed, but totally unrealistic. Someone had to protect him now, and she knew no one better for the job. After all, she was half pirate herself.
That wasn’t to say Black Jack had tried to run Magnus down in the street, but she was certainly too wise to say he hadn’t. Black Jack wanted her; he’d made that clear. And a pirate took what he wanted, and one of the ways he did that was to eliminate the opposition. She didn’t think Magnus would understand that because he lived by the code of a gentleman, and she knew that the code had everything to do with honor. She knew the code of a pirate, too, and it was a strict one. But she also knew that pirates only lived by the code of the Brotherhood when they were on a ship, and that it had nothing to do with honor, and everything to do with good sense if a man wanted to survive a voyage surrounded by men as villainous, v
icious, and underhanded as he himself was. Off ship, a pirate survived by any means possible.
“I need you to send me a lad from the kitchen, or a stableboy,” Cristabel told an awed upstairs maid she’d called into her room. “He must be a lad who knows his way around the, ah, less wholesome parts of London town. I need someone to take a message to a low and wicked tavern near the Thames and to make some inquiries if the person I seek isn’t there. So be sure he’s a knowing one. He must be able to take care of himself, too, for I don’t want to send anyone into danger, and danger there may be in simply walking such streets. Tell him there’s a rich lady who needs him to run an errand and who will pay handsomely for it. Aye, there’s good gold in it for him—and for you, if you tell no one else about my message. I didn’t ask the butler to do this for me, nor the master or his wife neither. I want it done fast and silent. Mark me well, there’s trouble ahead for anyone who don’t keep his or her mouth shut about this, if ye get my meaning,” she added in a low growl.
The little maid nodded. “But I know just the lad and I’ll send him to you double-quick. And never fear, mistress, in London half a servant’s wages are for what she don’t say as much as for what she does for her lady. It’s why any one of us would be a lady’s maid if she could only have the chance. I can be quiet as a mouse if it’s needful, and I’m a fine seamstress and neat as a pin, and I’m a treat with hair, I am,” the girl said, dipping a curtsy and looking up again eagerly.
The girl was quick and clever. Cristabel had no servant since she’d let the sour-faced tavern wench go. Now she smiled with pleasure. Not only would her errand be done, but she may have just found herself a lady’s maid at last.
The answer to her summons came almost as soon as the girl had scurried away to do her bidding. It wasn’t long before the youngest footman was standing shifting from foot to foot in her doorway as he delivered Black Jack’s answer to her.
“He says to tell you as to how he’ll be by here to see you before the sun rises on another day,” the footman whispered to Cristabel. “He says as to how you shouldn’t fret yourself,” he reported. He concentrated, and then beaming, delivered the last of his message. “And he says it’s about time you came to your senses; he’s been expecting your summons for days.”
That made Cristabel scowl so much, the footman was afraid he wouldn’t get his payment. But he left beaming at the size of the coin she gave him, although she continued to frown, thinking about Black Jack’s answer. “Came to her senses” indeed, she thought as she paced her room; well, as soon as she saw him she’d set him right about that.
And so she did not know the man who came to call on her an hour later. “A gentleman,” was all the butler said, but in this household, and with such a butler, she expected someone on the order of Magnus himself. She worried, hesitant to come down and see the fellow, because she didn’t really know anyone in London except for Magnus and Martin. But then a sudden joyous thought came to her: Hadn’t her mother married a real gentleman? Maybe Magnus had been right, maybe time had made her existence easier for her mother to accept. So she flew down the stairs to greet the man. And stopped and stared when she saw who was lounging in the front parlor.
The gentleman was young, a tall, lean, fashionable fop, like many she’d seen, though his shoulders were broader. He wore a beautiful brown silk long coat over a tapestry vest and dark brown silk breeches. The lace at his throat was as fine as the lace at his wrists, his white stockings were immaculate, and his brown shoes had golden buckles. He carried a polished walking stick, and his full white wig was carefully curled. She hesitated in the doorway—until he turned to look at her.
“Black Jack!” Cristabel hissed, looking around wildly to be sure no one was nearby. “Are you mad? ’Tis broad daylight, man!”
“So it is,” he said with a familiar leering smile. “What of it? Why, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, Cristabel my dear. But where’s the danger? Do you see any highwaymen hereabouts? Or cutpurses? Or me heavens! Any pirates? No, not a one, do you? Just a gentleman of fashion. Don’t fret, lass, I be safe as houses. For I’m a fine gent now,” he said, sweeping her a bow, his tanned face now set in an expression of perfectly cool amusement. “Master Jarvis Kelly at your service, just like you asked him to be, m’lady.
“See, I got to thinking, Crissie,” he said merrily, “that if Captain Whiskey’s own daughter could be a lady, and make such a fine one at that, and if she had a preference for gentlemen, why then, I could be one meself. For think on it: ’Tis only fine clothes—which I have got me—and manners—which me old mam did once teach me—and gold—which I got for meself in plenty—which makes the gentleman. And so behold: your own Jack, a gentleman to suit you to a nicety. So you don’t have to be shamed of me no more. And when you come with me you’ll know you’re coming along with a gentleman. Y’know, luv? I been having the time of me life as a gent here in London town, going to the finest places and parties. Everybody wants to be me friend—so long as the money in me pockets don’t stay there too long. And there ain’t a lady who minds being on me arm, so long as that arm be seen in the right company, which it always is. I don’t know why I didn’t try it sooner. Being a gent is a fine thing.”
“Being a gentleman is more than clothes and manners and money,” Cristabel fumed.
“Is it?” he asked, arching an eyebrow exactly the way she’d seen Magnus do.
“Aye—it’s—it’s honor and temperament and control—yes, self-control,” she said, thinking of Magnus and the things about him that she’d never found in any other man, “doing without what you want, if it makes someone you care about happier. And it’s good taste, and—and kindness to people you don’t have to be kind to, and protecting those who are weaker than you, and loyalty and honesty—and bravery too.”
Black Jack stopped smiling. “Lass, you should hear yourself. Be this our Cristabel?” he asked in wonder. “Speaking about a man the way her father’s women used to prattle on about him?”
“That, they did not!” she shouted, losing her last remnants of fine speech along with her temper. “And well ye know it, blast ye! My father’s women talked about his capacity and his size, and the way he tossed around his gold, damn ye. I don’t know the man’s capacity ’cause he don’t get drunk in front of me, and as fer his size—well,” she said, her cheeks growing pink. “We don’t do that neither. And I got gold enough of me own. But since ye brought the matter up, ’tis about the viscount that I wished to speak to ye. Look ye, Black Jack,” she said, pacing the room as he watched her with narrowed eyes, “the viscount be a good man whether ye like it or not. And I’ll be the one deciding what me future is with him, whether ye like it or not too. What I want from you is the truth,” she said, wheeling around and facing him squarely. “Was it you that tried to do him in last night?”
“Do him in?” Black Jack asked.
“Aye. Be it ye who tried to run him over with a horse in the Strand?”
“What?” he asked, genuinely surprised. He stared at her and whistled. “Nay, lass, ’tis not that I love the fellow, but you should know it isn’t me way. I’d do him with fists or sword, pistol or knife. But I’d do it face-to-face ’cause I’d want him to know who done it, you can be sure. You were with him? Aye, that must have been something,” he mused, “and you didn’t get a glimpse at the scum what tried it? Shame, lass, what were you doing, staring into his big blue eyes ’stead of taking care of business?”
“They’re gray eyes, and there wasn’t no way I could see in the dark,” she snapped. “But this horse came running out of nowhere, heading straight at him. If he hadn’t jumped, dragging me with him, we’d both have been for it. I thought of you, Jack, sorry, but I did, because you have no love for him.”
“But I do for you,” Black Jack said quietly, “so there’s no way on earth I’d have put you in danger, and from what you say, you were. Nor would I take him out whilst you was there. I’d do him on the sly, nice and neat, so all you’d know was tha
t he’d been done for. I thought you knew me better than that,” he said sadly.
“Sorry,” she said, shamefaced.
“Aye, well, you owe me one,” he said generously. “But I think I can help you. Might be it was the lads who tried for him again.”
“No,” she said, “Magnus said they wouldn’t ’cause he were with me, and that’s all they wanted of him last time.”
“Aye, last time,” Black Jack said knowingly, “but then they thought you two was married. This time they might have been vexed ’cause they found out you wasn’t really. Didn’t think on that, did he? Ha. He don’t know everything.”
“Maybe he did,” Cristabel muttered. “Maybe he just didn’t want to worry me.”
“Maybe. But there is something I can do that he can’t,” Black Jack said proudly. “I can talk with the lads and find out just what’s up.”
“Would you?” Cristabel asked eagerly. “No—better yet, let me talk with them, too, please. Ah, don’t be that way. You ought to know I don’t have to be wrapped in cotton wool. Use your head, man. Where’s the pirate who don’t know Captain Whiskey? Or who don’t know of me, by now, at least? I know pirates well too. That’s why I need to see their eyes when they answer; it will tell me more than what they say. Ah, please, Jack. Arrange it. Do it for me, won’t you?”
“Oh my,” Sophia said, pausing dramatically in the doorway, “am I interrupting anything? What is it you wish done, Cristabel dear? And who is this gallant gentleman you are asking it of?” She fluttered her eyelashes as much as her fan as she stared at Black Jack.
“Jarvis Kelly at your service, ma’am,” Black Jack said promptly before Cristabel could answer. “We met at the Swansons’ soiree only a few weeks past. Do you remember? I hope so, for I can scarce forget.”