Of Dubious Intent

by J. A. Sutherland

  He poured a second glass of wine and stepped toward her to place it on the table near where she’d grabbed the knife. Then he turned his back to her and went to the far end of the table to sit.

  “I assure you, girl, you’ll go hungry if you kill me before supper. I trust my staff has that much loyalty, at least.”

  “Who are you?” Cat whispered.

  He frowned as though disappointed in her. “Wrong question.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Better. Let us say, perhaps, that I saw some bit of potential in you that day in the market.” He smiled. “Not the day you took my purse, mind you, but the first day, when you decided to.”

  He’d noticed her then? That early? She’d watched him for days on his visits to the market, waiting for the right set of circumstances that would allow her to take his purse and get away from Brandt and the others.

  He nodded as though to confirm her thoughts. “Yes, you’re nowhere near as good as you think you are, girl. Not so bumble-footed as most, mind you, but far from your opinion of yourself.”

  Cat frowned. If he’d noticed her that soon and yet kept coming to the market, kept to all his habits. “You planned this.”

  He took a sip of wine, smiling.

  “You carried that purse full of iron knowing I’d take it. Why?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t know enough of the whole to ask that question yet. Think it through, girl.”

  “The toffs,” she said. “The lady’s purse. It’s no coincidence you were there.”

  “And now too far, yet, in our story. Find the other dots you must connect to get from one to the other.”

  She puzzled and he gave her a disappointed look.

  “The markets, girl, the markets.” He sighed. “Did you not wonder how the gangs always seemed to stumble to you so quickly?”

  She should have, she realized. It seemed every time she stepped into a market square the gangs were on her in a heartbeat. It shouldn’t have been so quick. Should’ve taken them time to realize she wasn’t just some shopkeeper’s errand boy there on fair business.

  “You set them on me,” she whispered. “You were following me all that time? Why?”

  “Perhaps to keep you from falling in with bad company again.” He pointed at the chair. “Sit. Take the knife, if you like, but sit.”

  Cat pulled the knife from the wall and sat. She grasped the glass of wine and started to drink, then set it back on the table. She’d been drugged once by this Roffe, or whatever his name truly was.

  “If I wanted to drug you, I could have done it without revealing myself first,” he said. “Drink or not, it’s your choice.” He rang a small bell set next to his plate. “Eat or not, as well.”

  The door was opened by Clanton. Cat had a moment’s thought to dash through it and try to escape, but she wasn’t sure she could get by the valet in the confines of the doorway and corridor. Better, perhaps, to wait for a surer opportunity.

  Cook carried in a tureen of soup and ladled out two bowls to set before her and Roffe. She gave Cat an odd look, probably wondering what her place at the table meant, and left. Clanton closed the door and Cat heard the lock turn again. She wondered if not running had been a dire mistake. She looked at Roffe, but he was concentrating on eating his soup.

  Well, if I’m in it up to my neck, I suppose I must wait and find out what it is.

  The only explanation, if Emma was to be believed that he wouldn’t expect her to be his doxie, seemed to be if he wanted her thieving skills for some reason — perhaps to steal something he wanted? But that made no sense either, for there were far more accomplished burglars to be had with just a word spoken in the right ear and the right tavern. The thought that this Roffe must be a thief himself became more what Cat thought. That was where the boys all moved up to, after all, either to thieving gangs or hired muscle if they were dull and strong.

  This elaborate charade, though, was far different from what those who’d been tapped to join such gangs described.

  Roffe’s home was more than they’d described of a master thief’s patch, too. So perhaps he was more than that.

  If he truly was a proper burglar, one who dealt in more than the few coins a cutpurse would bring, there might be an opportunity here. He might lead a gang of thieves and need recruits. Brandt, after all, recruited from the beggars. And Brandt paid Marven a fee to work the market, and some of the boys went into Marven’s gang when they grew older, though what it was Marven did Cat had never learned.

  She looked down at her own bowl of soup and her stomach growled. Cook had served them both from the same tureen, and there were easier ways to poison or drug her. Cat spooned up a mouthful of the rich broth and in what seemed like moments she’d emptied the bowl.

  The ringing of the bell startled her into looking at Roffe again as the door opened and Cook entered with the next course.

  “Do you have a name?” Roffe asked, “or should I keep calling you ‘girl’?”

  Cat glanced at Cook as a fresh plate was set in front of her. She didn’t want to give Roffe her name, but if she gave a false one now, Cook would hear it and wonder at her purpose.

  “I’ve not the staff for a full supper,” Roffe said as his own plate was set before him. “And little reason with just the two of us, so you’ll have to settle for a full plate from the kitchen. A name?”

  “Cat,” she said finally, not wanting Cook to think ill of her and confused by his comment. She looked at the full plate before her, with slices of beef, roasted potatoes, and some sort of squash, and wondered how this could be thought settling.

  “‘Cat’? Roffe asked. “An odd name. How did you come by it?”

  She looked up and found Roffe staring at her, eyes intent. Before he’d seemed to barely regard her, but now she had his full attention and it was disconcerting. His stare bored into her.

  “I … it was something my mother called me,” Cat found herself saying without thought.

  “Your mother?” Roffe said quickly. “Is your mother alive? I’d assumed you were an orphan, running with that lot.”

  “She died,” Cat said, looking down at the table to avoid his gaze. “When I was very young.”

  “But you remember her?”

  Cat shook her head, she wished Roffe would apply himself to the beef as he had to the soup and leave her be. “No, I … only a bit.”

  “Enough to remember she called you Cat, though? A very odd name, as I said.”

  “It was just something she called me. Not really Cat, I think.”

  “What then?”

  Why was he so insistent? What difference did it make? “A pet name only,” she said. “I remember her calling me ‘catling,’ and I —”

  She broke off as Roffe laughed and she looked up in shock.

  “‘Catling?’” He laughed again and then said, almost to himself, “You remember your mother calling you ‘catling.’”

  Cat flushed and looked down at the table again. It was bad enough to have told him something so private, something she’d never told another soul, but for him to laugh at it?

  “How very, very droll,” Roffe said. “No memory at all of a father, I’m sure.”

  Cat’s temper flared. One thing Mother Agnes had assured her was that her mother had not worked the streets. She’d been properly married, though what had happened to her father she didn’t know.

  “What is it you want of me, Mister Roffe?” she asked.

  “You’re well-spoken for a gutter magpie,” Roffe said, ignoring her question. “Where did you learn that?”

  “I had a very good teacher,” Cat said, remembering the nights with Mother Agnes, both of them hungry and cold in whatever alley seemed to offer shelter, but Agnes still insisting that Cat take the time to learn a bit of her numbers and letters before drifting off to sleep.

  “Who?” Roffe demanded. “Not your mother, for you say you remember nothing of her but this silly name.”

  Again, Cat bristl
ed, but the intensity of Roffe’s gaze and questions had her answering. “A woman on the streets,” she said. “I stayed with her for a time.”

  “Her name?”

  “Agnes.”

  “Agnes,” Roffe said and grunted. “What became of her?”

  “She died.”

  “Some time ago, I assume?”

  Cat nodded.

  Her stomach growled again and Roffe gestured at her plate.

  “Eat,” Roffe said, turning his attention to his own plate.

  Cat did, glancing up periodically to watch Roffe, who now seemed completely focused on his food and ignoring her.

  Midway through the meal Roffe filled his wine glass and gestured questioningly to Cat’s. She shook her head, but took the opportunity to ask again, “What is it you want of me, Mister Roffe?”

  Roffe took a deep breath and sat back. He placed his knife and fork on the table, resting them against his plate with a soft clink. The sound in the quiet room reminded Cat of just how alone she was with the man.

  “As you surmised,” Roffe said, “my work is not entirely of a public and legitimate nature.”

  “Emma told me you were a famous artificer.”

  “Emma? Oh, yes, the maid.” Roffe shrugged. “That is my public persona. It explains my wealth and provides a certain access within society.” He frowned. “Do not, please, take this to mean that I have no actual skill in artifice. This is not the case. It is simply that the public examples of my skill are the least of my talents.”

  “I see,” Cat said.

  “No, you do not, but I hope you will. When I saw you in that market the first time, I expected you to try for my purse then and there. I found it curious that you didn’t, and more curious when I returned and you still did not. That act, or lack of act, exhibited a certain patience and willingness to risk losing an opportunity that is unusual in a common cutpurse. Why did you wait?”

  Cat hesitated. She wasn’t used to talking openly about such things with someone who wasn’t part of the gang, certainly not with someone who’d been a target.

  “I needed a way out of the gang,” she said. “Enough to make my own way, but those first times I wouldn’t have been able to get clean away.”

  Roffe nodded. “So, you passed up taking a sizable score for your gang in order to have the chance to keep it all for yourself.”

  Cat flushed again and looked down. Put that way it sounded as selfish as Osraed had accused her of being.

  “My business is not one of teamwork,” Roffe went on. “Nor of kindness, nor generosity. One must have a certain ruthlessness, which I saw in you that day.”

  “I would not say that is so,” Cat objected.

  “Of course you wouldn’t. You’d prefer to think of yourself as kind and generous, no matter how you’ve made your living these many years. Think about it … Cat. You’ve lived by stealing bread from the mouths of others.”

  “From men like you who can afford to lose it!”

  Roffe snorted. “Never lifted a purse from a servant in the market and given no thought to what he’d tell his master at the loss? Never taken from a cart without care to how the merchant would feed his own children?”

  “All of them —”

  “Never held back a bit from the rest of your pack of gutter snipes?” Roffe interrupted. He waited while Cat said nothing. “Before that day you stole from me, yes? Are they rich toffs who can afford it, then?”

  Cat remained silent.

  “That was no wealthy man’s market I found you in. You stole from working men who’d labored hard to feed their families. You’re a thief. Don’t speak to me of scruples.” He paused. “Or if you do, then do it from the street, for I’ve no use for you.”

  Cat struggled with what he was saying, but couldn’t argue. She was a thief, after all. It was what she was good at, and though she could honestly say she’d mostly stolen from those who had more than she, that was only because she’d had so very little.

  “You seem hesitant,” Roffe said.

  “I think I have little reason to trust you, Mister Roffe.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

  “You struck me.”

  “I kept you from getting nicked,” he said. “You’d have been five steps closer to White’s door when you took that purse. The porters would have caught you.”

  “I’m quicker than that.”

  “You were sicker than you think. It slowed you.”

  She considered that. No doubt she hadn’t been in her right mind that night. The fever had clouded her judgment in more than one instance, not least of which was following this Mister Edward Roffe from White’s.

  “You knew I’d follow you.”

  “I suspected,” he said. “If not then, certainly at some point.”

  He’d been driving her. Driving her to try to kill him? No, that seemed wrong. He’d taken her from her gang, kept her from others, he’d been driving her to solitude and despair. Perhaps even driving her to the anger necessary to attack him.

  “Why?”

  “If I had approached you on the street and suggested there was an opportunity for you with me, what would you have thought, girl?”

  She knew what she’d have thought and done, especially if he’d indicated he knew she was a girl. Thought he was a buttock-broker and run like blazes.

  “You see, then?” He spread his hands to take in the dining room and house. “Now you are in a position to consider my proposal without false concerns.”

  It made a certain sense, she supposed, though she thought there must be more to it. More he wasn’t telling her. Still, what could he want of her? If he wasn’t after her for a doxie, then what skills did she have that he could possibly want? There weren’t that many things she was very good at.

  “You’re a thief,” she said and narrowed her eyes when he said nothing. “Not some bauble-nicker, but a proper thief.”

  “I have been known to acquire the occasional item which was not, strictly speaking, mine to take.”

  “And what?” she asked. “This is your recruiting? I should trust you after all you’ve done to me?”

  “What I’ve done to you? Indeed.”

  His calm demeanor infuriated her after all he’d put her through.

  “That iron purse!”

  “I may, I think, walk the streets with a purse filled with horse dung, if I wish,” he said. “It harms no one, after all, save those who would steal from me.”

  “You struck me!”

  “A moment before a stranger’s purse was cut. I plead defense of others.”

  “You drugged me!”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Shall we then discuss your own intent at that moment?”

  Cat flushed. To hear him tell it, it was all, all her misfortune, her own fault, yet he’d just as good as admitted that he’d driven her there deliberately.

  Roffe tossed something toward her and Cat flung an arm up to protect her face and dodged to the side. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, but she calmed as what he’d thrown came to a rest near her plate. The glint of gold from the table made her heart race again, though. A golden guinea lay before her, the very coin she’d hoped to find in Roffe’s purse.

  “Take it and go, if you like,” Roffe said. “I have no need of you if you’re reluctant and I won’t hinder your leaving.”

  Cat reached out and touched the coin, staring at it intently.

  “Or more, if you wish.”

  A small leather purse landed beside Cat’s plate with a dull clunk and Cat jumped. She’d been so intent on the gold coin that she’d missed him throw the purse. She took it up and slowly pulled the drawstring open. It was small, much smaller than the purse she’d stolen from him, but this one didn’t contain iron. More gold glinted up at her from its depths, a full dozen mates to the coin that lay on the table.

  Would he really let me leave with it? She looked up and met Roffe’s eyes.

  “You won’t know unless you try,” Roffe
said as though reading her mind. “But if you leave, my offer is withdrawn and you may never return.” He shrugged. “I can afford to throw away a dozen guineas, will you throw away the chance at wealth enough to do the same?”

  Cat looked back at the purse in her hand. Roffe’s offer to be his apprentice, to learn his trade and work the jobs he couldn’t be bothered with, would surely earn her more than this. If he could be trusted. Her mind spun with the possibilities and risks.

  In the end, though, it was neither her distrust of Roffe nor the thought of more wealth that made the decision. It was Roffe’s words that she could never return … and the certainly that Emma would not go with her if she left. Cat might be willing to make her own way, but Emma would not. She sought nothing more than the stable place she had and perhaps the hope of some small advancement in the future.

  Friends are a weakness, she thought. They make you vulnerable … and daft.

  She picked up the lone guinea from the table, dropped it into the purse, and pulled the drawstring tight. With a flick of her wrist she sent it toward Roffe.

  “What do you require of your apprentice, Mister Roffe?”

  Chapter 9

  Breakfast, Miss Catherine?”

  Cat smiled and opened her eyes. She’d been awake for some time — since dawn had first started brightening the room through the closed curtains — but chosen to stay in bed and drowse until Emma came to wake her. That the other girl had called her Miss Catherine instead of simply Cat told her that Mrs. Hinds, the new tutor, was close by outside the bedroom door.

  Cat sat up and patted the bed beside her.

  “Yes, a bit of toast first thing would be lovely,” she said, winking.

  Emma set the tray of tea and toast she carried across Cat’s lap and sat down. She chose a piece of toast herself and began nibbling on it.

  “She’s just outside,” Emma whispered with a grin. “Like to boil over that it’s not at all proper fer her t’come in and wake you herself an’ she ‘as to wait on me to do it.”

  “I’ve enough dealings with her as it is,” Cat whispered back, spreading jam. “My bedroom is your domain and I’ll not have her intruding.”