Of Dubious Intent

by J. A. Sutherland

  Cat studied the portrait as Roffe remained silent. There was, she thought, a bit of a resemblance between her and the woman. Now that her hair was longer and allowed to take its natural curl, she could note that. The new knowledge sent a chill through her.

  Is that what he wanted her for? Because she resembled his vanished wife? But how could he have known that when he took her off the streets? She’d been grubby then, her face half covered in dirt and grime most days, with her hair hacked short and dressed as a boy. She’d not noted the resemblance herself until now. But could he have seen it, somehow, and wanted her for that?

  She shuddered at the thought and the memory of Brandt the night before came to her. His weight on her and his fumbling as he forced her legs apart. The thought that Roffe might want the same made her stomach churn.

  “I searched for her, of course,” Roffe said finally. He chuckled. “I sent men to Ireland — a dozen of them, thinking that’s where she would go. There was some distant family still and I couldn’t think where else she might find help. I misjudged her. I do not often misjudge people so.”

  He filled his glass again and Cat, when he was done, filled her own. The brandy was working to numb her, both the physical hurts from the night before and her worries about Roffe.

  “Would you believe she stayed in London?” Roffe barked laughter. “Months, nearly a year, my men scoured Ireland for her — turned over every stone and turned out every croft that might hold her — and all that time she was here, never more than ten leagues from where we sit right now. I might not have found her at all, save that something spooked her and she fled again. She thought, I presume, that my men were closing in, but they weren’t — not until she bought passage for America.”

  Roffe fell silent for a long time and Cat wondered if he’d tired of talk before he spoke again.

  “She died en route,” he said.

  That led her to wonder how, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know if Roffe had killed his wife for running.

  “The babe?” Cat asked in a whisper.

  “Left behind,” Roffe said, “to be sent for later, once she was safe and stable. It took me more years of searching to find where. Left behind with a damned old servant woman she’d brought from Ireland when we wed, and I’d dismissed as soon as I could. I’d forgotten about the hag entirely until my hired men uncovered word — by then it was too late, again, though. The old bitch Agnes was dead and my little Kathleen was nowhere to be found.”

  Chapter 24

  Cat froze at Roffe’s words.

  Her limbs went weak and tingled with more than the brandy.

  Agnes.

  Mother Agnes.

  Cat, her name taken from her last, only memory of her mother — not even a face to recall, only the brush of lips upon her forehead, the scent of safety and love, and the whispered words,

  I love you, catling, never forget.

  I love you, Kathleen, never forget.

  Cat’s hand rose slowly to her breast and clasped her locket through her blouse. The little scrap of thong-bound hair. Hair the color of fire, the color of her own, the color of the woman’s in the portrait Cat suddenly couldn’t tear her eyes from. Her eyes burned with tears and her throat tightened so that she raised her glass to her lips, rim tinking off her teeth, and gulped to ease herself. The liquor helped, spreading warmth through her.

  Her mother.

  And that meant that Roffe …

  “You do see it, don’t you?” Roffe said. “Or must I be more explicit?”

  “I’m … she was my mother?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And you …”

  “You are my daughter, Kathleen Roffe … though I’m afraid it must remain niece and Catherine. Kathleen Roffe, you see, perished along with her mother aboard that ship — so far as all official records are concerned, that is. It would be beyond even Clanton’s skill with documents to bring you back from the bureaucratic grave.”

  Cat stared at the portrait. It was somehow easier to think of the woman pictured there as her mother than it was to think of Roffe as her father. A father her mother had run and hid from when she’d found the truth, taking Cat with her. A father, nevertheless, who’d found her at last and taken her in, even if the manner was —

  “Why?” she demanded, suddenly angry. “Why that farce in the market with your purse? Why the stalking of me, hounding me to ground through the city? Why not just tell me? Damn you!”

  Roffe laughed. “Oh, yes, I should have stopped the urchin you were in the market there and said, ‘Hello, girl, I’m your long-lost father — come along with your daddy, now?’” He laughed again. “I can picture that, can you not?” He sobered. “No, I had to give you a reason you’d believe for my interest — and one you’d accept.”

  Cat’s anger deflated, as she had to agree. There was no way he could have approached her then, not without her thinking he was after, well, what the men who approached the street boys and girls were typically after.

  Her mind was awhirl with this new information.

  “But — to kill? To kill for money?”

  “As I said, girl, do you think a man’s name comes to my ear without there’s a reason?” Roffe laughed, then he stood. “Come. I have a gift for you.”

  Chapter 25

  Roffe led her down the stairs, his grip on her arm verging on painful.

  Past the first floor, then the ground floor, and down to the kitchen.

  There were further stairs there, near the stillroom, that led down to the cellar, but Cat had explored and found them empty.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I told you I’ve a gift for you, girl,” Roffe said.

  He took up a lantern near the stillroom, released her for a moment to light it with a taper lit from the gas lamp, and then took her arm again. The lantern cast wild shadows on the stairs as they descended, made all the more frightening by the rough-hewn blocks of the walls. The walls of the cellar were all large blocks of stone, tool marks from the mining clear on their surface, with jagged edges and hollows. The cellar space was filled with the brick columns and arches that supported the ceiling, with only a few empty bags and broken crates strewn about.

  At least that was how Cat remembered it from her explorations.

  “Who’s there?” a voice called, muffled and echoing through the dark, empty space. “What’s this about?”

  Cat heard the jangle of metal on metal.

  “Let me loose, please! Oh, God, make it stop!”

  “What’s going on?” Cat asked.

  “Do you not recognize the voice?” Roffe asked.

  He raised the lantern high above his head so that its light would be cast farther.

  Beneath one of the support arches stood a figure, his arms held above his head by chains from his wrists to the arch’s peak. His head was covered with a rough bag and he cast about as though to try and catch a glimpse through it. His right sleeve had been cut open along its length, baring his extended arm, and his left trouser leg had been similarly treated, exposing his thigh. Both had attached to them the odd, four-legged, brass disks Cat had seen Roffe use on Lord Harrington.

  “What is this? What have you done to him?” Cat asked.

  The figure’s head jerked up. “Who — Runt, is that you? Damn you, I’ll —”

  He jerked against his chains, then broke off in a scream of agony as he moved his arms and legs to get at her. What he said, closer now, was enough for her to identify him.

  “Brandt,” she whispered, then turned to Roffe and asked again, “What have you done to him? What are those … things?”

  Brandt continued to scream as he moved in the chains, seeming to seek a position that didn’t cause him agony. He finally settled again with most of his weight on his uninjured leg and his arm hanging loosely from the chains. Blood trailed from the disks and down his arm and leg to soak his clothing.

  “Make it stop,” he whimpered. “Please, Runt — Cat, please
, make it stop.”

  Roffe stepped to a nearby table and set the lantern down, illuminating its contents. A half dozen more of the devices lay on its top along with a thin-bladed knife. Roffe picked up one of the disks and held it to the light so Cat could see.

  “These? My own invention.”

  Roffe held it carefully and pressed its side.

  There was a muted click, then the tinkling of metal against metal. Brandt began screaming again at the sound.

  The four legs of the disk Roffe held came together like a claw and a thin, razor-sharp blade corkscrewed from its bottom. The blade twisted and turned until it extended some few inches from the disk, then stopped.

  Brandt screamed the entire time.

  “Oh, shut up!” Roffe commanded. “This one’s not even touching you! Quiet, or I’ll give you another!”

  Brandt’s screams trailed off into helpless, muffled sniffles.

  Roffe smiled. “It’s the sound, you see. They come to associate it with the pain and one can get the most interesting reactions thereafter.” He looked at Brandt. “Some are only annoying, though.”

  He pressed the thing’s side again and, after the click, the blade twisted its way back into the case and the legs unfolded.

  Brandt tensed, but uttered only a muffled yelp at the sound.

  “Do you see?” Roffe asked.

  Cat’s stomach churned at it, but she did. The legs would grip the victim’s flesh, holding the device in place, then the blade would enter, chewing its way through the body. She felt sick at the thought of it, both for its use and the evil perversion of the mechanical arts she’d begun to love.

  Roffe grabbed a wet cloth from a bucket near the table and wiped it across Brandt’s thigh near the disk. Brandt whimpered, but held his screams.

  “See here?” Roffe said.

  The blood smeared, but even in the dim light of the lantern Cat could see five holes where Roffe must have once removed another of the disks. They oozed blood a bit, but were remarkably small.

  “If properly placed, there’s less blood,” Roffe said. “A few drops only — and those stop once a man’s dead, of course.”

  Brandt sobbed.

  “The damage, you see, is all internal — slices the muscles with every movement. And if it hits bone, well.” Roffe smiled at Brandt’s leg and tapped the disk there, causing Brandt to scream. “That’s where this one’s set itself.”

  Roffe stood, tossed the cloth into the bucket and set the device on the table, then wiped his hands clean with a fresh cloth.

  “The pain will make a man give you his secrets, as you saw last night, and the marks remain unnoticed if the death seems to be of natural causes.” He waved at Brandt. “There’ll be no need of such precautions with this one, of course. No one will remark on one more bloodied corpse where he’s from.”

  Brandt began begging then, a long litany of promises and pleas, muffled by the sack and made nearly incoherent by fear.

  Roffe pulled the sack from his head and grasped Brandt’s hair, yanking his head back. He put his face close to the boy’s ear and hissed.

  “Do you think you’ll find mercy here?” Roffe asked. “After what you did? What you tried?”

  “I’m sorry!” Brandt wailed.

  “She is mine, boy. Mine alone and you’ll suffer the same as any who try to take what’s mine. Catherine, come here.”

  She moved as though in a daze. The blow to her head, the drink, the revelations of her mother’s death and that Roffe — this vile, certainly mad creature she watched torture Brandt — was her father … all of it had fogged her mind to such a state that she couldn’t think straight.

  Roffe grasped her arm and dragged her before Brandt so that they were nearly touching.

  “Please,” Brandt whispered. Tears and snot streaked his face. “Please let me go, Cat, I’m sorry, I am.”

  Something was pressed into her hand and raised between them. Cat looked down and found she held the thin-bladed knife she’d seen on the table.

  Roffe stood close behind her, his body pressed to her back, arms to either side. He blocked her from turning aside or stepping back and his breath was hot on her neck as he whispered to her.

  “End him,” Roffe said.

  “No!” Brandt cried. “Please, Cat, we were mates — we were —”

  “Think of what he tried to do to you,” Roffe whispered. Cat could smell the brandy on his breath as it wafted over her cheek. His face rubbed against her hair and his body pressed harder against her. “Bully. How often did he strike the younger boys?”

  “Cat —”

  It was as though Roffe’s words called up the memories. Brandt keeping the gang in line with fists and feet, boys crying themselves to sleep all bruised and bloodied, as Cat had more than once for mouthing off to him or not bringing back enough coin.

  “Murderer — there’re bodies enough to his credit, are there not?”

  Roffe’s hand on her arm helped her raise the blade to barely touch Brandt.

  “Please —”

  There weren’t many, but there were some — bodies carried hurriedly through the alleys to be left or dumped in the river.

  “Buggerer — he took the younger boys aside from time to time, didn’t he? Thought to take you when you pretended, but you avoided him.”

  “No, I didn’t! Never! I —”

  Oh, yes, Cat thought. Taken aside, walked away from the group by the older boys, Brandt most of all, then sniveling the night away when they returned and not a word said about what happened.

  “Rapist —” Roffe whispered.

  “Cat, please!”

  Cat’s throat closed off and she couldn’t breathe. The feel of Roffe’s body against hers reminded her too much of the night before. Brandt’s weight on top of her, the others pawing at her clothes.

  Roffe grasped her about the middle, hands low on her belly, and she gasped. His thigh pressed hard against the back of hers, parting them.

  The blade slid in with deceptive ease, slicing through the cloth of Brandt’s shirt as cleanly as his flesh. Brandt’s eyes widened and Roffe sighed, a long, low, exhalation that ran hot along Cat’s neck, making her shiver despite its heat.

  “No,” Cat whispered, coming back to herself from whatever state she’d been in. She tried to pull the knife away, to take it back, but her movement was jerky and the razor-sharp blade slid through Brandt’s flesh.

  Hot blood washed her hand, cooling and feeling chill in an instant from the cold air of the cellar. Brandt screamed.

  “I didn’t!” Cat yelled. She stepped back, Roffe moving with her, his body still tightly pressed to hers. “You did it! You moved my arm!”

  But Roffe’s hands were still on her belly, so she knew that wasn’t the truth. She flung the blade from her to clatter in the cellar’s shadows and stared at Brandt in horror.

  He screamed more and thrashed against the chains, every movement causing him more pain, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Blood soaked his shirt, the stain growing larger as she watched, and glistened on his flesh in the lantern’s light.

  Roffe released her and stepped away.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  “Damn you! I never meant to —”

  “But you did, Catherine.”

  “Get him down! Call a surgeon!”

  Roffe examined Brandt with narrowed eyes.

  “Oh, no, you’ve done for him.”

  Brandt’s screams redoubled.

  “That’s a gut wound,” Roffe said. “He’ll be a long time in the dying, but it’ll come. You should end it now, if you’re so tender-hearted.”

  Cat backed away, unable to tear her eyes from the blood covering Brandt’s midsection.

  It was only dimly that she heard Roffe’s next words.

  “I’ll return when he’s done with screaming. Hurry him along if you’ve a mind.”

  The grating of the cellar door’s lock came in a pause between Brandt’s screams and was quite loud to her.
>
  Chapter 26

  Cat was able to get Brandt down from the chains, though it was no kindness in the doing.

  She needed the thin-bladed knife and the leg of one of the disks to pick the crude mechanism of the manacles, and the boy redoubled his screams when she approached. He screamed and thrashed away at every movement and she was unable to both support him and pick the locks, so in the end he collapsed to the cellar floor in a bloody heap.

  Cat tried to make him comfortable, but there was little she could do. Not even offer water, for the only water in the cellar was the bucket soiled with the boy’s own blood.

  She finally whispered, “I’ll bring a surgeon,” and took her crude tools up the stairs to the cellar door.

  That lock yielded quickly, it being no more complex than needed to keep servants out of the household’s goods, and Cat had a moment’s spark of hope as the lock clicked and turned under her hands.

  That hope was dashed as she discovered the door was barred from the other side.

  Try as she might, the bar wouldn’t yield — neither to her shoulder thumping against the door nor to any of the implements she slid between door and frame in an attempt to lift it.

  An exploration of the cellar walls revealed no other way out, only a few narrow drains no bigger around than her arm. She returned the lantern to the table after her search and made her way back to the door, not wanting to be near Brandt and his screams.

  Perhaps it would be kinder to end it for him, she thought.

  She settled with her back to the cellar door, arms hugging her knees to her chest, and let her eyes fill with the tears she’d been holding back.

  She hadn’t wanted this. Hadn’t wanted to kill Brandt, but the knife had moved almost of its own volition. She didn’t even remember the moment, only the realization afterward that it had.