by Jade Lee
So she led him to Tommy’s bedroom, pleased to see that Cordwain’s fury had been limited to her. Though the room was a mess as he no doubt had searched for the bag of likes, nothing in there was destroyed. In fact, both her father’s old wardrobe and the crib still stood solid as ever. Both had been made by her grand-uncle, and Penny was surprised by her tears of gratitude that the pieces still stood.
“They’re beautiful,” said Samuel as he watched her trail her fingers across the crib’s carvings.
“It’s bad enough that they stole the shoe shop. That’s a future livelihood that can never be regained. But they took these things, too,” she whispered. “Furniture that my grand-uncle carved for my parents when they got married. A lace scarf that had been my grandmother’s and is now…” Her voice choked off. It was part of that pile of wet ashes in her bedroom. “I already had to sell the jewelry. Nothing that’s left was of any value except for the shop location and the tools. But—”
“Of course it had value. It was your family’s. It was your history passed down from generation to generation.” He touched her arm, turning her toward him. “Penny, you don’t have to apologize for being in pain. What happened is a crime. And I’ll make sure to fix it. But—”
He stopped, his words abruptly cut off. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t looking at anything in particular but listening.
“Samuel?”
“But we haven’t the time to mourn right now. Get whatever you need, and then we must go.”
She nodded, knowing what he said was true. So she went to the wardrobe, opening it to grab what items she could. The furniture was large, meant for a man, not a baby. But since Tommy was the only boy in the house, it went to him. Her father had allowed her to use it when she was growing up, but the moment Tommy came to live with them, it had been moved to his room.
She’d been furious at the time. Her father’s casual dismissal of her because she was a girl still burned. But all that resentment had been put away the moment her parents had died. She hadn’t the energy now to devote to anything that didn’t involve daily survival. So she handed the satchel to Samuel and began dropping clothes into the bag.
“Don’t take everything. It’s got to look like we were never here.”
She nodded her understanding. She’d just take the few items that were left in the wardrobe and Tommy’s winter coat. Then—
“Ooo-ee!” squealed a coarsely accented woman from downstairs. “You’s a real gent!”
Penny whipped around, her heart abruptly beating in her throat. Someone was here!
“’At’s right,” returned a man’s voice. “Me uncle trusts me with all ’is important things. ’E does the cobbling. I sees that it stays right and tight.”
“Right and tight in yer pocket, I’ll wager!”
Samuel grimaced, his eyes narrowed. “Jobby,” he whispered. “Probably told to watch the place until Cordwain can move in.”
Penny nodded, dropping the satchel as she headed toward the door. Meanwhile the bastard and his tart continued jabbering.
“Mebbe yes, and mebbe no,” said Jobby. “Guess you’ll just have to be nice to me to find out.” There was no mistaking exactly what he meant about being nice. Especially as the woman trilled her answer.
“Ooo-ee! Mebbe it’s me ye needs to be nice to. If’n ye want inside me skirts.”
“Aw, come on, Mabel—”
“Two quid. ’Cause yer such an important mort now.”
“One quid.”
“Bloody bastard!” Penny hissed. Jobby had brought a whore into her home and they were dickering over the price in her kitchen! It was the last straw. Between one breath and the next, her fury boiled over and she lost all rational thought. She dropped the satchel and headed out of the bedroom. She didn’t even have a weapon, but she’d grown up in this house. She knew where to find a knife or an awl. A bleeding chair would work as she smashed it down on his head.
That was the plan, but she barely made it a step past the door when Samuel grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back.
“Let me—”
“Shhhh!” His hand pressed hard against her mouth, cutting off her words. His other arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her off her feet in one swift move.
She kicked him, tried to bite off his hand, and was readying to slam her forehead into his when he whipped her around again, this time toward the wardrobe.
“Listen to me, Penny!” he hissed into her ear. “This isn’t the time! If we’re caught here, we’ll be the ones in the wrong. You can’t fight him now!”
She didn’t care. She didn’t really hear him. Her mind was on Jobby bringing a prostitute into her parents’ home. She could hear the woman’s giggling squeal and Jobby’s playful roar. He was chasing her. Probably to the stairs. Good God, she realized with horror. He meant to tup the tart in her parents’ bed!
She lunged forward, but Samuel’s grip was harder than iron. No matter how she struggled, he shoved her backward into the wardrobe. She fought him. She scratched, she kicked, and she connected more than once. But he was relentless as he shoved her to the back of the wardrobe and climbed in after her.
“Think, Penny! Think! We can’t be found!”
The squealing bitch was on the steps now and Jobby’s heavy tread was coming right behind. They were climbing the stairs, heading toward a bed. Tears of fury blurred Penny’s vision, and her breath was coming in harsh rasps from her nostrils. Samuel still had his hand over her mouth, and now his body pressed her hard against the back of the wardrobe. The door was ajar. He didn’t have a hand free to close it. If anyone chanced to look into the room, then the game was up. They’d be found. Which made Penny even more determined. If they were going to be found, then she damn sure wanted to be caught when she was free to attack.
But Samuel didn’t so much as flinch, even when she dug her fingernails into his arm hard enough to draw blood. All he did was lean in closer and whisper into her ear, his words not as important as the whisper of his voice. Soft. Nearly inaudible. But the only voice of reason against her screaming fury.
“This is not the way, Penny. You’re a smart girl. You know the truth. If we are caught here, then everything we do afterward is suspect. We have to work inside the law, Penny. You know this. If you want your home back, we have to wait. We cannot be found here breaking the law. Penny, listen to me. We have to be quiet. No matter what, we have to be quiet.”
He was right. She knew he was. In truth, she’d known it from the very beginning. But Jobby had brought a tart into her home. He was even now defiling her parents’ bed with low chuckles and loud smacks. Good Lord, did people sound like that when they tupped? It was awful! It was bestial! And it was happening in her parents’ bed!
She closed her eyes, feeling her tears make Samuel’s grip slippery. But her body was relaxing, giving in to the logic of his words. Now was not the time, but…Oh God. She could hear them.
“I’m so sorry, Penny,” Samuel continued. “We’ll make them pay, I swear it. It’s cruel and it’s terrible, but it won’t last. We’ll get the last laugh. Just a little bit longer.”
How long? she wondered. She opened her eyes, and caught his gaze, silently asking her question. How long did they have to stand there and listen? She watched him bite his lip and think. Odd how his face shifted when he was doing calculations in his head. His brows narrowed and his eyes grew distant. His lips thinned, but not in an angry way. If anything, she thought there was a curve to his lips. Calculating was something he did very well, and there was a clear pleasure in his ability. And how odd that she was able to distract herself with these thoughts. How she could study the minute shifts in his expression rather than listen to what was happening right down the hall.
Then Samuel was whispering again right in her ear. “Are you calm now? Can you move quietly?”
She nodded slowly. She wasn’t calm, but she wasn’t going to run screaming at Jobby and his tart.
“It’s best to go w
hen they’re in the thick of it, so to speak. But Jobby won’t last long. We have to move with speed. Down the stairs and out the front door. Do you understand?”
She nodded, her mind doing her own calculations. And while Samuel was pulling his hand off her mouth, she was planning again, thinking logically. It would be winter soon. Tommy would need his winter coat.
“Through the kitchen,” she whispered. “I need Tommy’s coat.”
He shot her a frustrated glance, but ended up nodding. Then they stepped as quietly as possible out of the wardrobe. Samuel grabbed the satchel, Penny snatched up Tommy’s favorite blanket, then together they slipped down the stairs. A moment later, she’d grabbed Tommy’s winter coat and her own cloak as well, which had been miraculously spared. Probably because it had been on the same peg with Tommy’s. Then they were out the door. Two minutes after that, Samuel was hoisting the satchel on his shoulder while he turned their steps down the street in the opposite direction from the dress shop.
“Where are we going?” she asked, though the words came out harshly through gritted teeth.
“Put on your cloak. We’re not going back to the shop just yet.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
He stopped and took a moment to look at her. Not so much a glare as a long, considering look. “It is time you told me the rest.”
“What rest?”
“The rest, Penny. Or at least more. And we’re going to do it in the most private location possible given the circumstances.”
“Your home?” she sneered.
“God, no. I expect you’ll be screeching and screaming before we’re done. That’d be noticed by my neighbors.” Then he reached out and forcibly wrapped her in her cloak.
“Then where?” she demanded as she swatted his hands away and finished with the cloak.
“We’re going to do this in the basement of a brothel.” Then he gripped her arm tight and started walking.
Chapter 13
“I’m not going to any brothel!”
Samuel sighed, wondering if it was possible to forestall the coming argument. He doubted it, but he made an effort to convince her reasonably. “You would rather have an argument at the shop? With Tommy and Mrs. Appleton as witnesses?”
“Of course not—”
“Then we shall go—”
“I’m not having any argument with you at all!”
Well, that was obviously false. She had ripped her elbow out of his grasp, then planted her feet, dropped her fists on her hips, and started talking, her voice dangerously loud. He glanced about him uneasily. They were in a nearly deserted walk right off Bond Street. What they were doing right now was unusual to say the least, and would certainly attract attention if anyone were to walk by.
“You are not being logical,” he began.
“You cannot—” she began, but he cut her off.
“And I do not as a rule allow anyone to screech at me in public.” He grabbed her arm and started pulling her forward. She followed merely because he was being rather rough. He didn’t like it, but what help was there? What if Cordwain was coming back and saw them? What if Jobby had finished his business and was walking the tart home? Any number of things could happen, and he felt much too dangerously exposed out here.
Meanwhile, she moderated her tone to an angry hiss. “I do not screech.”
“To answer that would require an accurate dictionary.”
She was slowing, her steps catching in the street. Before long, he would be reduced to tossing her over his shoulder. He stopped first as a way of throwing her off balance.
“Penny, I would have a discussion with you. Now.”
“I do not—”
“I don’t care. It is imperative that we speak, and if you wish to have my help, then you will come with me and do as I ask!”
Even in the darkness, he saw her skin pale. “You aren’t going to help me anymore?”
He groaned. Of course he was going to help her. But they needed to talk! “I need to understand some things. And if you will not converse with me in a place where we can scream and bellow and still be private, then I will be forced to follow you home. And then Mrs. Appleton and Tommy will—”
“As if I would argue in front of them!”
“You would not be able to control yourself.” That was, in point of fact, the very problem: her inability to control her temper. “I assure you, I can be quite irritating when I choose.”
“At least we agree on that!”
“Then agree on this: Penny, I mean to talk with you now. I assure you that you will be completely anonymous where we are going.”
She bit her lip, her gaze flicking up the street where a pair of dandies had just rounded the corner. It took only a moment for Samuel to identify them. Those two would not recognize Penny, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. But Penny didn’t know that, and so he cast her a dark look.
“We need to speak in private,” he stressed. “Can you not trust me in this simple thing?” The answer was obvious on her face. Penny did not trust anyone unless there was no other choice. She had been too self-reliant for too long. Or perhaps it was simply men she did not trust. After all, she had put her faith in the dress shop. But that had been as much desperation as faith.
“Very well,” she huffed. Then she wrenched her hood over her head. “We will talk. And if you try anything else, I shall—”
“Good heavens! As if I had any inclination in bedding you right now!” It was a lie. The evidence seemed to indicate that he was interested in bedding her all the time, no matter the circumstances. He’d been terrified for their lives pressed up so tightly in Tommy’s wardrobe, and yet his organ had still swollen up hot and hard for her. Even as she clawed and kicked him from head to toe, a part of him had wanted to pin her wrists and spread her legs right there.
Hell, that part still wanted it, but he was a rational man. He could control his urges. And so he took her arm and headed her down the street away from the dandies. It was that choice—to move left rather than right—that saved them. They had gone no more than three steps when a man came running through the alley they’d just left and streaked off to the right. If they’d walked the other direction, then the man would have collided with them. And if not the runner, then the four who followed closely after.
It was over quickly, as these things go. Samuel barely had time to step protectively in front of Penny when one of the pursuers threw a knife. The blade lodged deeply in the runner’s throat from back to front. It was an incredible throw and Samuel might have admired it if it weren’t so lethal. The runner was down, his blood welling into the street. Three of the pursuers circled the body, standing still as the fourth hastily looked about.
Samuel tensed. He did not wish to be attacked by a gang of thieves, but he had nowhere to go. And no help beyond Penny, as the two dandies had taken off in the opposite direction.
“Don’t be afraid,” the man who threw the knife said in a cultured voice. “He was the thief, not I.”
It took a moment for his heart to slow, but eventually Samuel recognized Demon Damon and exhaled in relief. The man was the owner of London’s most infamous gambling den and as dangerous a man as could be. But he was also smart and did not kill indiscriminately. Therefore, Samuel and Penny had little to fear. Still, Samuel remained on his guard as he struggled for some way to ease the tension in the air. Flattery would probably work best.
“Very nice throw,” Samuel said. As he spoke, one of the henchmen cleaned off the bloody knife and returned it to the Demon.
“I practice,” came the calm response. Then the man’s gaze flicked to Penny, who was still staring at the cluster of men around the body. “Have no concerns, Miss Shoemaker. The man was a footpad, part of a den of thieves that I have just recently discovered. He got what he deserved.”
Penny nodded slowly, her gaze finally raising up to look at the Demon. It was only now that Samuel realized how very handsome the bastard was. Not tall so much as e
legant, with dark hair and a white smile. Did Penny think him handsome, too? And how was it that the bastard knew her name anyway? He’d called her Miss Shoemaker.
Meanwhile, Penny swallowed and slowly folded her hands. “Why?” she asked.
“Why did he deserve his end?” the Demon asked.
She shook her head. “Why did you pursue him? Why not leave it to the authorities?”
“Because the constable has plenty to do, Miss Shoemaker.” Then he shot a disdainful glance behind him. “And this man stole from me.”
Ah, that was the reason, thought Samuel. Only an idiot would steal from the Demon. In any event, he needed to get Penny away from this situation. “Come along,” he said as he took her arm. “Let me see you home.”
The Demon stepped closer. “I can escort you if you would feel safer.”
“No,” said Penny quickly as a small shudder ran through her body. “No, thank you. I am safe enough with Samuel.”
A surge of pride warmed Samuel, especially as the Demon gave them a courtly bow and withdrew. Penny felt safe with him. In fact, she had chosen him over the obviously lethal and handsome other man. He would have crowed aloud if he hadn’t been so intent on getting them out of the area.
They were barely more than a block away when Penny asked her question. “Do you know that man?”
“Demon Damon. A man who does not like to be crossed.”
Penny drew in a full and shaky breath. “I wonder what was stolen from him.”
Samuel shrugged. “With his kind, the item isn’t important. Diamonds or food scraps, whatever it was belonged to the Demon. And he does not share.”
Penny nodded and he was gratified to feel the tension in her arm release. She was feeling calmer.
“Better?” he asked, absurdly needing to hear her reassure him.
“Yes. I was merely startled.”
She’d been a great deal more than that. Him as well. But at least it was over.