The Lawrence Browne Affair

by Cat Sebastian

  When, two days later, Georgie climbed down from the stagecoach in Charing Cross, he was greeted by the odor of coal fire and a blanket of fog that bleached the city to the color of dust. Tired and disoriented from the long, uncomfortable journey from Cornwall, he somehow hadn’t expected it to be winter in London. He had missed all the good parts of autumn while he was at Penkellis, alphabetizing papers and falling in love.

  Georgie had always been careful not to let people at any shop or tavern get too used to the sight of him. Impermanence was almost as good as invisibility. He slipped in, he slipped out, and he didn’t retrace his footsteps for a good long while, lest anyone start to wonder why Gerard Turnbull looked so much like that rascal Geoffrey Tavistock and what either of them had to do with Georgie Turner.

  Today he would ignore his inclination towards secrecy and subterfuge, to say nothing of his instinct for self-preservation, and do his best to attract notice. He walked slowly eastward from Charing Cross, deliberately lingering near the busier thoroughfares and walking twice around some blocks. He arrived, cold and aching, at his destination: a coffee house on Wych Street that was frequented by people from all walks of life. If he sat there long enough, bareheaded and in plain view, somebody would recognize him. And then all he would have to do was wait.

  At a table near the door, he sipped his coffee, jarringly hot and bitter after so many weeks without it. Alert for a narrowed glance, a low whisper, a too-quick flash of movement, he had to remind himself that he wasn’t hiding, that he welcomed every stray gaze and curious look. The constant hum of chatter, the almost musical clinking of cup and saucer and spoon, seemed uncomfortably loud after the quiet of Penkellis. The swarm of people in and out of the coffee house and along the street outside was foreign and unsettling. He felt like he was seeing the world through Lawrence’s eyes; everything was loud and busy and fast, pregnant with danger.

  All the more reason to leave Lawrence in peace. By going to London, Georgie would keep Brewster from going to Penkellis. It was an old trick, doing something flashy and obvious to put a mark’s attention precisely where the confidence man wanted it. Georgie had known that principle before he knew his letters.

  There were more direct ways to attract Brewster’s notice. Georgie could have walked right up to the front door of Brewster’s house, a nondescript building in Whitechapel. Or he could have gone to the old warehouse Brewster’s gang used as a place of business. But those methods made it too convenient for one of Brewster’s men to kill Georgie behind closed doors, dispose of his body, and call it a day’s work. Georgie might be reckless, but he wasn’t suicidal.

  He finished his coffee and ordered another.

  All told, it took four hours before he felt a tap on his shoulder, an ominous pressure between his shoulder blades.

  He forced out a slow breath, striving for a semblance of calm. He shot a look out of the corner of his eye and saw enough of his assailant to know it wasn’t Mattie but one of his men.

  “I thought for sure he’d want to talk to me,” Georgie murmured, too low to be overheard by the other patrons. “I won’t have much to say if you do anything drastic with that knife, friend.”

  “He doesn’t want to talk.” Georgie recognized the voice as belonging to Tom Vance, a man who unloaded cargo from ships and made sure some of it disappeared. They had worked together only once, when Georgie helped dispose of a stolen crate of silks. “He offered twenty pounds for your body. Dead body, Turner.” Tom stood behind Georgie’s chair, bending companionably to Georgie’s ear, the knife concealed between their bodies. Georgie darted a look around the coffee house. Tom had come alone. “Twenty pounds,” Tom repeated, as if daring Georgie to argue with him for valuing a spot of murder as well worth the sum.

  “Seems a waste,” Georgie said blandly, without turning his head. “I earned him hundreds of pounds last year alone.” If he could only persuade Tom to bring Mattie here or somewhere else too public for bloodshed, then Georgie could do what he did best. He could lie and connive and somehow bring Mattie around. Somehow.

  Failing that, he was going to run like hell. Every bone in his body told him to run now, now, before that knife made the decision for him.

  “That was before you nearly got the lot of us transported. Damn it, Georgie. We thought you had scarpered. You ought to have, damn it.” There was regret in Tom’s voice, but the blade on Georgie’s back didn’t drop. “He can’t let you caper about the city after that trick you pulled. Otherwise it makes it too easy for any of us to turn our backs on one another the next time we get picked up. And you know it.” He was right. Georgie knew it. He always had. “Why the hell did you come back?”

  Georgie took a sip of coffee, forcing his hands to remain steady despite the audible scratch of steel against the wool of his coat. “Take me to him, Tom. I’ll talk to him, make him see it my way. And then he’ll be grateful to you for—”

  “Not this time, Georgie.”

  There was a silence that stretched out too long. Georgie understood that Tom was trying to figure out what to do next. Stab Georgie in the middle of the coffee house and let the chips fall where they did? Drag Georgie outside and stab him in the nearest alley? Bring him somewhere more convenient for murder? Georgie didn’t wait to find out.

  With a single movement, he pushed his table over, moving with it as it fell. That put a healthy distance between his back and the knife and caused enough confusion for Georgie to slip out the door without a backwards glance.

  Spending three days in a carriage was a hellish prospect, but Lawrence needed to get to London. Even thinking about it, he felt his chest constrict and a wave of heat spread across his skin. He had to remind himself that this miserable state was temporary, not the prelude to a permanent state of madness. It didn’t feel the least bit temporary, though. It felt like doom itself, and Lawrence desperately wanted to retreat to his study.

  Instead, he cleared his throat and attempted a casual tone. “Simon, how would you like to go to London?”

  The boy looked up eagerly from the game of cards he was playing with Courtenay near the hearth. “With you?”

  “Yes, I have a small matter of business I need to conduct in person, but after that we can visit Astley’s Amphitheatre.” Filled with people, noise, and animals, visiting Astley’s was an objectively terrible idea, and it wasn’t even the most unpleasant task he’d face in London. “I’ve never been.”

  “May I visit Astley’s?” Courtenay asked, affecting an air of hopeful innocence.

  Simon clapped his hands together, an expression of undiluted merriment on his face. Lawrence was simultaneously jealous of the child’s affection and reluctantly glad the two seemed to get on so well. “Oh yes, Father,” Simon said. “Please can Uncle Courtenay come too?”

  Lawrence went rigid. Simon had never before called him Father. He wasn’t Simon’s father, and from what he gathered, the child knew it. Which, paradoxically, gave the term that much more meaning. He felt a warm rush of pride and happiness that nearly displaced his anxious fear.

  Lawrence grunted his assent. Of course he would agree to anything Simon asked.

  Courtenay smirked, the insolent bastard. “I have some business in London as well,” he said. “Some loose ends that need to be tied up before I return to the Continent.”

  So it was settled. Lady Standish and Lord Courtenay worked out the details between themselves, and early the next morning Lawrence found himself packed into the Standish carriage along with Simon and Lady Standish. Courtenay was to ride alongside while Medlock would return home by post chaise.

  Lawrence moved as if in a fog, allowing himself to be bundled in a blanket like an invalid, a hot brick placed beneath his feet.

  As the carriage began to roll, Lawrence squeezed his eyes shut. It had been years since he had been in a carriage, since he had been anywhere farther than Penkellis’s borders. But this was what he needed to do to make sure Georgie was safe, so he’d do it.

  He felt a light
touch on his arm and looked down to see Lady Standish’s gloved hand resting on the sleeve of his coat. “Is there anything I ought to know?” she murmured. “Any way to make this less unpleasant? I gather that there must be a pressing reason for you to make this trip, and if I can help in any way, you must know that I’ll be only too glad to help.” Lady Standish was no fool and didn’t need to be told that Lawrence’s venturing any further than the garden gate was a major event.

  Lawrence nodded. “Thank you.” He tried to imagine what Georgie would do, what measures he would invent to make Lawrence feel more at home, less in the wilderness of confusion and nerves. “If you could see to it that I have bread and ham when we stop for supper, perhaps?” It sounded childish, pathetic.

  “Of course,” Lady Standish said briskly, as if nothing were amiss. This, Lawrence reminded himself, was friendship.

  As the carriage drove past the Penkellis gates, Lawrence absently dropped his hand to his side, unconsciously reaching for Barnabus, who, of course, wasn’t there. No Barnabus, no Georgie, no familiar places or things.

  He tried to put his rising anxiety to the side. He couldn’t conquer it, so perhaps he could ignore it. Or, at least, exist alongside it for as long as he needed to get to London and ensure that Georgie was safe. As soon as he knew that Georgie hadn’t foolishly delivered himself part and parcel to the man who wanted to kill him, then Lawrence would go back to Penkellis and hole up in his study for the rest of his life.

  “Look!” Simon called, his voice alive with excitement. “Tell the coachman to stop!”

  “Oh, dear,” Lady Standish clucked. “We’ll have to bring him back to the house. Otherwise, the poor creature will jog alongside us until he becomes quite exhausted.”

  Lawrence opened his eyes and peered out the window. There, running beside the carriage, was Barnabus. He rapped on the roof. “Stop!” Once the carriage had come to a stand, he unlatched the door and patted his knee. Barnabus promptly jumped into the already cramped carriage and settled himself on the floor on top of Lawrence’s feet.

  “Well,” Lady Standish said. “That’s loyalty, I suppose.”

  “More like he’s never seen me step outside the house without him,” Lawrence countered. He felt the edge of his anxiety blunt a little bit, as he focused on the dog’s heavy weight on his feet, the rhythm of the sleeping animal’s breathing.

  He shut his eyes and slept.

  Prisons all smelled the same, like piss and illness, with a hint of blood and gin. It was the same odor as the gutters Georgie had come from, so in a way it felt only right that he ought to be here now, iron bars separating him from all the things he didn’t deserve—freedom, warmth, sunlight. Born in the rookery, dead on the gallows—it had a certain symmetry that to Georgie’s exhausted mind looked like justice. He was getting exactly what he deserved.

  He slumped against a damp, sticky wall. No sense being precious about his clothes anymore, was there? He couldn’t shut his eyes for more than a minute, because he knew enough not to sleep too deeply in the kind of company you found in a jail cell, but the next thing he knew, there was a man standing before him, nudging Georgie’s leg with his heavy, booted foot.

  “You. Turner,” the man said, continuing to prod even though Georgie’s eyes were open. “Up. The governor wants to talk to you.”

  Georgie got to his feet and brushed the dust off his trousers, even though they were beyond salvation after so much time on that little boat and even more on the stagecoach.

  “On with it,” the man insisted, impatient. “Haven’t got all day.”

  They went down a corridor and into a small cube of a room that held nothing more than a deal table and a couple of chairs. The single dirty window was covered in bars, affording no possibility of escape. Not that Georgie wanted to escape. He had, after all, come here on purpose.

  The door slammed behind him, and he was momentarily alone, the heavy oak blocking out the sounds of the prison beyond. He sat in one of the chairs, every joint in his body aching with fatigue. He shut his eyes, only opening them when the door slammed shut behind him.

  “What do we have here?” The man who entered the room was of middle age, slightly balding, wearing the sort of somber, nondescript clothing that Georgie would don to play the part of a clerk. He consulted a paper that he held in his hand. “Smythe says you tried to turn yourself in, saying you know something about the Brewster gang and confessing to—well, that’s quite a list, isn’t it?”

  “You aren’t a magistrate,” Georgie said, his voice sounding thick and remote.

  “Lord, no.” The clerk seemed amused by the notion. “Can’t bother the judges with every lunat—ah, helpful fellow who comes in off the streets. Tell me what you know, and I’ll make sure that it gets passed on to the right people.”

  After all this, they weren’t going to listen to him? And what if the right people included Mattie Brewster, who must have an informant in Newgate? Georgie would have laughed if he weren’t too tired to force out the sound. “I’m George Turner. I worked for Mattie Brewster for almost ten years. I know the password to speak to him. I can give you details about the Herriot case and the Landsdowne forgeries. I played a principal role in both. I’m confessing to larceny, forgery—”

  “Steady now, Mr. Turner,” the man said, smiling patiently.

  “George Turner. I’ve been in Newgate before, for God’s sake. I was ten years old the first time I was arrested.” He had stolen a lady’s reticule. After shedding a few tears and telling the magistrate a pretty story, he had gotten off with a slap on the wrist and a shilling from the lady herself. He tried to tamp down his desperation and summon up some remnant of that crafty Georgie Turner who had outwitted and outlied thieves and thief takers alike.

  The trouble was, now that he actually wanted to tell the truth, to finally confess his sins and do something decent for a change, he didn’t know how to be persuasive.

  “The Brewster gang’s meeting place is the top story of a warehouse on Ironmonger Lane. Knock twice, and when they open the door, say you’re there to see the old codger about a pot of prawns.” Georgie had come up with that himself, and for a few days it had been highly diverting to hear everyone who entered Mattie’s inner sanctum—lords and ladies, ruffians and penny whores—utter such a stupid, commonplace phrase. After a while the joke had staled, but Mattie hadn’t bothered to change the password.

  “A pot of prawns, yes indeed, my lad. I’ll get right to it. How about you stay here while I do just that.”

  Georgie bit back a groan. If this didn’t pan out, he didn’t have another plan. Attempting to talk to Brewster hadn’t worked, so Georgie had resorted to ruining him. He had thought that by giving evidence against Brewster, he’d protect the people he loved. If Brewster were in prison, he couldn’t go to Penkellis and harm Lawrence, nor could he harass Jack and Sarah.

  The only catch was that Georgie, too, would be in prison. Or worse.

  When the clerk left, the door bolted firmly behind him, Georgie slumped in his chair and tried to rest. He couldn’t have said how long passed before the door opened again.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  Georgie jerked to attention. In the doorway stood his brother, wearing a grim expression.

  “Jack, what are you—”

  “I could ask you the same. You realize that once they realize you weren’t lying, they’re going to try to pin every unsolved racket onto you. Damn it, Georgie.” He slapped his hat onto the table and slumped into the chair across from Georgie.

  Of course Jack had found him. He had people all over London whispering in his ear.

  Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Sarah will be worried sick, you know.”

  Georgie had known Jack long enough to understand that this was code for I’m worried. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could have stayed in Cornwall, or gone to Paris, or gone anywhere else on earth, for God’s sake, Georgie.”

  “I didn’t want B
rewster to hunt me down in Cornwall.”

  “Ah, so you came here to make it easy on him? To give him a sporting chance?”

  “No,” Georgie said slowly, weighing whether to confide in his brother. Oh, hell, he didn’t have much to lose at this point. “I was worried that he’d harm Radnor.”

  Jack’s eyes flew open, and an expression of bewildered shock flickered across his face for the briefest instant, before his features resumed an even grimmer expression than before. “Ah, fuck me. Wasn’t expecting that.”

  If Georgie were even a little less tired, he would have laughed at his brother’s confusion. As it was, he huffed out a sound that was more like a feeble wheeze. “Nor was I.”

  “So you’re here to get yourself hanged so Mattie doesn’t go near your fellow.”

  “Getting hanged wasn’t in my original plans,” Georgie said dryly.

  Jack drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I’ll go to Mattie and warn him. That way if Bow Street decides to check up on your story, they won’t find anything. They’ll think you’re a lunatic or that you’re mad for attention. We’ll get you out of prison and then figure out Brewster afterwards.”

  “But what about Lawrence?”

  “Bugger your Lawrence. He’s an earl. He can fend for himself. Besides, Mattie’s going to be pretty clear on the fact that you aren’t in Cornwall. He won’t have any reason to go there.”

  “What about you and Sarah?” Georgie felt a wash of hot shame sweep over him as he admitted to his brother that he had put him and their sister in danger.

  “I can take care of myself. As soon as Sarah got back in town, I stationed one of my men outside her shop, and so far Brewster hasn’t shown up.”

  That was hardly reassuring, and they both knew it. Especially now that Brewster knew Georgie had returned. So much for this plan, Georgie thought. Now he was going to molder in prison while Brewster did as he pleased. And if he did get set free, he had only one recourse: he’d have to go directly to Brewster.