Archie turned his attention to his own company.
Across the table from him, Nimble appeared preoccupied with the framed seascape hanging on the far wall. Lupton drank and rambled from subject to subject. Lilly and Gina shepherded his gossip away from any real scandals and covered his gaffes with jokes and gentle flirtation. Archie warmed to the two of them greatly for that. Charles played his hands poorly and shifted in his seat so often that Archie wondered if he’d become afflicted by piles.
Archie limited himself to winning only every third hand. He found Gina and Lilly delightful conversationalists, though twice Nimble took it on himself to kick Archie under the table.
After an hour, Silas’s spy contrived to spill a little of her sherry on Charles’s sleeve. She apologized and fluttered around Charles quite believably. Charles made a stiff show of excusing himself to clean up, and then slunk back to Silas’s table. Nimble arched a brow at Charles’s retreat and Lupton shook his head sadly.
“Don’t think too badly of him,” Lupton said. “He gets jumpy now and then. Been that way ever since the war, you know.”
“He served?” Nimble asked.
“Oh yes! Charles and I were both cavalry. He got thrown early on, poor fellow. Ended up in some god-awful hospital, which the Nornians overran right away, of course.” Lupton’s expression turned almost bleak for a moment, and then he took a long drink of his brandy. “A Prodigal nurse stayed to tend him and the other wounded. Charlie swears that she was the only reason he survived, and the reason he started this club.”
“Nurse Fuggas?” Archie asked, because her name was in his mind; he’d been thinking that she was the right look and age to be Pugg’s sister. Now he recalled that she’d served in the war, as well.
“Yes. Well, no, not the Nurse Fuggas who works here now,” Lupton replied. “Her younger sister, Lucia. Prettiest thing you ever saw. Died before the war ended. Don’t know that Charles ever got over that, really….”
There was a quiet at the table. Both Lilly and Gina opened their mouths to speak, but Lupton went on in a lighter tone.
“Myself, I only saw action twice. Lost my horse to shelling both times. Then our regiment was ordered off to sunny Applebrooke to amuse the local milkmaids and put on parades to buoy public morale. Meanwhile, our infantry—” Lupton cut himself off as he looked to Archie and then Nimble. “Well, I don’t have to tell either of you, do I?”
Archie shook his head.
“Cavalry wouldn’t have fared well at Sollum, in any case.” Nimble took another card. Queen of hearts, if Archie’s count was correct, which set him up with four of a kind. “Wouldn’t have been enough cover or feed for the horses,” Nimble went on. “Certainly no point in sacrificing men and animals in direct charges against those Nornian guns. The only way for it was to make them come up after us and then knock them back down the hill. We just had to keep doing it until they had nothing left.”
“I suppose so.” Lupton swirled his brandy. “Still, I can’t help but feel like there should have been something more we could have done. Other than bother milkmaids.”
“I’m sure you amused parlor maids and goose girls, as well,” Lilly suggested. “You were certainly wiser to spend time entertaining them than wasting your pay for a clap from a Gold Street seamstress, I’d say.”
Archie smiled at her play of words, Nimble inclined his head as if awarding the woman a point on some invisible scoreboard, and Lupton laughed. They all turned their attention back to the cards. Archie won the hand, and Nimble gazed at him as if pondering whether he wanted to make the next round a challenge.
Then Charles returned. He appeared more agitated than before and more intent that they should all depart for a different club. Maybe slum it at the Crone’s Crib. Archie had no intention of padding along to whatever dark corner Silas had prepared for him, and he was also past tired of the Dee Club.
“Kind as your offer is, Charles, I’m afraid I must decline. My bed calls with her siren song.”
“I ought to be on my way, as well.” Nimble, too, stood and added in a stage whisper, “I’m hoping to prevail upon the most generous Viscount Fallmont to offer me a jaunt in his carriage. Certainly his four-in-hand offers a far more handsome conveyance than my own two-on-foot.”
Even Charles smiled at Nimble’s turn of phrase, though it was a tired smile.
“If he won’t give you a ride, Mr. Hobbs,” Gina said with a wink, “I’m sure there’s one or two others here who will.”
Archie caught her eye, recognized the friendliness in her expression, and didn’t bother to pretend to take offense. Charles, on the other hand, seemed disturbed and spent nearly a minute offering to lend Nimble use of his carriage and, failing that, the comfort of his personal rooms at the club.
“I won’t be staying, so you could certainly sleep there for the night….”
Even Lupton—inebriated as he must have been after so much brandy—gave Charles a quizzical look. Nimble simply smiled and repeated that he was flattered but wouldn’t want to take advantage.
Archie put an end to it by gathering his winnings and starting for the door. “Coming, Mr. Hobbs?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Right behind you, my lord,” Nimble replied. “Lead on!”
Outside the club it was dark but not too quiet. The river roared and ships’ bells sounded. Bats chased insects around distant streetlamps, and black clouds of coal smoke billowed from a multitude of industrious chimneys.
Archie nearly took the first loud crack he heard for a machine misfiring in one of the waterfront factories. But the whistling force that ripped his tall hat from his head was too familiar for him to mistake it for anything but a gunshot. He dove to the ground, taking cover beneath a cherry tree. The second bullet splintered the branch just above him. Pale petals fluttered in the air. A third report tore through the night, and Nimble’s weight fell across him. A wet heat dribbled down the side of Archie’s neck, and the sharp citric tang of Prodigal blood seemed to fill his lungs.
Nimble had been shot.
Rage surged through Archie, and he struggled to stand and charge back into the Dee Club. He was going to beat the life out of the bastard who’d harmed Nimble. He’d gut the fucker.
Nimble jerked him back down and lay over him like a steel beam pinning him against the damp grass. “Stay down, damn it,” Nimble hissed.
Archie did as ordered, out of reflex more than reason.
They both lay still, listening. A cacophony of alarmed voices rose from the club. Archie felt certain he heard someone slam a window shut. Had the assassin slipped outside to hunt them on foot? He strained to hear the whisper of steps coming across the grass.
A ship’s horn sounded. Archie freed one hand enough to wipe the rivulet of Nimble’s blood from his neck. He could feel Nimble’s heart beating as fast as his own, but he didn’t shift a muscle, and Archie couldn’t make out his face in the dark.
“How badly are you hit, can you tell?” Archie asked in a whisper.
“A scrape. My lovely tailcoat is likely ruined, though. You?”
“Lost my hat. Still have my head.”
Again, voices rose loudly enough to carry through the thick walls of the Dee Club. More windows groaned open, though this time the figures who leaned out held lamps before them and seemed to be searching for anyone moving across the grounds.
“Half that rabbit warren is up and looking for our sharpshooter now,” Nimble murmured. He lifted himself from off Archie. “The Inquisition will be on their way soon enough.”
Inquisitors would treat a man like Nimble as a menace and a miscreant even when he was the one bleeding from a bullet wound. Archie wasn’t so naive as to imagine otherwise. As much as he wanted to return to the Dee Club and hunt down the coward who’d fired on them, he knew Nimble’s safety took priority. They could not afford to stay here. Still, he felt a powerful urge to storm back into the Dee Club and pound the life from his uncle with his own fists, all the more so because it was Ni
mble whom he’d injured. And in a dim corner of his heart, Archie knew it was his fault. The shots must have been intended for him.
The doors of the club swung open. A butler and several sturdy footmen held up phosphorous green storm lanterns and peered out. Then Charles shoved them aside and strode to the stairs. He stilled, staring into the dark with a haunted expression. An instant later Lupton followed him and called, “Archibald? Mr. Hobbs? Gentlemen, are you injured?”
“Not a bit!” Nimble shouted back. Neither he nor Archie made any move to step into the light. In fact, they both crept deeper into the shadows of the cherry trees. “We heard quite the racket in there. Whatever was the matter?” Nimble inquired, and it reminded Archie of the way he had used to shout jokes across to the Nornian infantry at night.
“It seems…. Well, I’m told someone thought it would be jolly fun to shoot at passing bats from one of the windows,” Lupton replied. He peered intently around him. “You’re certain you’re both all right? Archibald? You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“We’re fine.” Archie forced a cheer he couldn’t possibly feel into his voice.
He didn’t think he was mistaken when he read relief on both Charles’s and Lupton’s faces. But that didn’t undo the fact that Charles had played some part in arranging this ambush; it only meant that he would have been a little sorry if it had succeeded. But he was clearly not overjoyed that it had failed either.
“Now, gentlemen, I and the local bats bid you a very good night,” Archie called as he snatched up his battered silk hat.
Chapter Six: Fever Ship
“JUST CALM down,” Nimble said.
Archie thought it was the fifth time in the last hour. He paced the confines of the clean little room of the Briar Hotel, still too agitated to take the chair Nimble had offered. Instead he glowered at the blue pinstriped wallpaper and then stole another glance to the bed.
Nimble stretched out on the duvet, stripped to his flimsy undergarments and holding Archie’s dove gray hat in his right hand. Silk bandages, which Archie had ripped from two clean dress shirts, swathed his left shoulder and his chest. His bloodstained coat, waistcoat, and shirt lay in a heap alongside the wet washcloths Archie had used to clean the long, shallow wound, then staunch the flow of all that hot scarlet blood. A powerful citric tang still scented the air.
Archie looked away from the stained masses of cloth. He’d witnessed far worse and endured far worse, but the fact that it was Nimble’s blood drying to sour brown stains somehow shook him beyond reason.
“The shots came from a very steep angle. Possibly the roof….” Nimble studied the hole torn through the brim of Archie’s hat. “Or the third floor, maybe?”
Archie stilled. For the first time, he noticed that several petals still clung to the black curls of Nimble’s hair. They lent him the look of one of those paintings of some half-dressed, carefree demigod lounging in a woodland meadow.
“The third floor is Agatha Wedmoor’s private rooms and salon,” Archie said.
“Your girl’s a good shot if it was her,” Nimble responded.
“We both know it was Silas.” Archie returned to pacing. Something had to be done about his uncle. Something more immediate than watching him slowly lose all his possessions and power. Archie should have damn well just shot him years ago when he’d first sauntered up to Archibald’s casket at the funeral service.
“It might have been done on his orders, but he couldn’t have come so near his mark, shooting in the dark. Unless he’s got Prodigal eyes, he’d never have been able to see you or me.”
“Neither would Agatha Wedmoor,” Archie replied offhand. “Though my uncle definitely has a hold over her and her brother. I’m pretty certain that he’s blackmailing them using that girl Phebe. It would ruin Agatha if it was disclosed that she’d had an illegitimate daughter by a Prodigal lover.”
“Of that I have no doubt. What I’m not convinced of is that we should assume those shots in the dark were your uncle’s doing. Or even at his behest. There were plenty of other people in that club.”
“I don’t think I could’ve made another enemy at the club so quickly,” Archie objected.
“Not you, my bantling. Me,” Nimble responded, and again he ran his thumb over the brim of Archie’s silk hat. “I’d been poking around the perimeter of the Dee Club’s activities for a good nine months before Thom came to me. And I just spent the last ten days slapping a veritable hornet’s nest, asking directly after people who someone in that club wants gone and forgotten.”
“Yes, but to shoot….” Archie considered Nimble’s suggestion and reasoning. Someone who’d already committed a dozen murders wasn’t likely to shy away from one or two more.
The relief he felt at the thought that he’d not brought this down on Nimble dissipated with the realization that someone completely unknown to them could be plotting Nimble’s death right now.
“You really believe they were firing at you?” Archie asked.
“I’m not certain one way or the other.” Nimble tossed Archie’s hat to the foot of the bed. “But it strikes me as telling that this didn’t happen until I showed my face. You came and went from the club for a full week without provoking as much as a warning shot, yeah?”
“Well, Silas did try to give me the heave that once.”
“On the sly, sure. But he’s not exactly bold. And that was bold as balls, opening fire in a building with a good hundred witnesses wandering all around.”
“True.” Archie’s gaze again fell on Nimble’s beautiful, ruined coat. “But I don’t think he realized until now how completely I’ve cornered his assets. He’s got to be desperate.”
“No doubt about that.” Nimble frowned. “If I’d known that he was a member, I wouldn’t have asked you to get me into the Dee Club. I’m sorry for putting you there.”
“Don’t be, old boot. It’s none of it your fault.” Archie stilled beside the chair. He was exhausted but didn’t feel like sitting. “I’m actually glad to be doing something for you. Relieved to have a purpose in my life that isn’t just propping up a facade of Archibald.”
“Well, if you truly wish to do me a favor, come lay with me and keep me warm, yeah?” Nimble extended his empty right hand. Archie went to him, took his hand, and carefully lay down at Nimble’s side. Nimble sighed and closed his eyes. Archie felt the tight cords of Nimble’s body relax against him. He wasn’t asleep—Archie knew as much from the many other nights he’d lain with Nimble. He was thinking and listening.
Subdued noises of the city night drifted around them. A few drunks, not too far away, sang about distant islands, dangerous waters, and wanton mermaids. Their voices faded, and Archie guessed they were stumbling home together.
Archie gazed at Nimble’s profile and felt foolish that a face he’d seen countless times could still hold him enrapt. There were more handsome men in the world, even ones Archie had bedded. But simply lying beside any one of them never brought him this feeling of happiness and fascination. Of course none of them ever owned his soul either, Archie reminded himself.
“You have cherry blossoms in your hair,” Archie said.
Nimble smiled and cracked his eyes open. “So do you,” he replied. “They’re rather fetching. You really should wear more color.” But his attention wasn’t focused on Archie. He studied the ceiling above them. White plaster rosettes dotted a robin’s-egg blue expanse like clouds filling an afternoon sky. Archie remembered the skylight in the library at the Dee Club. That must have cost a fortune.
“I bet that nurse Fuggas can see well enough in the dark,” Nimble said. “You mentioned that she was three years in the war, so it’s not too hard to imagine her learning to handle a pistol as well as a scalpel.”
“It does beg the question of why she’d take the chance, though,” Archie added.
“That it does.”
Archie pondered what little he knew of the nurse, Pugg, and that mysterious sister who’d died. He took a moment to tell Nimble
what he’d discovered of the connection between Nurse Fuggas and Pugg. While they both found it all suspicious, the information didn’t lead them to any new conclusions. Archie found himself considering the accusation Thom had made.
“Any truth to Thom’s idea of illicit potions brewed from Prodigal blood?” Archie asked. It seemed a far reach.
“Not in that quarter. The Butcher Street Crone has the business pretty well sewn up,” Nimble answered without any sign of alarm. “They’re mostly rat blood and chicken bits. Occasionally someone who crosses the Crone ends up bottled, but not too often.”
“Remind me not to cross her, then.”
“You and me too.”
A quiet spread between them. Archie lightly rested his hand on Nimble’s abdomen. His skin felt hot, but his gaze remained focused above them. Archie wondered just how devastating it had to feel to have marched under open blue skies, only to be returned to the dank, dripping caverns of Hells Below.
“If you could do whatever you pleased, go wherever you wanted, what would you do?” Archie asked.
Nimble looked to him and held his gaze for a few moments, but then he shook his head and gave a dry laugh. “That’s too big a question for me to even think on, Archie.” Nimble sighed heavily. “No Prodigal can afford to dream like that. It would just break our hearts, because in the end, we ain’t going anywhere and we don’t have no choices, do we?”
“The painter Sykes got out of the city,” Archie replied. “There have to have been others.”
“Sure. The pets of noblemen, but that’s not freedom. It’s just peddling your ass for a bigger cage.”
“I have a hard time imagining old Lord Foster going in for any ass, much less the aged Prodigal variety that Sykes might offer.”
Devil Take Me Page 28