by Gaelen Foley
“Well, I’ll be damned. He’s a live one, all right.”
“Pick him up.”
“O’Dell was right—Blade is alive!”
“Not for long.”
Someone spat very near him; then rough hands on each side of him grasped him by the arms and heaved him to his feet. With blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, Rackford lifted his chin and found himself eye to eye with Tyburn Tim, O’Dell’s right-hand man.
“Hullo, Blade. You look diff’rent. Aw, ye cut yer pretty hair. O’Dell’s gonna cut your throat.”
His only answer was an icy stare.
A cruel smile spread slowly across Tim’s face. “Cocky as ever. Well, we knew we’d get you one o’ these nights.” Tim punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. “That’s for Jones, you bastard.”
While he struggled to absorb the blow, the men holding his arms jerked him upright again at Tim’s curt nod.
“Bring him.”
He was half dragged, half carried next door into the headquarters, where they threw him into a storage room on the first floor and locked him in. Two stayed behind to guard him while Tyburn Tim left to fetch O’Dell.
His head throbbing, he dragged himself up slowly off of the floor with a silent groan of pain. He moved up onto his hands and knees, then sat back on his haunches while the world wove dizzily. God, what had they hit him with? He could feel the warm ooze of his blood trickling down the back of his neck from the blow to his head. Guess I got careless. Or merely arrogant. He hadn’t thought O’Dell was clever enough to discover how he had been sneaking in, but one thing was crystal clear despite his dazed wits. If he didn’t get out of here, he was dead. Rackford reached for his knife, preparing to defend himself, then realized grimly that they had succeeded in disarming him.
Standing a few feet away, one of his guards held up his lucky knife, taunting him with it. “Guess you’re just plain old Billy now—eh, Blade?”
Rackford cast a baleful look around the storeroom, trying to orient himself. He knew the storage room was situated off of the warehouse, not far from the loading dock and the few back steps where he had brought Jacinda in the night he had found her. As a matter of fact…
His gaze snagged upon the floorboards in the center of the room. By barest chance, he recalled that this room, too, held a thief’s trapdoor. He remembered because Eddie had once popped up merrily through the floor and interrupted him in the middle of enjoying the favors of a juicy lass whose name at the moment eluded him.
If he could do something about his two guards, he could slip down to the clammy, packed-earth foundations under the building and escape in a trice. The thought of running from Cullen O’Dell filled him with loathing, but he was unarmed and wounded; if he could not fight, he had to flee.
Just then, the door opened. Rackford looked up, but instead of Tyburn Tim returning with O’Dell, young Oliver Strayhorn prowled cautiously into the room. He was a newer member of the Jackals gang, a tall, lean, serious-looking lad with black hair and hazel eyes. Rackford’s pair of guards stopped their jeering and sobered at the young man’s entrance.
Rackford had heard that Strayhorn was gathering the other men’s confidence with his intelligence and natural ability as a leader.
Strayhorn approached him with measured paces. “So, you’re the great Blade. At last we meet.”
He said nothing.
“I have heard a lot about you.”
“None of it good, I’m sure.”
Strayhorn passed an assessing glance over his face. “Quite the contrary. You ran the largest gang north of the Thames. You created it.”
He nodded. The Fire Hawks had been the result of several merged gangs, including his own former organization, the Tomahawks, and the Firedrakes of Clerkenwell.
“Even those closest to O’Dell admit that you knew how to make money,” Strayhorn remarked, studying him.
“Aye, takes time,” he conceded with a nod, trying to focus despite his throbbing head. “And nerve, and a little ingenuity. That’s all. What of you? Aren’t you among those closest to O’Dell?”
Strayhorn’s wary eyes flickered. He shook his head in a subtle negative to Rackford’s question. An old proverb came at once to mind: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Perhaps he and Strayhorn could be of use to each other.
Without further remark, the tall, lanky young man rose again and left the room, casting Rackford a shrewd, parting nod before pulling the door shut behind him. Though he suspected that Strayhorn had gone to see what he could do to help him, Rackford knew all too well that the law of the rookery was to look out for oneself first. He had no intention of trusting his fate to either Strayhorn’s scheming or O’Dell’s mercy, for the man had none. He had to get out of here now.
Furtively sliding his hand along the seam between the floorboards, he felt one of the boards give slightly. It was thick and weathered, only resting in place, not nailed down. It would prove a handy weapon as well as an escape hatch, he thought, eyeing his guards.
He lured them closer with a faint plea for water. They neared him, grinning.
“You want something to drink, you bloody bastard?” One started unhitching his trousers. “I’ll give you—”
With a sudden heave, Rackford brought the board up and swung it at them, knocking both men’s legs out from under them. The image of Jacinda’s face bloomed in his mind, filling him with new strength. He hit one a second time with the board to make sure he stayed down, kicked the other in the stomach, then tore back the other three floorboards and jumped down the narrow chute, landing agilely on the old, clammy flagstones. Before his guards recovered, he dashed out from under the building and raced across the street into the labyrinth of the rookery.
In moments, he heard the Jackals coming after him. His head pounded in time with his running footsteps on the cobblestones; his breathing thundered harshly in the night’s stillness.
He did not glance back. He heard them chasing him—six, seven pairs of footsteps, hollering voices, but only one he recognized for sure.
O’Dell.
“Find him! Follow him! Find out where he’s going! I’ll get you, Blade, you son of a bitch!”
He careened around a corner and kept on running, but the exertion was making the gash on the back of his head bleed faster. With each step he felt more nauseated and light-headed. Fearful that he was on the verge of blacking out, he grasped the door of an old shed crammed between two of the buildings he passed and stumbled inside, pulling the door shut silently behind him. Rackford crumpled against the wall, trying to silence his loud, ragged breathing as he heard the Jackals running past.
“Check down there! Come on; we’ll head this way!”
They split up, two sets of footsteps going off in two separate directions, but Rackford knew they had not gone far. God, that was close. They would be back—and he was too weak in that moment even to defend himself. Slowly sliding down the wall, he sat on the hard floor and closed his eyes, the sweat standing out cold on his face. The moment’s rest felt blissful at first, but then, it all caught up to him in a wave of sickening pain. His head was positively throbbing. He forced himself to his feet again with a grimace.
After his moment’s respite, he eased the door open a couple of inches and saw that the street was empty. Gathering up what remained of his stamina, he slipped out of the shed and alternated between jogging and walking the rest of the way back to his father’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Nate, old friend, he thought as he collapsed on his bed some time later, I could have used your help tonight. Without bothering to change out of his bloodied clothes, he closed his eyes and let the darkness claim him.
The next morning, he awoke in the middle of the day feeling as if a herd of elephants had stampeded over him. His body was stiff and sore. He felt achy and bruised all over. His abdomen hurt where they had kicked him repeatedly. Pain throbbed from the large knot on the back of his head, but thankfully, the wound h
ad closed. He would have damned well liked to know what they had hit him with.
He ordered coffee and sandwiches instead of his usual large breakfast and took a long bath, rinsing the matted blood out of his hair. Every atom of his body longed for Jacinda and her soft, caring touch.
In truth, he was more shaken by his failure than he cared to admit, and rather humiliated, to boot. Recalling the fight with his father that had driven him to the rookery last night to vent his ire, he learned from Filbert that Truro had left this morning for Cornwall, taking Mother with him.
Satisfied that at least he had put his bullying father in his place, he drowsed in the nickel-plated bathing tub until the headache powder took effect.
Feeling closer to normal, though still beaten and weary, he got dressed and wasted no more time in going to Jacinda. One smile from her could cure whatever ailed him.
He drove his curricle to Knight House more slowly than usual to avoid the jarring ruts in the road, pondering as he went how he was going to explain his cuts and bruises.
Maybe you ought just to tell her the truth, his conscience offered, but he brushed it off. He’d think of something.
Mr. Walsh let him in, as usual. Rackford took off his hat and greeted the butler, but the moment he stepped over the threshold into the white marble entrance hall, Jacinda’s sweet voice called to him from above.
“Rackford! Oh, thank heavens you’re here!”
He looked up and saw her peering down at him over the banister at the top of the grand curved staircase. Her face was flushed, her curls disheveled, and he instantly forgot his assorted aches and pains as he realized that something was very wrong.
Tears filled her eyes as she rushed down the steps.
He stalked swiftly toward her. “What is it?”
She did not answer, but dashed across the entrance hall and flung her arms around his waist with a small sob, holding him tightly.
“Sweeting, what’s the matter?” he murmured as his arms went around her protectively.
Mr. Walsh cleared his throat in disapproval, but Jacinda ignored him.
“Oh, Billy, it’s finally happened—the most awful thing.”
“What’s happened, darling?” he demanded, lifting her chin with his fingertips to look into her eyes. Her apple cheeks were wet with tears.
“It’s Lizzie,” she choked out. “Alec has done the most abominable thing.”
“Good God, tell me what’s occurred—”
“Come—I’ll explain on the way. We must go to her.” She took his arm, turning toward the grand, sweeping staircase that led up to the mansion’s main floor. “I’ve never seen her like this before,” she confided anxiously as they walked up the curved stairs.
“She’s hysterical, packing her things. She says she’s leaving, and I think she means it. Maybe you can calm her down,” she said anxiously. “You know how fond she is of you.”
“Of course, I will do my best to help.”
She rested her head against his arm. “You are so good. I am desperate to tell Robert what’s happened, but Lizzie has forbidden me to say a word.”
“Darling, what is it?” he asked, trying not to sound impatient.
She stopped and turned to him at the top of the stairs, searching his eyes. “You mustn’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not. I only want to help.” He rested his foot on the stair above and leaned against the banister.
“It’s Alec. The truth has all come out. He never broke his ankle in the course of some mad wager. The situation was much more serious than that, but Alec didn’t want to tell anyone that his losing streak at the tables was worse than he let on. When Robert cut him off to try to curb his gambling, it seems Alec turned to some low, cutthroat moneylender to cover his vowels. But when the time came for him to begin repaying the loan, he was still unable to meet the debt. He asked for an extension, but the moneylender would have none of it and sent his thugs out after him to collect. It was they who broke Alec’s ankle, to serve as a warning to him that if he didn’t pay up, next time it would cost him his life.”
Cold fury leaped into Rackford’s eyes at the injury to his friend and the way these men had upset Jacinda. “Do not be troubled, my lady. I will see to this matter in a trice. I’ve dealt with these dishonest Jerusalem chambers before. I know just how to handle these sharks—”
She stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. “Wait until you hear the rest of the story.” She pressed her hand to her forehead with a sigh. “Lord, I could wring Alec’s neck for not saying anything to Robert or the twins, but nothing galls him more than having to call on his big brothers to get him out of some scrape. He wasn’t even going to tell Lizzie the truth about his circumstances, but then he had to, because the night before last, while we were at the theater, she saw these men for herself. She heard them making threats against him. They came again demanding payment from Alec.”
“They came here?” he whispered furiously, blanching at the thought of the danger of that sort of criminal coming in so close to the girls and the duchess and little Morley.
Jacinda nodded. “Lizzie said they came up to the gates. She and Alec were sitting on the veranda playing whist when these rough-looking fellows approached and began harassing Alec through the bars. After he managed to get rid of them, Lizzie prevailed on him to explain. She was beside herself, for they were threatening his life. Only then did he break down and confide in her about his predicament.”
“I trust Miss Carlisle told His Grace at once?”
“No. Alec swore her to secrecy. Lizzie would never break a promise, especially to Alec. The next day—this was yesterday—she went to Robert and asked him to sign over to her all the money that had been left to her by her father. She told Robert she wanted to start the business she had been interested in for years—of buying old and rare books and restoring them to sell to collectors. She told him she was ready to make her first purchases of some musty old medieval manuscripts—something like that. At any rate, Robert interrogated her on her business plans. When he was satisfied with her responses, he signed over her inheritance to her, even though she is not officially entitled to it until she turns twenty-one in September. It’s a modest sum, but—” Her big, brown eyes filled with fresh tears. “Lizzie gave it all to Alec to repay his debt—to save his life.”
“He lost it at the tables?” he asked grimly.
“No. It seems, in the end, my brother didn’t have the heart to take her gift. At first, though, he did accept it. Lizzie said she gave it to him in the morning at about ten o’clock. He left to go repay his loan, but then he did not appear for twenty-four hours. He was just here, but he’s left again. He said, in the end, he couldn’t go through with it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Rackford murmured. It would have been the ultimate loss of honor for any man.
“But Alec gave her back her money? Did he find another way to repay the moneylender? Because I can help him—”
“Oh, he found a way, all right.” She paled and looked away.
“Jacinda?”
“Alec’s become—that is—” Her cheeks turned from pale to red.
“What is it, sweeting?”
Slowly, dolefully, she turned her gaze back to his. “Lady Campion has paid his debts,” she whispered.
“Oh, Rackford, this morning when Alec came to give Lizzie back her money, he told her right to her face that he had spent the night with the baroness and would be doing so for the foreseeable future!”
His eyes widened. “How did Lizzie take it?”
“She is destroyed,” she whispered.
He put his arms around her and pulled her to him as a small sob escaped her. Holding her for a moment, he caressed her arm, then pressed a gentle kiss to her curly head. “Come. Let us go and see her.”
Jacinda nodded with a sniffle. As she led him to Lizzie, Rackford mulled it over, wondering what, if anything, was to be done.
At least Alec had told Lizzie face-to-face, instead
of trying to conceal it or letting her find out some other way. As cruel as Alec’s blow had been, Rackford could easily understand how ashamed Lizzie’s gift must have made him feel—tangible evidence that he had indeed hit bottom.
Better to sacrifice what remained of his self-respect by becoming the willing male plaything of the rich, worldly baroness than to abandon all honor by taking advantage of an innocent girl’s selfless adoration and dragging her down into the bog with him.
“I suppose you should wait here,” Jacinda said as they came to another, smaller staircase. She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned away, her eyes redrimmed. “Our chambers are just up the stairs. I will try to coax her down.”
He nodded and waited while she hurried up the smaller set of stairs. He paced, hearing Jacinda’s pleading from above. He could hear Lizzie’s brief, impassioned shouts punctuated by heart-wrenching sobs.
“Please, Lizzie, come and see Rackford—”
“I can’t. I have to pack. Please give him my apologies.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“To visit Mrs. Hastings in York.” There was a brittle, jerky quality in Lizzie’s words that made Rackford’s heart ache; then her voice exploded into rage.
“I’ll start my rare book business! He’ll see. I’ll show him. And when I’m rich, he-he’ll come crawling on his knees to me, that—that male whore, and I’ll laugh in his face! Just you wait!” she wrenched out.
“Good God,” Rackford exclaimed under his breath.
Ignoring Jacinda’s caution, he took the stairs two at a time and walked into Lizzie’s chamber, only dimly registering the realization that Jacinda’s bedchamber was directly across the hallway.
“Hey, you,” he said softly to the pale, tearstained bluestocking.
Lizzie turned, saw him, and promptly succumbed to a fresh wave of grief-stricken tears. Rackford said nothing more, but walked over and hugged her, letting her have a good cry on his shoulder.
Jacinda came over to them and comforted her friend, as well.
“I wish I had never seen him! He is too highborn for me; I have known that all along,” she said through her tears. “He is a d-duke’s son, and I am only an estate manager’s daughter. I know why he always calls me ‘Bits.’ Because that’s how he sees me, s-small and insignificant. I am nothing to him; I never was. I should never have reached above my station—”