From under her coiled braid, a black button of a nose emerged, then a gray, pointed snout, then sneaky black eyes. Lips drew back, showing fangs, upper and lower. If it bit her, he’d strangle it. “It’s tearing holes in your dress, hanging on that way.”
“He’s excited. His life’s been replete with incident lately.” She spread her fingers and let the beady black nose explore between them. “It’s kind of unusual, the way he went for you. He doesn’t bite just anybody.”
“He doesn’t bite me either, if he knows what’s good for him. Why don’t you put that son of a . . . ferret where it won’t do any damage.”
Her smile widened. She’d enjoyed seeing him dance around, avoiding teeth. He didn’t begrudge her a little vengeance. The vermin sneered over the crook of her arm, clicking like a demented clock. She said, “He doesn’t fancy you, does he? They say animals always know.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Sees unplumbed depths of infamy in you, I expect.” One-handed, cuddling the ferret, she fumbled with the latch of the cage. The ferret ran down her arm, upended, and took a stand on a bit of rolled-up carpet, cursing, tail puffed out like an angry cat’s. “He seems nervous today. You would not believe how sensitive ferrets are.”
The door of the cage closed. Steel grated between ferret jaws as Jess’s sweet, sensitive pet tried to gnaw its way out. Death threats whirled behind its beady eyes.
He thinned his own lips back. You can be a fur muff by sundown, chum. He met the glare with one of his own.
The black paws scrubbed together in quick, tiny jerks. Then the vermin turned its back and began grooming itself. He and the ferret understood each other precisely.
“I let him loose down on the main floor after business hours.” Jess fiddled with the water dish, poking her finger through the bars. “He spends the night running through the freight stacks, terrorizing the cats. Kedger’s always in a good mood after a night rollicking around the warehouse.”
She pushed a strand of hair back from her face with a quick circling of her forefinger. It flowed down the shy crevice behind the shell of her ear, unwinding like dribbled honey.
She knew he’d come up close behind her. She was buzzing with annoyance inside, but he felt—he could almost smell— her awareness of him. She wanted him. Jess was a woman, with a woman’s knowledge. The heat in her wove through the air between them, to him, and back to her, tying them together.
He’d had lovers, wise and skillful women who’d used every secret of the courtesan’s art to arouse him. Jess did that with her smallest gesture, not even trying. She stayed absolutely still, with her back to him and her hand resting on top of the big cage, pretending nothing was going on.
She was lovely, and she drew him like the tides. What the hell was he going to do about it?
Metal tick-ticked on metal. She was playing with the lock. “Pitney’s another one Kedger likes to bite. No telling, is there?” She was reminding him Pitney was twenty feet away, glaring through the glass, motionless as a gargoyle. All the time, he could feel the nervous energy radiating off her. Every inch of her skin was gathered up, anticipating, in case he touched her.
Not today. Not tonight. But soon, he’d touch her entirely and everywhere. He’d plunge into her and feel her come apart with pleasure. He didn’t plan to make any secret of what he had in mind. Let her anticipate that for a while.
“Jess.” Not startling her, he set his fingertips on her shoulder. She was no coward. She turned at once. Her lips were uncertain, full of that pull between them that she didn’t like at all. Her brown gold eyes were unflinching.
He could have cajoled a response out of her, even here, even now, when she was angry at him. That was the weakness in a woman like Jess. She couldn’t take a good grip on hate. Not the way he did. It didn’t burn and broil in her innards like a ball of acid. She couldn’t hold a grudge with a pair of fire tongs.
“I’m sorry I ransacked through your things.” Give him enough time and he’d talk her into forgiving him, because he was a manipulative son of a bitch and she was a warm-hearted woman.
He wouldn’t do it in this fishbowl of an office. Not with Pitney on the other side of that glass window and clerks walking around. He’d do it when he had her alone, and there wouldn’t be any interruptions.
I’m going to keep you alive, Jess.
“You’re poking a stick at a bear. At thirty-seven arrogant, wealthy, dangerous bears. One of them is going to swat you like a fly.”
She shrugged. The soft, dark cotton of her dress slid under his hand.
“Stop baiting those men, or I’ll see you locked up at Meeks Street, right next to your father. I’ll do that to you, if that’s what it takes to keep you safe. Call the hunt off.”
“No.” She stared at him steadily. That old cur, Josiah Whitby, didn’t deserve one-tenth this loyalty.
When he let her go, it was like letting go of sunlight in a dark room. “Find another way.”
THE Captain walked out, leaving that little minnow of an apology behind. He was sorry. Hah.
She should have said something clever and cutting. That’s what a proper lady would do. A proper lady thought up insults beforehand and kept them ready. Kept a list, like.
Pitney grumbled his way from one side of the room to the other, glaring at every place Kennett had been, thwarted because she hadn’t let him start a shoving match in her office.
She plunked herself down at her desk and sat sorting her thoughts into stacks, like letters. “He says he’s going to lock me up if I keep hunting Cinq.”
Pitney picked up some files the Captain had pushed onto the floor. “He’ll do it. Kennett’s a man of his word.”
“That’s an admirable trait, generally.”
No matter how she rearranged the quills and paper and ink in the top drawer, they wouldn’t look natural again. Damn him.
He’d been in her bedroom. He’d held her trinkets and keepsakes in his hand, studying them with those shrewd, shrewd eyes, picking out tidbits of her mind like he was a scavenging crow. He saw all me bits and scraps. All my shabby, little memories. They’ve seen everything, him and the other men. It’s like the wind tossed my skirts up and showed off me nether parts to a pack of sailors.
Next time, I’ll let Kedger bite him.
This was how it felt when somebody broke into your house. All those years she’d gone burgling, she’d never known.
She really was a villain, wasn’t she? Not just joking with herself and a little proud. She’d done harm and never once noticed. I wonder how many bedrooms I’ve rummaged through. A hundred? All those people felt like this. That was a ledger full of debts she should be paying back.
One of the clerks was at the door, striking a pose so he’d be noticed. She recognized him, vaguely. Even big as Whitby’s was, she tried to remember the men, and this one was always underfoot. She caught Pitney’s eye. “That clerk, Barnaby. No . . . Buchanan. That’s it. Could you see what he wants?”
Pitney went to intimidate a clerk.
Her burgling bag was still in the middle of her desk blotter. She took it down into her lap. It felt comfy there, familiar from all the times she’d carried it. “Dangerous, is it?” Now he had her talking to herself. The Captain’s fault. “He can’t even imagine dangerous.” She ran her fingers over the burlap. “He should see what I’m not doing. The part I’m too scared to do.”
This was rope on the side here and hooks and her burgling tools. Souvenirs of the old days. It was organized inside so she could find everything by touch. Nothing jingled or clanked, no matter how much you shook it. “None of his business, anyway. I don’t know why I keep this. I haven’t used it in years.”
Pitney was back. “I told him what to do with his signatures. ” Pitney’d probably been earthy and explicit. Buchanan, if that was his name, was retreating, posthaste, down the clerks’ room.
She got up and let the Kedger out of his cage. He circled the room, his tail perked up high and
his fur ruffling.
Pitney said, “Jess . . . What are you planning?”
The Captain should find out what it feels like when somebody paws through his goods and chattels.
She hadn’t admitted it to herself, till he asked. But she had her burgling bag out. Part of her had known what she’d do.
“We’re going to take a stroll, me and Kedger. I need to look into a few things.”
At this hour, Mr. Doyle would be sitting in a public house near Covent Garden, the Crocodile. She’d invite him along. She might even surprise him. There wasn’t much that surprised Mr. Doyle.
She clicked her tongue to call Kedger. He swarmed up her chair and began sniffing at the bag. It’d been a while since they’d gone on the stroll together, but he remembered.
“Jess, don’t do this. Stop and think. Josiah’s going to have my liver and lights if I let you get into trouble while he—”
“While he’s in quod and can’t stop me. Right you are, Mr. Pitney. He is not going to like this at all.” She slipped her bag of tricks over her shoulder, just seeing how it felt. It went home under her arm, all the knobs and bumps feeling right. “The Captain paid us a visit. A polite woman would return the favor.”
“The Service has men—”
“Following me. I know. Never lonely when the British Service takes an interest in you. I’ll go out the back way.” She picked up the bundle of clothes. Kedger, knowing the drill, launched through the air to her shoulder. When she put on her cloak, he scrambled into the big pocket. His place. “You would not believe how much I’m going to enjoy giving them the slip.”
THREE men loitered beside a black hackney carriage drawn up to the curb. They could have been Irishmen from one of the work gangs trundling cargo from wagon to warehouse. They might even have worked for Whitby’s. Most of the men on this end of the street did. And these three kept a close eye on the front door of Whitby Trading.
Across the street from them and fifty yards down, a lone marine had his back to the wall, waiting stolidly. He was set in place by Military Intelligence. He was Colonel Reams’s creature.
Sebastian Kennett’s men were inside, in the lobby. The pair sat on the wood bench, under the eye of a disapproving porter, deciphering their way, word by word, through the London Times.
The British Service was there. Invisible. A street sweeper. A waiter smoking in front of the tavern. Two men checking a pile of crates, dressed like bank clerks, muscled like jungle animals.
They were the only ones who saw her slip out the back. It took her half an hour to lose them.
Fourteen
Eaton Expediters
SHE’D ALWAYS LIKED ROOFS. SHE LIKED BEING UP high. There was a whole city up here nobody knew about but chimney sweeps and thieves. Miles of slanting, topsy-turvy roads ran over the gables, across balconies, and up and down chimneys and fences. It was quiet here. Peaceful. Safer than the streets, if it came to that. Her own private London. This was one more thing she gave up when she went respectable.
She’d left her cloak and her woman’s clothes with Doyle, at the bottom of a drainpipe two houses down. Might as well lay a ladder up to a house as run a drainpipe. Doyle said if she was going to climb that, why didn’t she just jump off Tower Bridge and spare him the apprehension. A fine man to work with, Mr. Doyle.
It was a regular turnpike for cats up here. A fair treat to crawl across.
She squatted on the cornice, keeping low to the roof so she didn’t make an outline on the sky. She wore a black scarf wrapping her hair and soot-colored trousers and shirt. If somebody spotted her, she was small enough to pass for a sweep.
Over there, on the other side of the alley, was Eaton Expediters. The jump across was seven feet, give or take.
A solid company. The Captain was only one of the shippers who ran paperwork through Eaton, using them to keep records instead of hiring clerks of their own. He should set up his own premises, though. Kennett Shipping had got to be the size it needed a general manager who stayed ashore and looked after the cargo. Somebody should talk to Sebastian about that.
“It’ll be interesting to see his books, anyway. He’s highly profitable.”
The bag at her back wriggled and listened.
“I might clear him. I have four of the dates secrets were lifted from the War Office. If he didn’t have any ships sailing out of London right then, he’s clear. Cinq ships his secrets to France, fast as he can peel ’em loose from Whitehall.”
Eaton’s roof was a steep bit of slate. Nothing more slippery than old slate. And she couldn’t rig up a safety line. Everywhere here was rotten stone all through and mortar crumbling like cheese. Disgraceful, really, the way people neglected their chimney pots.
Seven feet. She’d made hops worse than this when she was a kid. Of course, she’d had a partner then, helping out, handling the rope. It was harder, doing this alone. That last time, the time when she fell, she’d been alone, going home after a job.
She wasn’t going to think about that.
“Trouble is, the Captain’s got just a mort of ships. Always some Kennett ship in the Thames. It’s not going to be that easy.”
He’s not going to lock me up. The British Service isn’t finished playing games with me.
The Captain thought the scum of the dock were dangerous. Did he want her dealing with Colonel Reams? That was the other choice. Reams slicked his way in and out of her office, promising to help Papa, promising to give her that list of dates the secrets walked out of the War Office. If she married him.
“I can deal with Reams,” she told Kedger. “If it comes to that. I have a plan.” But it was chancy. She didn’t like to take risks.
And Reams was a woodland violet compared with what she’d have to face after that. “Always a challenge, innit?”
It was a fine day for burglary. The sky was blue, with clouds piled up way off to the west, looking thwarted. She could see a slice of the Thames from here, raw gold, bright as a mirror. South-facing windows flashed squares of light back to the sun.
Everybody thought burgling was done at night. A fair amount was, of course, but folks are particularly unwary in the daytime. They leave the world unlocked and simplify matters for thieves.
“Time to get going. Those clouds aren’t going to hold off forever.”
The black bag she had slung under her arm gave a squirm and a wiggle. Kedger’s nose peeked out. A ferret at work, sniffing the air. Silent though. He knew to keep quiet when she was on a job.
“If Kennett’s Cinq, the money’s going to show up in his books.” She skritched the top of Kedger’s head. “And I’ll find it. I am England’s expert on skullduggery in accounting.”
Right. Kedger nodded.
“I don’t think he’s Cinq. I wouldn’t feel like this, if he was Cinq.”
She stretched, loosening up her muscles. That was enough to startle a shirring of sparrows into the sky. The soffits and railings were always full of sparrows, hopping back and forth, changing places for no reason. The dozen she’d roused took off and headed for the river. Higher up, another sort of bird was whooping around in the sky. Martins? Maybe those were Martins. No telling why Martins and Robins had a human name and the rest of the birds didn’t. The air could be full of Georges and Clarences and Prunellas if they gave birds proper names.
Whatever birds they were, the five of them were making free with the air, dancing on the wind, practicing their art. Grabbed her breath away, it did, they were so beautiful.
It’d been a good few years since she made a jump like that. “I can do this. I used to do it all the time.”
A squeak from the bag at her side. Kedger agreed. Not being a toady. Really meaning it.
She should have spent more time watching birds. Cheerful little buggers, birds. They enjoyed themselves when they flew. They loved it.
She paced off her running space. Four strides. Left, right, left, right. Easy enough. She kicked an old pigeon nest away and watched it fall, end over end. A l
ong way down.
The last time she’d been on a roof, she’d been headed home, working her way down a line of old warehouses, when the slates broke. She slid down into an old airshaft and it collapsed in on top of her. It took them two days to find her. The rats found her first.
Don’t think about that.
A clear and beautiful day over the roofs. Almost no wind at all. Couldn’t be nicer weather.
Kedger was getting impatient. Not a ferret who took the long view, Kedger. She closed him in and slung the bag to the center of her back, where he’d be safe. She tightened straps here and there. Nothing flapped in the breeze. She looked across the alley. No hurry. No hurry at all.
It hurts when you fall. Hurts like the end of the world. She’d been alone, except for the rats. And the Dark. Toward the end, the Dark started talking to her.
Don’t think about it.
Papa never let her climb roofs after she went to live with him, not even for fun. She used to sneak out sometimes. She admitted it afterwards, of course, and he about yelled her ear off. Probably fathers were always strict with their daughters. She should have left him a letter in case she . . .
It was bad luck, leaving that kind of letter.
There’s only the sky and the wind and where to put your feet. Nothing else.
Lazarus used to say, if you don’t enjoy burgling, you should give it up. No reason to do it if it wasn’t fun. I’m going to enjoy breaking into your books, Captain. Oh, yes. Show you what it feels like.
She felt light, at times like this. Felt like she was floating inside, clean and empty, and the sky was made of crystal. This was what the birds had.
She gathered herself together and set her eyes on the other side. She rocked, like a cat getting ready to spring. The moment snapped into place. She uncoiled.
One. Two. Three. Four. Her last step struck square and hard on the overhang of the cornice. She threw herself.
And slammed into cold slate on the other side. A narrow, black instant of pain split the sunlight. The slate trembled and beat beneath her. She held on to the slant of the roof.
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