In other words, it wasn’t the usual theater crowd.
Colin wondered that he hadn’t been gutted at once when he dared show his face in here. They did admire a man who could hold his drink, however, and a man who bought drink freely and shared it. And that he could do.
“We’ll go in through the kitchens,” Madeleine ordered coolly.
Interesting that she was intimate with the lay of this place. But of course she would be familiar with it. It was where her broker resided.
Colin kept his head ducked into his chest and his hat pulled down and he slouched, and the irritatingly serious and confident Madeleine Greenway, without looking at him, strode to the kitchen entrance in the alley, eased through the door and stepped in.
One deep breath gave the visitor an olfactory history of the place: every cigar or pipe ever smoked, every fire ever fed to warm the patrons, every drop of spirit imbibed or blood spilled in a fight or fat dripped from meat turned on a spit lent their ghostly scent.
A narrow hall emptied onto the kitchen, where a filthy boy was languidly cranking a haunch on a spit over the kitchen fire. It was difficult to know what animal it once might have been, but it was glistening fat and smelled magical. The boy brushed a hand across a runny nose, glanced sideways toward the main dining room to see if anyone was watching him, then touched the same finger to the tempting grease on the meat.
“Young man,” Madeleine said quietly.
The boy nearly went airborne with fright and guilt. He whirled around to seek the person who’d spoken.
“I wasna touchink nuffink!” He pulled the finger back and stuck it in his mouth reflexively. Ah, sadly, this one was a poor liar. He would need to work on that if he was going to survive long here on the docks. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old or so, Colin assessed.
Madeleine’s mouth twitched. “Good sir, will you tell us where we can find Mr. Croker?”
And what a surprisingly gentle tone that was.
Colin looked at her, nearly as seduced by it as the boy clearly was, judging from the expression the little creature turned up to Madeleine: yearning mingled with shrewd assessment. Kind voices were no doubt rare in his world, but he had that English bred-in-the-bone instinct to determine Madeleine’s class before anything else—first to determine what her presence might mean for him, and second, what he might then get from her.
The boy had arrived at some sort of conclusion, because he decided to smile. And good lord, it was an angelic one. A charmer, this one.
“The Mr. or Mrs. Croker, mum?” He wanted to know.
“Your master, young man. Fetch Mr. Croker immediately.” Colin snapped the words. Each one a masterpiece of glacial elegance.
The boy jumped straight up, his legs scrabbled in place for a moment, and he bolted into the main pub dining room.
Ah. And there you had a demonstration of the uses of an aristocratic accent.
Madeleine angled her head toward Colin; a vee of disapproval between her brows. Colin touched the brim of his big hat ironically. He knew all too well what would make a boy jump and run, having been a boy who lied poorly and charmed easily, and he wasn’t interested in wasting time in wooing the little creature.
Madeleine Greenway turned away and absently reached out and gave the spit a crank so the fire wouldn’t lick overlong at one side of the haunch. Something about the homely gesture pierced Colin. Despite their fraught mission, despite her way with a pistol, it was such a very female thing to do, such an ordinary thing to do.
Colin wondered if there would ever be anything ordinary about his life again.
They both looked up sharply when small pattering footsteps and heavy thumping strides came toward them, along with a piping whispering voice, saying, “…big angry cove,” and then Croker and the boy appeared, and Colin stepped back into the narrow hall, deeper in shadow.
Croker, broad, bald as a mushroom, with a brow that went on for miles, looked irritated and weary, and was wiping his great hands on a stained apron. He saw Madeleine and froze mid-wipe.
And a dizzying sequence of expressions—pleasure and relief and terror and surprise and confusion—fought for supremacy over features.
At last his features reached détente. A pleasant neutrality settled over them.
“Shoo,” he remembered to hiss down to the boy. “Go ’elp Mrs. Croker clean the tables.”
The boy fled off in the direction of the dining room.
Croker cleared his throat. “Well! Mrs. Greenway—” he began obsequiously, and stopped. He’d just caught a glimpse of the “big angry cove” standing in the shadows.
Colin tipped the hat up off his face with one finger and smiled winningly.
Croker stared, mouth dropped a little.
And then, to Colin’s astonishment, a peculiar radiant delight slowly suffused his large face. He looked very much like a moonrise.
An instant later this gave way—drained away, really—to rank terror.
And Croker spun on his heels to bolt.
Colin snapped out one of his conveniently long arms, gripped the man by his collar and got one of Croker’s thick arms pinned behind his back, too—convenient move, that one. He’d learned it from Marcus, who’d used it on him any number of times over the years. Madeleine had her pistol out and poked into Croker’s mound of a belly.
“Where can we speak privately, Mr. Croker?” Colin murmured politely into the man’s ear.
“Storeroom,” Croker muttered, sounding resigned. He used his chin to point to a grayish door made of heavy wood slats, just visible where the kitchen bent into an el.
They ushered Croker past a long wooden table and two heavy stoves, past a thicket of hanging pots and pans and stacks of plates on an enormous sideboard mounded with piles of chopped onions and potatoes, and around the corner into the room. They walked into a narrow, earthy-smelling room and closed the door tightly.
Colin looked about for something to jam beneath the knob. There was a small wooden table and a chair in the room, and he wedged the back of the chair neatly beneath.
Bins holding potatoes and onions were the source of the earthy smell. Sacks of what appeared to be flour were stacked at one end, and other smaller sacks that no doubt held coffee beans and spices leaned against the big sacks like bashful children.
Colin released Mr. Croker from his grasp, and Madeleine stepped back, lifting the pistol away from the man’s belly. Croker shook himself out as though he’d been crumpled like a sheet of foolscap, bending his arm up and down, testing it pragmatically.
And then the innkeeper spun his head from Madeleine to Colin back to Madeleine again, trying to decide what to say first.
“Mrs. Greenway,” he began. “I…you’re…you’re alive.” He beamed a bit queasily.
“Why does this surprise you, Mr. Croker?” She was coldly, impressively, authoritative.
But Croker apparently wasn’t prepared to answer this question yet, because another one loomed larger for him.
“And…I beg yer pardon fer askin’, sir…would yer be Mr. Colin Eversea? Truly?”
Colin swept his hat all the way off and bowed. Without verbally confirming a thing.
For a moment Mr. Croker seemed unable to speak. His hands fidgeted in his apron; his lips worried over each other; his eyes were large. He toed the ground with his big boots.
When the nefarious Mr. Croker finally spoke again, it was in a tone of hushed dignity.
“I canna begin to tell ye…well, I’m a great admirer, sir,” he said humbly. “A great admirer, Mr. Eversea.”
“Thank you, Mr. Croker,” Colin said solemnly. He wasn’t about to argue the moral fine points of admiring a convicted murderer. Admiration might prove useful.
“Mr. Croker, we should like some answers, if you please.” This came from Madeleine, and the words had a glinting steel edge. She had no patience for the admiration either, clearly.
The innkeeper returned his attention to her and his words tumbled out. “O
h, Mrs. Greenway, ’tis ’appy I am yer alive. Ye ken I’m a great admirer of your work as well—”
Her work? Colin turned to study her. She had an actual body of work?
Her attention was entirely on the innkeeper. “Mr. Croker,” Madeleine interjected. “Compliments aside—”
“Nivver seen anythin’ like it,” Croker said, shaking his head with awe. He apparently needed to relieve himself of a great store of suppressed admiration. “Ye could ’ave shown Guy Fawkes and ’is lot a thing or two, Mrs. Greenway. I always said ye was a genius, I did. Flash bombs? Black powder? Brilliance! No one even ’urt, from what I gather, apart from some apoplexy and turned ankles, but ’tis soon yet to know. Like Wellington wi’ eyelashes, ye be! ’Tis proud I am that I recommended ye fer the work. And look! ‘Ere is Mr. Eversea, alive and well. I never dreamed ’e would be your assignment! I thought ’twas impressive enough when ye retrieved the necklace from Lord Garrett’s mistress last year, or when ye stopped the Bridlaw Gang from—”
“Mr. Croker,” she interjected acidly, “please. My plan may have been brilliant, but its success depended upon every aspect concluding properly. And as you are aware, one aspect most decidedly did not. Where is my money? And who shot at me? And why did you betray me?”
Croker sighed. Dropped his head to his chest. Then looked up again.
“Well, as ye know, Mrs. Greenway, I’ve a price for nearly everything,” he began contritely, as though he hated to remind her of something she already knew.
“Of course, Mr. Croker,” she said with extraordinary patience, given the circumstances.
“It came in the form of a threat and twenty-five pounds, Mrs. Greenway. Twenty-five pounds! They was mine, the twenty-five pounds, if I told where you would be with Colin Eversea at noon—sooner than you wanted. I canna say who went to find you. And no other money would be forthcoming, it was made quite clear, so I’ve no payment for ye. And though I’ve some scruples, ye see, as we’ve been professional associates fer such a long—well, it were twenty-five pounds, and I’d ’ave to be mad no’ to—”
Madeleine Greenway held up a hand—the one not holding the pistol—against this outpouring of criminal sincerity. “I understand, Mr. Croker. Truly. I would perhaps have done the same for twenty-five pounds.”
Colin turned his head slowly toward her again. Would she have?
“Who came to you with these instructions?” she demanded. “A man, a woman? Who?”
Croker paused again.
“Ye see…word ’as it the ’ole of the English army be out in search of ye, Mr. Eversea. Word ’as it there will be a reward for yer capture, too, but none ’as ’eard so much as what the reward will be. And Mrs. Greenway…well, I wouldn’t return to yer lodgings, if I was you. Not if I wanted to stay alive.”
And after that, mouth shut firmly, he folded his hands in front of him and waited.
Madeleine seemed to know precisely what he meant and what he was waiting for.
“I’ve naught to pay you with, Mr. Croker.”
This wasn’t entirely true, Colin knew. After paying for the hackney ride with their money from the button, she had three entire shillings, at least.
Croker sighed. He was apparently weighing the risks of divulging his information against his great, great admiration for Mrs. Greenway and Mr. Colin Eversea and his own soul-deep belief not to ever give anything away if profit could be squeezed from it.
Colin had an inspiration. “Mr. Croker, if I may make a sugges—”
Mr. Croker snapped his fingers, his face lighting with enthusiasm. “I’ve a proposal! But I need to leave this room first. If ye’ll let me pass out of ’ere now, I swear to it I’ll return with a solution for all of us.”
Madeleine and Colin regarded him with deep skepticism and said nothing.
“I swear I’ll return to ye,” Croker said, sounding wounded. He put a hand over his heart. “And I willna tell a soul of yer presence.”
“Not even for twenty-five pounds?” Madeleine said, and to her credit, it was only faintly snide.
“Not even. I swear it.”
“On what, Mr. Croker?” Madeleine Greenway sounded tired. “On what will you swear?”
“On my wife’s dear head.”
Madeleine’s eyebrows flew up cynically.
“On the very ground the Tiger’s Nest is built upon,” he revised desperately.
Silence. She kept her pistol pointed at Croker, who hadn’t the faintest idea it was currently an impotent pistol. Colin stood, arms crossed over his chest, silent.
Croker glanced anxiously toward the door. His crowd of drinkers and diners would be thickening just about now, prepared to spend money and wreak havoc and concoct nefarious business he would hate to be excluded from; his employees would be shirking their duties, a small boy no doubt intermittently wiping his nose and touching the meat and turning the crank of a spit.
Croker sighed again. “Mrs. Greenway,” he began very reasonably. “I would like to ’elp. I’ve a solution what might suit all of us. I merely need to fetch summat and bring it in to ye. I’ll return. What ’ave ye to lose? Everyone will begin to wonder where I’ve got to and come to look fer me.”
He had an excellent point.
“Go,” Colin said simply. Madeleine’s head snapped toward him, and he could feel the heat of those dark eyes on him.
Croker looked at Madeleine, and at the gun, then back at Colin, a plea beginning to enter his eyes, his allegiance clearly beginning to solidify in favor of Colin.
“Go,” Colin repeated, directing a hard, speaking look at Madeleine after he did.
Madeleine slowly lowered the hand gripping the useless pistol. A veritable nimbus of displeasure surrounded her.
Mr. Croker backed from the room. “I’ll return,” he whispered happily. “I promise.”
And the door clicked shut.
Madeleine turned on Colin. “How dare—”
“Tell me another solution,” Colin said simply.
“It was the right solution,” she fumed. “But you will not presume any decisions for as long as you’re availing yourself of my serv—”
They turned abruptly when the door creaked open and the innkeeper slid his girth into the room. He used his enormous bottom to nudge it shut again, for in his hands, as tenderly as he might carry a baby or an explosive, was a broadsheet. An expensive one, too, one of the books, featuring fine woodcuts.
He settled it down on the table, smoothed it out gently. And then, from the pocket of his apron, he produced a sealed well of ink, a quill with a nub requiring sharpening, and a tiny fistful of sand, which he heaped last of all on the table.
Colin stared down at it. COLIN EVERSEA, it said. And there he was, handsome, horned, and Hobby-booted. He wasn’t wielding a knife in this one. He had his arm around a beautiful woman. A voluptuous one, he noted. Croker had spent good money for this particular broadsheet.
Colin knew a moment of ironic triumph. And here Madeleine Greenway had thought he would be a liability. And this—the signing of a broadsheet—was precisely what he had been about to suggest to Croker.
Much better that Croker had thought of it himself. He wasn’t his brother Marcus, but Colin knew that much about business.
It took a moment for the innkeeper to speak. “Mr. Eversea, sir. This is what I’ve in mind. I ’esitate to even ask it of ye. But…but if ye’d be so kind as to sign…” He looked up at Colin, eyes wide with hope and entreaty.
Mementos from hangings could find their way into museums and private collections. Bit of hanging, death masks, locks of hair—all were coveted. One day—possibly one day soon—Mr. Croker could sell this artifact for a small fortune on an underground market.
And it would be worth even more as long as Colin Eversea remained missing.
And therein lay their protection, at least from Mr. Croker’s temptation to tell of their whereabouts. It was a very good thing the reward for his capture remained a rumor as of yet.
“We’ll
need blankets, food, water, powder and shot for a fifty-bore pistol,” Colin said briskly, counting demands off on his fingers.
Croker blinked, tilted his head, mulling the list. “Done.” He agreed easily.
“Safety for the evening…” Colin continued, bending down another finger.
Hesitation and a clucked tongue met this demand. “For this night only,” Croker agreed firmly. “The two of ye may spend the night in this room with the flour and the onions. I’ll keep everyone else out. But be out before dawn.”
“Done,” Colin agreed. “Matches, a flint, a tinderbox, candles—” he was out of fingers.
“And Saint-John’s-wort,” Madeleine interjected abruptly.
Two heads turned toward Madeleine as though she’d rudely bounded into the middle of a tennis volley.
Croker looked up at Colin for confirmation. Apparently Colin was the only one allowed to issue directives at the moment.
Colin fancied he could hear a sizzling sound emanating from Madeleine Greenway’s skull, though her features remained perfectly still.
He didn’t know the why of it, but he was enjoying asking for mundane things and getting them. A bit like preparing for a hunting trip. Which this was, in its way. “And salve of Saint-John’s-wort, of course, if you have it, Mr. Croker.”
“Done,” the proprietor agreed.
“And no one can know we’re here,” Colin warned.
“I wouldna tell a soul, Mr. Eversea. I need to protect me investment.” He smoothed the broadsheet lovingly. “And no one is allowed into this room wi’out me permission, anyhow.”
“Very well, then. I’ll happily sign your broadsheet tomorrow morning before we make ready to leave, and not a moment sooner. Tell us now, please, about the man with the twenty-five pounds, so Mrs. Greenway and I may…pass the evening in discussion of it.” He said this somewhat ironically.
“Servant,” Mr. Croker said briskly. “’Ad on…a costume, ye see. A uniform.” Croker’s hands made disdainful wavy motions over his body, apparently meant to indicate fussy finery. “An’ a wig.” His hands went up to cup either side of his bald head.
The Perils of Pleasure Page 7