by Darcy Burke
The knife gleamed in McNair’s hand, catching the light from the candles. Kate’s eyes darted toward the door. The exit was clear.
The thief stood stock-still, holding the knife away from him. With his gaze trained on Daniel, he paid little attention to Kate. Surging forward, Kate grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back. She exerted pressure on him, turning the knife in the direction his grip was weakest and then pulling it from his fist. When the knife was out of his grip, she let it drop on the ground, kicking it away.
Realizing what she had done, McNair smashed his fist into her cheek. Sharp pain ripped through her skull, blurring her eyesight for a second.
Bollocks. She’d show him what happened to cowards who struck women.
Kate wheeled back, fisting her hand and smashing it into McNair’s nose. He fell back against the chair of another patron as his blood oozed down his face. The man McNair hit was on his feet in an instant, bellowing out insults and grabbing his empty tankard. He slammed it into the side of McNair’s head. A second passed before McNair rammed his fist deep into the other man’s gullet.
Barely in time, Kate jumped back as one of McNair’s friends threw a punch. One by one, cohorts of either miscreant added to the mix, until the bar had descended into a swirling fray of pointed limbs striking sensitive contours. The guttural groans and shouts of the vagrants made up a vulgar cacophony, spliced with the ping of broken pottery as empty tankards were smashed on the table and used as weapons.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Daniel jump back as the sharp edge of a shattered tankard slit his arm. The fabric of his shirt was ripped but there was no sign of blood. He bobbed to the right, clearing the fray. Taking advantage of his distraction, Kate ducked behind a pillar, out of sight.
Daniel had spent most of his nights in public houses like this one. He had tried to hide his drinking, but she had seen through him. He had never been a capable liar, and so she found herself believing in his innocence.
If she didn’t leave now, she’d stay to help him with not only this fight, but his crusade for justice. Stay until he ravaged her soul again, leaving only pieces where a whole person had once been.
She could not risk being around him. Dodging right hooks and onslaughts of sharp glass, Kate wove her way through the fighting and into the night. If only she could make the memory of Daniel O’Reilly disappear as easily.
***
Madame Tousat’s Boarding House rose up high above the crumbling buildings on this long-forgotten stretch of the Ratcliffe Highway. Built in a strangely haphazard fashion of additions onto the existing foundations, Daniel had thought upon first seeing it that it was bottle-shaped because the top levels tapered inward. If the rent wasn’t so cheap, he’d have gone elsewhere. He was not entirely sure the building was held up by anything more than dumb luck.
Each time he approached the flat, he took a different route, moving through the back alleys and streets. Perhaps he was being overly suspicious—but he couldn’t take the chance that someone would find him.
At three in the morning, two stragglers loitered on the stoop. Daniel didn’t recognize either of them from his earlier days. Nonetheless, he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his greatcoat to both keep out the cold and ward off possible thievery.
He pulled open the door and headed down the hall toward his room. For the first time since he’d arrived the groan of a well-pleasured man didn’t meet his ears, nor the bang of the bed against the wall. Perhaps he might get some sleep tonight—yet with the thought of Kate out in the cold, her thin body huddled in that ridiculously large coat, he doubted it.
He slid his key into the lock and opened the door. Darkness met him, the tiny room a cavern without a lit candle.
“Did you find her?” A man’s voice called from inside.
No one should have known where he was staying, not even Kate. Daniel stepped back from the door and grabbed the knife tucked into the lining of his boot. Holding the knife out, he advanced.
The last time he’d been caught off-guard, he’d lost everything he loved.
A match struck and a flame appeared. Held between two fingers, it cast a small circle of light on the jovial features of a man he’d known since he first came to London four years ago.
“If the Watch could see you now, Danny-boy, they’d need no further convincing of your guilt.” Atlas Greer’s voice held only a trace of slurred East End, beaten out by the nuns of St. Helene’s orphanage who prayed equally to God and proper English. The thief leaned forward and dropped the lit match into the oil lamp.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Daniel closed the door and tucked the knife back into his boot. “Quite eerie to find you sitting in the dark, you old cove.”
“Guilty as charged.” Atlas’s lips twitched mischievously, as though he knew a secret. No doubt, he did. Given the time he put into intelligence gathering, Daniel wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew every major heist planned for a fortnight.
Atlas perched precariously on the lone chair in the room, tilting it back against the wall. The thief still kept his blond hair shaggy with side whiskers. His blue eyes observed more in an hour than most people in a day, and his nose was slightly off-center from the only fight he’d ever lost.
His fashion sense was impeccable. Dabbling in dandy dress, his white pantaloons were spotless, and his shoes shined. A neckcloth tied into a large bow adorned his neck, while his coat was elegant, tailored wool.
“You smell of gin.” Atlas let the chair clatter to the ground as he stood. He was shorter than Daniel, lean and spry.
“If I wanted to talk to Kate, I had to enter a public house. But I didn’t drink.”
“Then I congratulate you for making it through the evening.” Atlas clapped Daniel’s arm warmly. “Did anyone see you?”
“At first I thought I was being followed, but it was simply a blackbird looking for an alley to set up in.” The freed black beggar had trailed him down three alleyways, before sitting down in the doorway of a pawn shop.
“Good then. The less people who know of your return to town, the better—no telling what the new Met will do. Bloody nuisance, the lot of them, in their ridiculous blue uniforms.” The thief wrinkled his nose.
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I have no desire to end up with a noose around my throat.” Daniel undid the three buttons down his greatcoat, but didn’t shrug out of the heavy material. The flat was frigid. He missed the warmth of gin sinking into his bones.
“How’s Poppy?” Atlas asked.
“She is well.” Daniel sunk down onto the battered straw mattress, weariness weighing on his limbs. “She’s got a seamstress job in Dorking. It’s not much, but it keeps food on the table.”
“And the babe?”
“As smiling and mischievous as ever,” Daniel managed a small smile. Poppy’s daughter Moira was growing up quick.
“If the babe’s good, and your sister’s well, then why do you look like death?”
“I saw her.” He rubbed his neck, sore from hunching over the information Atlas had gleaned for him. His legs were stiff from spending the past five days constrained to a desk.
“I knew you would.” Atlas smirked. “What do you have to say to me, then?”
“Pardon me for doubting you.” Daniel rolled his eyes, too fatigued to pander to Atlas’s egotism.
“I’m sorry the gel’s in the rookeries, but it could be worse. A rich lady like her shouldn’t have survived the first month, let alone the first year.”
“If you are trying to comfort me, you are doing a wretched job.”
Atlas’s expression sobered. He sunk down into the chair by the door. “I want you to be realistic, Danny. What you’ve set yourself up to do is herculean and adding in the unpredictable Kate Morgan might be what pushes you to the edge. The people you’re going up against won’t hesitate to slit your throat the way they did Dalton.”
“Kate’s here in Ratcliffe because I didn’t stay. Because I t
ook your advice not to contact her.” Daniel rubbed at his arm. He had been bruised when escaping the Three Boars.
Kate had left him there to fight his way out, without a single glance back to see if he survived.
He wouldn’t do the same to her, not again.
“I gave you sound advice, Danny. The gel would have been tied to you, an escaped murder suspect. This life’s not for everyone.” Atlas shrugged. “But since your chit has decided to associate with the criminal lot, circumstances have changed. You don’t know who she’s acquainted with or what trouble she’s started.”
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever she’s done, I’ll accept it.” He couldn’t imagine anything that would make him love Kate less. “It doesn’t change what I’m here to do.”
“You’d best be prepared to fight this battle, then.” The warning tone to Atlas’s voice didn’t sit well with Daniel, for it was so different from the thief’s customary jubilance. “There’s a man named Jasper Finn you need to know about. He started out as a cart-boy moving the Things—that’s what the bastards call the bodies they sell—but has worked his way up to having his own crew.”
“Kate mentioned the Italian Boy’s murder. Do you think there’s a connection to Dalton’s death? The circumstances sound too different.” Daniel knew from the papers that the new Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, Joseph Sadler Thomas, had arrested the grave robbers for the murder of an Italian pauper child. The crime had been discovered when the exhumators sold the boy’s corpse to a surgeon for anatomization, who noticed marks of foul play.
Atlas tapped his chin in thought. “Thievery is an art and stealing bodies should be no different. May, Bishop, and Williams were idiots. The police made fine work of them. If Finn is trafficking in bodies, then he’d want to cover his movements. It’s enough to make any resurrection man worried for his neck.”
“But what’s the connection between Finn and Dalton?” Daniel asked. “And what does he have to do with the other names you’ve given me?”
“According to rumor, Finn and Dalton were going in on some sort of job. Finn met with Dalton several times in the weeks before his death.” Atlas’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, Danny. None of my associates can say exactly what Finn looks like. He’s careful to do business where he won’t be seen, and when he absolutely has to go out in public, he’s disguised in some way.”
Daniel thought of Kate alone in her flat, unprotected from rogues. He didn’t know this new bloodthirsty version of her, who was apparently comfortable shooting a pistol. But somewhere—somewhere beneath her hardened exterior—was the woman he loved and he had to keep her safe.
“I need to find Kate again.” He scrubbed a hand across his chin. “She’s alone, Atlas, and she faults me for escaping. I don’t blame her—if I’d only stayed, maybe I could have convinced the constable I was innocent.” Even as he said the words, he doubted the veracity.
“If I hadn’t arranged for your transport to Newgate to be stopped, you’d have been topped after the trial,” Atlas stated, with his usual certainty. “Perhaps she’d have rather attended your funeral? The Lady Fence is a fool if she thinks you would have survived gaol, gone off on drink like you were.”
“You’re right,” Daniel frowned.
He hadn’t been prepared to be Morgan’s assistant. Before, he’d been a simple warehouse laborer, and no one had wanted to hire him for a higher position because he was Irish. Others pointed to his Catholicism and decreed him worse than the freed black slaves. After a year of racial insults, he’d been ready to head back to Sussex, where at least in his small home town of Dorking he knew familiar faces. But Richard Morgan had seen something in him.
It was that desire to prove his worth that had undone him. Long nights working had worn him down until he took to the gin to get through.
Kate had been the only thing in his life that had made sense, and he’d destroyed that.
“I merely urge you to use caution,” Atlas said gently.
“I could advise you of the same with your various thieving jobs.” Daniel didn’t expect Atlas to understand. His friend had been named the Gentleman Thief for a number of reasons, but one was his loyalty. When Atlas Greer made a promise, he kept it. He wouldn’t know what it was like to live with the guilt of the lives ruined by his failures.
First Morgan, then Kate, then Poppy. Everyone Daniel cared about got hurt by him in the end.
“I can’t change the past.” He said that more to himself than Atlas, a note of new conviction in his voice. “But I can make sure Kate doesn’t get hurt again.”
“I had a feeling you’d be bloody determined.” Atlas sat up straight and fished again into his pocket. He pulled out a scrap of parchment, dirty and creased into a triangle. Leaning forward, he handed the paper to Daniel. “Kate Morgan’s address. You don’t want to know how many thieves I had to meet with to get this. Your Lady Fence is a mysterious woman.”
Daniel unfolded the paper. Scrawled across the left margin was the street Kate lived on, deep in the heart of Ratcliffe. A slow smile crossed his lips—today wasn’t the last day he’d ever see her again.
He had another chance.
Chapter Three
The next morning was bright, the city free of the perpetual London fog. Kate glared at the blue sky, visible above the rotting tenement roofs. Daniel’s return to her life should have been cast in dark clouds warning of a storm to come. Even the sun was a traitor.
She ran her hand down the door frame of the lodging house. Flecks of white paint from the rotten wood came off on the fingers of her glove, little reminders of where she lived. From across the alleyway, Mrs. O’Malley, the tired mother of seven Irish children, waved a brawny hand at her. “Might ’ave a bit of bread for ye, lass, if ye’ve got some coal to spare.”
“Been trading with the mudlarks. I’ll take a cold night for your bread any day.” Kate smiled back at her. Though it was hard as a rock on the outside, the inner core of the soda bread was moist and smelled of caraway seeds.
She wouldn’t dignify the thought that the smell of the Irish bread always reminded her of Daniel, or that every time she ate it she imagined what his childhood had been like before his family had moved to England.
Down the street bustled Bridget Malone, her arms laden with herbs and flowers to take to the market. Bridget had managed to formulate a soap that closely mimicked Kate’s old black pepper and jasmine blend. She got the soap from Bridget at a discount, since she fenced goods for Bridget’s husband.
Kate knew these people, characters deemed sordid by her father’s ilk. They took what they needed to survive, and she couldn’t judge them for it. Gone were her delusions about right and wrong. Sometimes the goods she received had been stolen from people as poor as she was. Sometimes the items were heirlooms. There was no way around it, not now.
She’d learned the hard way that if she didn’t fence, she’d end up on the streets.
She’d die before that happened again.
At first, Kate had been only an apprentice to another fence – one of Jane’s friends through the thieving Chapman Street gang. But she had been a quick learner, and with her knowledge of antiquities from Emporia, she’d graduated to her own clients within a year.
Now she was dependent only on her own take. She had a gold watch to find a buyer for and then if she could get a few more pick-ups from the boys in Chapman Street, she would be set for this month’s rent.
If she couldn’t—she wouldn’t think of that now. Her landlord’s tolerance would not extend much further.
“Kate!”
She looked down the street, eyes narrowing at the sound of a male voice. Owen Neal approached, a charmer and a housebreaker of the best sort, if such existed. He was smart about his jobs, and he always filched the best jewels.
Kate started down the alley to meet him, not bothering to hide the smile on her lips.
“Good morning.” Owen sketched a quick bow to
her.
She curtsied in return, though she felt slightly ridiculous. So far from the woman who had waltzed at balls held by her father’s associates, she barely recognized these movements.
But Owen was sweet, so she’d humor him. He didn’t treat her as a common whore, expecting a bit of fun in exchange for a good turn on receivable goods. Nor did he judge her for her readiness with the Forsyth, declaring that he liked a woman with a bit of fire in her.
He had brown eyes that seemed to light up whenever they saw her. That gave her hope that maybe someday when she was ready, she’d be able to attract a man whose past did not include “fleeing from a murder charge.”
A man who wouldn’t care that she’d been broken apart and used up.
But when he reached forward to touch her arm, she felt nothing more than a tiny tingling. The mere proximity of Daniel in the damned flash house had nearly undone her, sparks of warmth flooding her skin.
Bastard.
“Do you have something for me?” Work would distract her. A new bauble to sell was what she needed.
“Wish I did.” Owen frowned, looking apologetic. He scuffed his feet against the sidewalk. “Last few jobs, luck’s not been with me. Almost got bummed on the Rearden townhouse.”
“Didn’t you say they were supposed to be in the country until the Season started?” Kate pursed her lips.
“Thought so. Don’t know why they’re back.” Owen shrugged.
“Why’d you stop me then?” She leaned against the doorframe, two steps away if he decided to increase contact. Old habits were hard to break, despite the fact that Owen had given her every reason to trust him.
In the end, he would hurt her like every other man.
Owen smiled, his eyes twinkling. His face was all angles, from his chiseled cheekbones to his clean-shaven chin. She reached a hand up to her hair to check that no curls had fallen loose from her bun, doubly secured by a gray ribbon headband and a cottage bonnet.