by Darcy Burke
She pressed herself up against the wall.
“You think I don’t know that?” Finn snapped. “You set the explosion wrong, you bloody arse, otherwise we’d be rid of them both by now. O’Reilly lives and that’s on your head.”
Kate gulped. The portrait flitted from her hold, down to the ground.
“Blaster said charges were good, what ye want from me?”
“For you to do your bleeding job, Wilkes,” Finn hissed. “I shouldn’t have to send Ezekiel out to get rid of one drunk, miserable Paddy.”
“S’not my fault Ezekiel failed too,” Wilkes protested. “Why don’t ye be yellin’ at ’im? I got the girls to tend to.”
Daniel.
Her hand shook. She remembered Daniel saying he had fought Ezekiel before, and he’d been injured. Daniel would have no idea Ezekiel was coming after him this time. He’d be exposed. She needed to get the hell out of here, back to Madame Tousat’s and warn him.
The doorknob turned.
Her heart in her throat, Kate fell back up against the wall, until a female voice broke the silence. “I heard the girl went out the west entrance.”
“That’s my girl, Amelia. Knew you were worth every penny this old bastard here charges.” Something that sounded vaguely like a smack upon a bottom echoed, followed by a woman’s coo. High-pitched and over-exaggerated, clearly done for Finn’s benefit.
“Coming, Wilkes?”
“Aye.” Two sets of footsteps retreated.
“You’d better go.” The woman’s voice was so soft Kate was not entirely certain she’d spoken at all, or if the prostitute’s words were the manifestations of her own thoughts.
There was no time to question Amelia’s help. Kate looked down at the portrait. In the golden light of the candle, her father’s face appeared ethereal. Kneeling down, she picked up the paper and rolled it into a tube. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Daniel waited, likely alone and unaware of the danger about to befall him, convinced that she cared nothing for him. She held the paper to the lantern, orange flames licking at the edge of the paper and eating away the charcoal lines. Lifting the paper from the flame, Kate held the bottom of the roll.
She’d have to move quickly to reach the end of the tunnel before the paper burnt completely. The flames had already devoured the top of Papa’s head. Arm outstretched with the paper as a torch, she walked quickly, afraid to run for her footsteps would resonate and give away her location.
Light bounced off the tunnel walls, flicked onto the cracks in the wall. The air smelled dank and dismal. It had begun to rain outside, droplets hitting the brothel roof. She plowed through the rushes and rubbish lining the tunnel, ignoring the damage to her boots and the sluice of noxious liquid sliding up her ankle. Her pale pink skirts dragged in the mess. The paper burnt down three-fourths, precariously close to singing her fingers.
She kept moving. The tunnel was straight at least, with little room for deviation in the path. In the distance, she could discern a light underneath the door. Heat started to spill onto her fingers from the burnt ember of the papers. She let go quickly, stomping out the flames before they could catch onto what little dry tinder beneath her feet remained.
She stopped, putting her ear to the door to listen for voices. Over the sound of rain, traffic echoed, horse’s hooves clopped and the drunken slurs of conversation sounded further down the street. Kate exhaled. She’d finally found the exit.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the last rays of daylight. Twilight streaked the sky, casting everything in a hue of gray. She breathed in the cold night air and instantly regretted it. The tunnel had been moldy, but it could not compare with the stench of the side streets and back alleys of Jacob’s Island.
Rain pelted the alley. In a moment’s time, she was drenched, her dress clinging to her soaked skin. She turned to leave the alley and smacked right into the solid confines of a man’s chest.
“Going somewhere, Kate?” His hand grabbed her waist and held her to him.
She tilted her head back to look up, her stomach plummeting.
Jasper Finn leered down at her.
Chapter Twenty Two
“It would have been so easy, Kate, if you’d accepted me before.” Finn’s hands tightened around her waist, digging through her broad skirt into the tender flesh of her hip. Layers of clothing dissolved as if nothing were underneath his hold. “If you’d spread your legs for me like the whore you are, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
“I’d rather die,” she spat, mind reeling.
“All in due time,” Finn sneered. “Unfortunate, really. I would have enjoyed the poetic justice of having Morgan’s daughter as queen of my operations. But I’ll settle for a bit of flesh before I slice your throat open.”
Finn leaned forward, his breath hot on her neck. He smelled of cheap perfume from the whore he’d laid with, his breath soaked in even cheaper port. How had she ever found him attractive as Owen? Her body revolted at the very idea now. His hands seared her flesh.
“I cheated you when I fenced your goods,” she hissed. She hadn’t. She’d been bloody honest with him.
“No, you didn’t love, but it’s charming you want me to think so. You haven’t even fenced your dear Paddy’s ring.” Finn let go of her right hip to brush his hand along her neck.
Her body went rigid at his touch. “Why did you give it to me? You must have had an end game.”
“I wanted to see if you still cared for the bastard. You picked the wrong side.” He plucked up a curl of her hair. Rubbing the strand of hair between his thumb and forefinger, he brought it up to his nose, breathing in the scent of her hair. “Mmm. Jasmine, and what else is that? How perfectly bourgeoisie of you.”
She snapped her head quickly to the left, wrenching her hair from his fingers. “Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.”
“With what weapon?” He ran a finger up across the curvature of her ear, so light she shivered.
Her pistol was out of reach in her pocket, half-cocked. If she could manage to retrieve it, she wasn’t certain she could get a good shot. This close, she’d be better off using her fist to plow into his nose, like she’d done with McNair in the Three Boars.
“I don’t need a weapon,” she said.
“Barbaric, are we? But I much prefer civilized combat. A knife to the gullet, for instance.” He tweaked the bottom of her lobe with a sick chuckle.
A chill slid across her bones. Water streamed from the heavens in a steady downpour. If she didn’t get free—but she wouldn’t think of that. She’d be calm. Logical. In control. Keep him talking long enough to develop an exit plan, and then rescue Daniel.
She’d doomed them all with her refusal to face her father’s past. She had to get to him, had to take him away from this, and then apologize for refusing to dignify what she’d known deep down all along. Papa was a criminal and Daniel had almost paid with his life.
Daniel had to still be alive. She would have felt it if he was dead. She had to believe that.
“There’s nothing civilized about what you did to Tommy Dalton.” Kate shuddered.
“Ah, Dalton. That was a hatch job, wasn’t it? I let Wilkes do the first blows before I finished him. Wilkes has a bit too much fun with the knife, as your friend Sally Fletcher has discovered.” Finn tilted his head toward her downed knife. “Shall I demonstrate what he did to her?”
“Don’t hurt her. She did nothing to deserve that.” Kate pleaded, disgusted with the weakness in her voice but unable to bite down the rising panic.
“Au contraire. She told you about me. How else would you have found me? That idiot pugilist? He’s been bashed in the head so many times he can’t tell his head from his arse. Or your Paddy’s friend, Atlas Greer? The Gentleman Thief does not scare me.” Finn worked his forefinger down her neck, slowly dancing across her bared skin until he got her to where her shoulder bone and clavicle joined.
A storm brewed above. The dark clouds threatened to upend, an
d she was going to die in this godforsaken alley.
”I’ve no love for Bow Street and I won’t be caught like Bishop and Williams. They were careless and paid the price. I taught them better than that. Kill if you can to get a fresh Thing, but don’t leave a mark. Dig up what Subjects you can’t overpower.” Finn sighed, seemingly put out by the ignorance of his old colleagues.
“You taught them?” She didn’t need to feign surprise.
“What, did you think the Spitalfields gang had all the fun? I’ve been running bodies since Bishop was still a pathetic carter doing errands for other snatchers. I took him in, him and his damned neighbor Williams, and they’ve repaid my generosity by bringing that arse Thomas down on everyone’s head.”
Kate thrust her chin up to look him in his steel blue eyes. “The Superintendent will find out what you’ve done.”
Finn smirked. “But then everyone will know what your dear Papa did too.”
“The Met should know what he did. I was wrong to try and hide it. What Papa did was despicable.”
“You say that now, but when it comes out, will you feel the same?” Finn chuckled. “That was a boon, finding out Richard Morgan was shiver-tapped. The cut of my Subject money kept you in that fancy townhouse you loved so much, so you could continue to screw your lover under your Papa’s nose. You should have heard O’Reilly the night I found him, cup-shot and bleary-eyed. A man will tell secrets when he’s foxed.” He pinched her clavicle bone, pressing deep into a bruise from the explosion.
Kate winced, barely managing to stifle a cry of pain. “You bastard.”
“You’d like it if I was, wouldn’t you?” He dug his nail into her skin, chipping away at the scabbed portion of the bruise. Blood oozed from the wound, stinging in the air. “It’d make me more attractive to you. You like the lost causes, Kate. How else can you explain why you’d be so willing to lie on your back for a popery drunk?”
“Daniel is ten times the man that you’ll ever be.” If she could back up more, possibly maneuver her foot hard into his shin—
“Only ten?” His lips twisted into a smirk, hand starting to trail from her neck down her arm to cross underneath. Her breast fit in the palm of his hand. He cupped it, squeezing. She gasped.
One, two, three—now. As he released her waist to readjust his hold, she slammed back into him, driving her foot into his shin. He stumbled and she whirled around.
She only got a few steps across the alley before he caught her again. Drops of water fell from her hair, into her eyes and down her nose. Seizing hold of her, he slammed her up against the stone wall of the brothel. She grunted with the impact, head hitting hard against the stone. Her vision darkened. She blinked, focusing on the details of the stone squares. The wall was solid; it provided no exit.
He’d pinned her hands behind her back. His weight pressed into her, his height a perfect match to her. With his knee, he parted her legs, fitting himself in the space now left. His front to her back, his hardened arousal pressed at her.
“Do you feel that?” Finn asked. “That’s a real man. A man who’d knock you and slice your throat in the same breath. That’s what you deserve. I wouldn’t send you to the labs, for I knew you were special the first time I saw you with your father. I was going to make you mine, if that old codger hadn’t kept you away from me.”
She swallowed down bile, determined not to let him see her cower. Her father must have warned Finn off of her, threatened to retract his warehouses if he approached, for she couldn’t remember meeting him before she’d moved to Ratcliffe.
In her ingenuousness, she’d let Finn into her life because he could utter a few pretty words and he seemed genuine.
“Why get rid of Dalton?” She struggled to keep her mind sorted. Anything to keep him talking and distracted.
His body tensed, bringing her into closer contact with his erection. She squirmed against his hold, desperate to get away from him. Rain slicked their bodies, yet his grip remained firm. He pinched her wrist hard, twisting until she cried out in pain.
“Stay put, love, or I’ll be forced to do something you won’t like,” he murmured into her ear. “As to Tommy Botch-it, his death was inevitable. He stole from me, and you know what I do to those who pinch from me. Getting rid of O’Reilly at the same time was a bonus.”
“How did you get Daniel into that alley?” She tilted her head away from him, able to gain a few centimeters of space. Far enough away to no longer feel the burn of his breath on her skin.
“I’m sure you’ve already surmised that I drugged him. It was not difficult, for your Paddy’s a creature of habit. Every night at the Prospect of Whitby before he’d come to see you, he’d stare into the bottom of a glass. So earnest, like a dog in heat, hanging around your ankles for a chance to rut. Let’s see what he was desperate for, shall we?” His hand moved again, down her hip to her thigh, stretching around toward her front.
She swallowed down a sob. He wouldn’t see her cry.
“I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to taste you, Katiebelle.” His fingers crept up toward the closure between her skirt and bodice, expertly finding the brass clasp. The light rose fabric, which she had thought so demure when finding it in Spitalfields, was polluted by his touch.
With his hands otherwise occupied, he didn’t keep a good grip on her waist. Kate slammed her head into his nose with a horrible crack. He staggered backwards, stunned by the impact. Squirming out of his embrace, Kate slipped past him, apart from the wall.
Finn’s hands cupped his nose in a futile attempt to staunch the blood. Crimson rained through the slits of his fingers. She’d wounded him, probably broken his nose.
“You bitch!” he shouted.
“That’s for Daniel.” Vindication flowed through her, though she knew she was not out of danger yet. She took off running, out of the alley and into the street.
Rain beat heavily around her, swirling puddles about her feet. Finn’s voice was almost eaten up by the storm.
“You’ll never get to him in time! My men will slit his throat like the dog he is.”
She looked over her shoulder quickly. Finn gave up on his bleeding nose, letting it flow naturally. It coated his neckcloth, turning the blue pattern into a red mess.
He grabbed for her as she ran, blood-stained fingers curling around the pink sleeves of her dress. She pried off his hand, throwing every ounce of energy she had into the action. Fueled by panic and fear, she bent his pointer finger backward. Finn howled with pain. The bone crunched as it broke.
Finn wrenched his hand back. His finger was now set at an odd angle, tilting precariously to the left side. She jerked back from him, fumbling in her pocket for the pistol.
“When my men get done with him, he’ll be unrecognizable,” Finn snarled through clenched teeth.
He didn’t move. He held his good hand crossed over his injured one in a sort of makeshift sling. For a second, his attention was not on her, but on his wounded hand.
Her fingers closed around the pistol. She raised it to his head, moving it into a fully cocked motion. Her left hand steadied the gun, right index finger on the trigger. Finn was there before her. In an instant, she could end his life, if she only aimed right.
She didn’t hesitate. He’d hurt Daniel, convinced her father to do terrible things. Finn looked up and for the first time fear shone in his eyes. Pistol positioned between his eyes, Kate squeezed the trigger and waited for the recoil.
Nothing happened.
The shot had not fired. The powder might have been wet from the rain. Or the gun may have jammed. She didn’t know, only that her trusty flintlock had failed her.
Finn’s exhale of breath was audible. Recovering quickly, he took a step toward her. Bullet used, Kate didn’t wait to load another. She turned and fled, past shops and houses, through crowds of gin-addled thieves loitering outside the public houses, down alleys and passageways. She ran like she’d never run before, heart echoing in her chest, useless pistol in her fist.
She ran until she reached the ferry. Leaning all her weight against the same precarious rail Daniel had warned her about, she searched for Finn. He had not made it onto the ferry on time. He’d have to wait for the next one.
Rain slapped her face, pouring down from the sky in veritable outrage from a god above. She looked out at the night sky as the ferry crossed the Thames. She saw no boot in the water this time. The slow moving sludge of swamp and decay was quiet. Bodies wound up in the Thames, to be found months later when the river had finally released their bloated flesh.
Daniel would not be one of those dead men. Once she hit the shore, she’d keep running toward him. If she had to kill every bloody snatcher from here to Westminster, she’d make damn sure he survived.
***
Daniel’s trunk was packed. One would never know when looking at the crisply folded clothes arranged in straight rows that his hands had shaken as he laid them inside. Madame Tousat had fetched the schedule of the mail coach routes from London to Sussex. In the morning, a carriage would leave from the station and he intended to be on it, royally in his cups and oblivious to the jostling and crowded conditions. From the station in Sussex, he’d stay a night at the coaching inn and hire a hack to Dorking.
Daniel stepped back and surveyed the fruits of three hours of labor in his rented room. His truncheon rested against the wall closest to the door. The room was otherwise bare, except for the bottle of gin placed in the center of the table and a small glass.
Two weeks in London with Kate and all that remained was the bottle of Lady’s Delight, a piss-poor substitute with a taunting name.
Closing the trunk, he knelt down on the ground to latch the padlock. The click of the catch echoed in his bones far louder than the barely audible sound. The click meant soon he’d leave for good, taking the easy way out.
Rain pelted the windows. In the distance, a storm gathered up strength to besiege Ratcliffe. If the wretched weather traveled toward Sussex, his journey would be delayed.