“As you can see, I’m not that easy to sneak up on.”
“I’ll grant you that you can evade a footman with relative ease, but I assure you my men are better capable of causing damage. And you do have to sleep sometime.”
“You’d be surprised. But by all means, send them on. As long as you don’t mind losing your brawny friends, I’ll be glad for the exercise.” Morgan started to walk out of the alley. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m too hungry to stand around being bored by your dire warnings. If you have any more to tell me, you can join me for a pint at Tufton’s Tavern.”
“But you haven’t heard my offer yet, Captain Pryce,” the voice called out, now tinged with irritation. “I’m willing to let you do as you please in Spitalfields as long as you meet certain conditions.”
Morgan stopped. “What kind of conditions?”
“The main one is financial, of course. You’d share your profits with me.”
“Not on your life,” Morgan growled.
“It might be your life at stake if you do not.”
With a disbelieving snort, Morgan faced the alley. “And what would I get for my generosity? Aside from my life, of course.”
“Protection from the law, for one thing. My men and I keep our fingers on the pulse of every justice of the peace, every police officer, every magistrate in the surrounding boroughs. The moment the authorities set out to arrest anybody under my protection, that fortunate person is warned and aided in his escape.”
Morgan sucked in a sharp breath. Was this merely the boast of a villain? Or could the Specter’s tentacles actually stretch that far? Morgan had to find out. “I have my own connections, sir. Why do I need yours?”
He laughed. “If you mean the navy, we both know they lost sympathy for you when you showed up aboard a pirate ship.”
“How do you know about that?” Morgan knew how, but he still wanted to hear what the Specter might claim.
“Word gets around. And I too have my connections in the navy.”
It wouldn’t require such connections—Morgan had personally made sure that the populace of Spitalfields learned of his time aboard the Satyr. Besides, even if the Specter had connections in the navy, they apparently weren’t high enough for him to know that Morgan had been found blameless of any criminal activity related to his brief, somewhat unwilling stint with the Pirate Lord.
“All right,” Morgan said, “I’ll accept that you might afford me some protection from the law. What other advantages do you offer?”
“Higher profit. My fences adhere to a set rate for goods. I hear you’ve been paying more. You won’t have to once you join with me.”
“But I’d lose some of my profits to you, so it probably all evens out in the end.”
“Not entirely. I can give you access to the truly productive thieves who pay you no notice now because they’re loyal to me.”
“They won’t be for long if they hear I’m paying more for their goods, will they?”
“Ah, but you can’t cash stolen bank notes for them. I can.”
Aha, so Ravenswood had been right about the Specter’s major source of income.
“As it happens, you’re wrong. I have my own contacts for disposing of stolen notes. So you see, I don’t need you that badly, do I?”
“Now you listen here, you little worm—” a voice snapped from just above him, then broke off abruptly.
Good, he’d riled the man enough so that the Specter had forgotten to practice whatever strange technique he’d used to make his voice hard to track. Morgan should have guessed that the criminal wasn’t in the alley at all. He was speaking out of one of the windows in the adjoining building.
Morgan had to tamp down on his impulse to storm the building. Cornering the Specter would only tip Morgan’s hand before he had the irrefutable evidence he required to build his case. Right now it would be the criminal’s word against his. Morgan needed to link the devil to stolen goods, which required gaining the man’s confidence.
Besides, storming the building would be fruitless. There were three exits at least—in front, on this side, and possibly a rear exit he couldn’t reach from the dead-end alley.
“You’re trying my patience, Captain Pryce,” the Specter said, now firmly in control of himself once again. “Either accept my offer or you’ll force my hand. And I become very nasty when my hand is forced.”
The man certainly had a flare for the dramatic. “I’m trembling in my boots,” Morgan said, sneering. He didn’t want to rouse the Specter’s suspicions by appearing too eager.
“So that’s your answer? You refuse my offer?”
“I didn’t say that. I have to think about it.”
A long pause ensued. Then the man uttered a low curse. “Very well, I suppose that’s understandable. At the end of a week, I’ll ask you again. If you haven’t made your choice by then, the offer will be withdrawn.”
“Agreed. But if I decide to accept before then, how can I reach you?”
Silence met the question.
“Well? Mr. Phantom or whatever you call yourself, are you there?” When no answer came, he darted into the street. He got there just in time to see a tall, broad-shouldered figure on a black horse ride off at breakneck speed.
A sigh left his lips as he watched the cloaked man disappear into the twisting fog. Clearly, tracking the Specter wasn’t going to be easy. But one thing was certain—the Specter was no supernatural entity. So eventually Morgan would have his man.
Chapter 6
And on the smooth Grass, by the side of a Wood,
Beneath a broad Oak that for Ages had stood,
Saw the Children of Earth, and the Tenants of Air,
For an Evening’s Amusement together repair.
The Butterfly’s Ball, and the
Grasshopper’s Feast, William Roscoe
The children are as restless as I am, Clara thought as she sat with them in the library. And who could blame them? After her encounter with Morgan Pryce, the skies had opened, besieging the city with spring rains. Now, after three days of being cooped up inside with no visits to the market, no gambols in the park, no games of Thread the Needle in the back gardens, the children contained enough suppressed energy to fuel a mill for a week. Perhaps she should have skipped gathering the entire group of thirty-two residents for their usual story time before dinner.
“Which tale would you like to hear today?” The buzz of answers made her dizzy. Packed into the library like bees in a hive, the swarming mass of limbs and bobbing heads only settled down when she cast them all the Stanbourne Stare. “One at a time now.”
“Can we hear the story of Cinderella?” Mary piped up from where she sat on Clara’s left with legs crossed.
“Aw, Mary,” David called out, “you want to hear that one every bloody day.”
“It’s impolite to say ‘bloody,’” Clara put in. Mary flashed David a taunting smile until Clara added softly, “But he’s right, Mary, we did just read ‘Cinderella’ yesterday. Let’s have someone else pick a story today.”
When poor Mary’s face fell, Clara felt a twinge of regret. Still, Mary’s appetite for “Cinderella” knew no bounds. Though it was perfectly understandable, given the poor girl’s hunger for a better life, the tale did grow tedious after the fifth telling in one month, especially for the boys.
Clara glanced back to where some of the older boys stood leaning against the bookshelves. “Perhaps one of you lads would want to choose. What about you, Johnny? Is there no story you’d like to hear?”
His sullen frown wasn’t promising. “Don’t like stories. They ain’t true and they’ll never be true, so what’s the point?”
Clara sighed. Johnny had been a seething mass of rebellion and anger ever since his visit to his sister Lucy this morning. When Clara had sent him off accompanied by Samuel, she’d expected him to return in high spirits, but he’d dragged the rainstorms in with him and dumped them all over the rest of the children.
“You�
�re wrong!” Mary protested. “Some of the stories is true. Girls do marry princes, don’t they, Lady Clara?”
“Occasionally,” she hedged.
“Come on, Mary, not even somebody as great as Lady Clara marries a prince,” Johnny shot back. “Why, she hasn’t married nobody at all.”
“That’s because I choose not to marry just now,” Clara said, a little defensively.
“Don’t you want a husband, m’lady?” Mary asked.
“Some day, when I find the right gentleman. All the genuine princes seem to be otherwise engaged, but I might look for someone less…regal.”
An image of Morgan Pryce flashed into her mind, and she cursed her foolishness. Never mind that he looked better than any prince of the realm. Or that his kisses were so imprinted on her senses that she woke each morning tasting him on her lips. Never mind that the scent of apples and bay rum and pure hot male pervaded her dreams at night.
Even if Morgan were the marrying sort—and she doubted that seriously—she could never marry a man who wore the unholy cloak of wickedness so easily upon his broad shoulders.
Though she must admit he’d shown brief glimpses of goodness. Like when he’d promised not to buy anything from her children. To her chagrin, a few of her charges had ventured his way despite all her rules to prevent it, or so she’d heard from her sources on the streets. But she’d also heard that Morgan had kept his promise. Every day he turned young pickpockets away, dealing only with grown thieves.
Then there was his chiding Samuel for not protecting her better. That made no sense whatsoever. One minute he threatened to ravish her, and the next he acted like her guardian? Every time she thought she’d figured him out, he turned around and did something like that.
That was the trouble—the contradictions in his character occupied her mind far too much. Sometimes she wished she’d never laid eyes on the perplexing Captain Pryce, with his unpredictable courtesies and his warm, delicious kisses.
Kisses he’d meant only to drive her off. She’d best remember that. She might have found him…interesting, but he considered her only an annoyance.
“I’m still waiting for somebody to suggest a story,” she said.
“I thought of a story I want to hear.” Johnny’s eyes shone unnaturally bright. “How about ‘Bluebeard’? Ain’t that the one where the chap kills his wives and hangs their bodies in a closet? And then he gets his knife—”
“Enough, Johnny. There’s a reason I never read that one. It’s much too gruesome.” She wasn’t sure whether to be heartened that he’d apparently been reading stories on his own or disturbed that he chose the bloodiest tale in Perrault’s book. “We don’t want to give the small children nightmares.”
“Why not? It’ll prepare them for their future. What do any of us have to look forward to but a short life ended by the hangman?”
The bleak pronouncement fell on the children like a shroud, stunning Clara with its poisoning resentment. What in heaven’s name had got into the boy?
A tug at her sleeve made her glance down to where Timothy Perkins cuddled close to her on her right. “I wanna hear about the grasshopper going to the ball.”
She had to think a minute, but when she realized what he was talking about, relief swelled through her. “Ah, yes, ‘The Butterfly’s Ball.’” When Timothy bobbed his head enthusiastically, she added, “Excellent choice, my boy.” A dose of William Roscoe’s whimsical verse might be just the antidote for Johnny’s gloomy predictions.
Twisting to scan the shelf behind her, she found the volume she wanted, then opened it and began to read:
“Come take up your Hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly’s Ball, and the Grasshopper’s Feast.
The Trumpeter, Gad-fly, has summon’d the Crew,
And the Revels are now only waiting for you.”
She paused to glance at the still somber lads in the back. Then an idea struck. “Since it’s almost time for our own dinner, we should do this tale properly. David, you be the grasshopper. Mary, you can be the butterfly. Johnny, we’ll need a blind beetle…”
The poem had seventeen bugs in all, and by the time she finished assigning roles—doubling them where necessary—even the older boys reluctantly entered into the spirit of things. As she lined them up to head into the hall, Robbie, the bee, buzzed at her and the two moths flapped their wings, giggling. After Tim begged him, even Johnny grudgingly agreed to heft his brother on his back as the beetle in the poem did to the emmet.
Then they all marched through the Home. She read the poem loudly, each child creeping or hopping his way through his role when it was his or her chance to shine. By the time they’d crawled and jumped and glided their way to the dining room, the children had collapsed into laughter, and one storm had passed.
As she watched Johnny swing his squealing brother into a chair at the table, her heart twisted in her chest. The poor boys—what was to become of them? When Johnny left Tim’s side, his momentary smile subsiding into the perpetual frown he’d worn all day, Clara decided to find out what Lucy had told him to make him so forlorn.
So she stopped him as he passed in front of her. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you how your sister is doing.”
He glanced away, a muscle ticking beneath his beardless jaw. “She’s all right.”
“Did she say if she’d be coming to visit Tim soon? He’s anxious to see her.”
Johnny’s angry gaze shot to her. “Lucy ain’t coming here no more. And she told me to leave her be, too. She said I wasn’t to visit her at all. Nor Tim neither.”
“What?” Clara shook her head, unable to believe it. “Are you sure you understood her correctly? She’s always been so concerned about the two of you and—”
“She don’t want us around, I tell you! Says she’s got…important things to worry about.” He struck a pose of nonchalance so false that even someone who wasn’t familiar with him would have seen beneath it. “Looks like you’re stuck with us for good, m’lady.”
He threw the words out like a challenge, but she glimpsed the fear lurking behind them. “If you follow the rules, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
That seemed to deflate all his bravado. “All right then,” he mumbled, then stalked off, still frowning.
She glanced to where a giggling Tim scooped up gravy-soaked bread. Johnny had clearly not yet told the child about their sister’s pronouncement. Poor Tim. He eagerly anticipated every visit from his beloved sister, and her abandonment would sorely wound him. Even having Clara there to comfort him couldn’t possibly be the same as having his sister around.
Ah, Clara, what a pity there was no one like you around when I was a boy.
Morgan’s wistful words of three days ago leaped into her memory from out of nowhere, striking her to the heart. They reminded her powerfully of Johnny and Tim. Had Morgan’s family also abandoned him in his youth? That might explain why he’d returned to his criminal way of life even after he’d made something of himself in the navy.
The thought of a young Morgan scrabbling in the streets like her other children tugged at her sympathies. It was indeed a pity she hadn’t been around when he was a boy. She might have provided him with enough encouragement to break him free of the world of crime that so often sucked her children in for life.
Well, Morgan might be past saving, but the Perkins boys were not. Clara refused to believe Lucy had meant to be so cruel to her brothers. But there was only one way to find out for sure. She must speak to the girl before Johnny got around to telling Tim what Lucy had said.
Turning on her heel, she strode out into the hall. Samuel was already waiting for her, since it was nearly time for her to head for home. “Ready to go, m’lady?”
“First, we must stop at Tufton’s Tavern,” she told him. Lucy worked as a taproom maid at the tavern nearly every night. “I must speak to Lucy about her brothers.” Snatching up her pelisse, she headed for the door. “Has the rain stopped?”
“Then we’ll walk.”
Samuel’s eyes narrowed, but he knew better than to question his mistress’s whims. He merely fell into step beside her as they left the Home’s airy halls.
In the aftermath of the spring storms, mud clogged the streets, but the sky had cleared to a brilliant gold-and-red spectacle of sunset. Thanks to the heavy rains, the London air, generally thick with coal dust and fog, was clear and cool. Clara breathed it in eagerly as they strode toward the tavern, passing all the street sellers who’d come out to do business after the rain—the lavender girl with her crisp purple tufts and the orange-woman proffering citrus. With such scents of spring lingering in the air, it seemed almost a shame to descend into the cloying stupor of the tavern.
Tufton’s Tavern was a long-standing institution in Petticoat Lane, part cookshop, part lodging house, and a large part alehouse. Having nursed many a thief and scoundrel at its gin-soaked teats, it was respected more for the quality of its ale than its cleanliness. After Clara pushed open the door and her hand came back with a greasy film, she had to resist the impulse to head straight for soap and water.
Wiping her hand on her apron, Clara paused just inside the door to scan the low-ceilinged room crowded with tables and settles. Candle and pipe smoke mingled with the smell of small beer and boiled beef to create a miasma that nearly choked Clara every time she came here, which thankfully wasn’t often.
When her gaze landed on a familiar dark-haired man at a table in the corner, her heart tripped perversely. Morgan was here, in close conversation with two scruffy-looking men. She spotted the plate of mutton before him, and a smile touched her lips. What else would a wolf dine on but sheep?
He certainly looked every inch the wolf tonight, with his rakish clothing and his unruly hair tumbling thickly over his collar. When he reached to rip bread from a loaf with the casual violence of a man absorbed in his meal, her breath caught in her throat.
Dance of Seduction Page 8