by C. J. Chase
Shock waves rippled through Kit again at the recollection of that pistol report. And at last, the recognition of the anomaly that troubled him.
The shooter raised only one arm—because the shooter had only one arm.
One arm. Just like the man at the inn when the proprietor had evicted Mattie. Just like the man she’d claimed had attacked her only yesterday and stolen her reticule.
One arm. But two shots.
Unfortunately Kit had paid even less attention to the second shot than the first, his overriding concern having been to reach Mattie. And then he’d lost his spectacles in their collision, leaving him only hazy outlines of those present.
He focused his attention away from what he’d seen to what he’d heard. From where had that second pistol report originated? Not the same place as the first. Behind him, perhaps?
Then who fired it?
And at whom?
Chapter Eleven
Kit exited Turner’s hackney and splashed through the muck until he reached the dilapidated Captain’s Quarters. Sounds and smells assaulted his senses as he stepped over the threshold. Despite the early hour, legions of hardened men fallen on harder times packed the tavern—sailors, dock workers, vagrants and sundry other miscreants. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he searched out a likely place to begin.
There, in the corner. Three tars whose eyes gleamed un-dulled by drink as they met his gaze, then glanced away. He stomped through ale puddles, their odor overpowered by the stench of unwashed bodies. “May I?” He scraped the stool across the floor and dropped onto it before they could refuse.
The men made a point of ignoring him.
Kit would not be ignored. “Do you come here often?”
The man on the opposite side of the table thumped his mug down with a slosh. “Fair piece.” A loud belch escaped with his words.
“Can I get somethin’ for ye?” A serving maid with unnaturally red hair elbowed her way between him and the neighboring sailor.
“Ale.” Kit braced his elbows on the table as the maid sashayed away. “I’ve been hired to locate a man who comes here on occasion. A man with one arm.”
The three men stared at him for several long seconds. Sailors supposedly always had a yarn to share, but these tars were as garrulous as his brother.
“Ye a Runner?” The man to Kit’s left, owner of a scraggly beard, scratched his belly where his coarse cotton shirt stretched across his paunch.
“I didn’t say that.”
A look passed among the men.
“There be any number of men who lost arms—or legs or eyes or other essential parts—for God, king and country.” The man on Kit’s right pushed up his sleeves as he grabbed his drink. A long, wide scar sliced up his forearm. “Only to starve when they got’ome.”
Kit drew three half crowns from inside his coat and clanked them on the table where they gleamed against the dirty surface. “I’m certain His Majesty regrets the oversight.”
The men froze for a moment, then glanced at each other, the glitter in their eyes rivaling the brilliance of the coins. “The king, or the gent paying ye to ask about us law-abiding citizens?”
“Perhaps service to one renders service to the other.”
The third man looked at the coins. “Sounds like ‘e’s looking for Stumpy.”
“Any of you seen him today?”
The same man gulped another swig of ale, then shrugged and replied. “Not tonight, gov’na.”
He sensed the serving maid saunter up behind him, and he fought the urge to shift out of her way as she plunked a mug before him. Ale slopped onto the scum-coated tabletop.
Better there than his stomach, perhaps.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Turner swagger to a table to his left and order a drink. Kit pulled out several more coins and pressed them into the wench’s callused palm. Perhaps they would be more forthcoming inebriated. “Bring more for my friends.”
Her eyes lit up when she examined the coins. “Anythin’ for ye, dearie.”
“But you do know Stumpy?” he prodded his companions.
The bearded man offered him a yellow-toothed grin. “Peculiar, but ye ain’t the first gent asking after ‘im. A popular fellow that Stumpy’s been recently.”
“Oh? Someone else asked about him?” Kit raised his tankard and gingerly sipped. The ale splashed into his stomach in a single, cold lump. Snatches of Julian’s conversation with Fitzgerald replayed in Kit’s mind. Fitzgerald, the man who’d happened to rescue Mattie Fraser—from the selfsame Stumpy, no less—in a city the size of London. “What’d he look like?”
“Brown hair. Kind of ordinarylike. Maybe eight stone, and not much taller than Tessie there.” He nodded toward the henna-haired maid slopping drinks onto a nearby table.
“Mouselike,” the belcher embellished. “But Stumpy wasn’t never much more than a rat ‘imself.”
Relief uncurled in Kit’s chest. Too short and thin to be Julian. Or Fitzgerald, for that matter. Besides, after so many years at sea, in all likelihood either of them would be recognized in this locale. So who wanted to know? “Did Stumpy behave differently recently? Had he come into some unexpected funds?”
“Polly claims ‘e ‘ad some money the other day, but Stumpy said ‘is purse was pinched.”
The maid returned with three more mugs of ale. She crowded near Kit’s face again as she flung them onto the table.
He turned away. Two tables behind, a beefy thug stared at him, eyes glowing with malice over the rim of his tankard. Muscles rippled beneath his stained shirt as he slapped the mug against the table, his gaze still glued to Kit. Did he assess him as an easy mark for a few pounds?
Or was it something more sinister?
Mattie.
If he were now being followed, how safe would she be at his parents’ house? And how safe would his family be with Mattie there? “What time does Stumpy usually come here?”
“’E’s usually ‘ere by now, gov’na. Don’t know ‘ow’s I remember a day when ‘e ain’t been drunk already by this time.”
As he feared. Kit glanced around the shadowy room. No, there was nothing more he could gain here this night unless Stumpy put in a belated appearance.
Or more likely, dearly departed Stumpy’s ghost visited his old haunts.
“Add my personal gratitude to the king’s.” He plopped a few more coins onto the table. “A pleasure, gentlemen.”
Mattie needed a plan.
The warm bath and dry clothes—her new brown gown—halted her shivers but her worry about Nicky remained. She stared out the yellow chamber’s window. Roof after roof peered over the walls that circled the Chambelston gardens. How did one go about locating a single homeless orphan in a city the size of London? Especially if he might be … injured.
Nicky.
Was he hurt? Did he lie even now with a ball lodged in his body? A ball meant for her. She hadn’t been able to save George, either.
Murdered. Murdered. Murdered. The word beat in time with the cadence of her pounding heart. No wonder someone wanted her dead. George, killed on the order of … Viscount Somershurst, Kit DeChambelle’s brother.
George’s face flitted through her memory—his gap-toothed grin when he joked with their mother, the quivering lip that belied his stoicism at her funeral, the shadows in his eyes at their father’s neglect, the rebellious sneer when he left forever. How had that face appeared after a beating severe enough to kill?
And then those memories of her brother’s features metamorphosed into Nicky’s.
The crushing pressure around her heart sapped her breath. She dropped into a chair and buried her face in her hands as the deluge of emotions surged over her.
“Mattie?” The whisper tickled her consciousness. “Mat-tie?”
She raised her head, expecting some reproachful specter. Nicky’s form wavered but remained in the doorway. Real? Hot emotion coiled through her belly, and she raised her hands to her throat as she struggled to restrain the t
earful exclamation that would attract the servants’ attention. “Nicky? Oh, Nicky, I’ve been so worried.” His coat had taken on an additional layer of dirt and the rain had made tracks through the grime on his face. But he was here. And he appeared fine.
“Be ye all right, Mattie?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Quite. I looked and then you were gone and I didn’t know how to find you. What happened?”
“I went after the bounder what shot at ye, but when I got back to the park ye were gone.” Fear haunted Nicky’s already too-serious eyes. “Stumpy’s dead.”
“Stumpy?” For a minute his name and image blurred in her mind with Soggy’s.
“The bully from the Captain’s Quarters what used to give ye such a bad time.”
Chills rained over her with the bitterness of cold London showers as she remembered the one-armed assailant who’d stolen her reticule—was it only yesterday? “How?”
“Someone shot ‘im. Mattie, ‘e was there today.”
“There?”
“The park.” Nicky wandered over to the bedside table and picked up the book. He flipped it around several times as if he couldn’t decide which direction was correct, then set it down, surprisingly gently.
Mattie’s chest tightened as she recognized another unfulfilled desire. But how would a boy of the streets find time or teachers for schooling? “Then Stumpy was the man you chased?”
He shook his head and shaggy, dark hair fell into his eyes. “That fella ‘ad two arms, same as me and you. I lost ‘im. Then when I got back, I found Stumpy with a bullet in ‘is ‘ead.”
“Oh, Nicky.” She bent down and wrapped her arms around him as she tried to put the strange pieces together. Stumpy, who had threatened her on multiple occasions, had been shot near the same spot, near the same time that someone had tried to kill her. What was the relationship?
Kit? Her heart rebelled at such a thought, but, her mind niggled, where had he gone after he’d escorted her to the house? But surely had Stumpy been witness to or participant in the event, he wouldn’t have lingered long enough in Hyde Park for Kit to locate him.
No, according to Nicky, Stumpy had met his fate too soon for Kit to have been the culprit.
Then where was he?
And what had become of her informant? He’d been nervous for the entire duration of their conversation, as if he’d expected trouble. Because he knew he possessed dangerous secrets?
The door squeaked. Mattie froze, her breathing only beginning again when she identified Betsy, her arms encumbered with Mattie’s clothes. “Oh, Miss Fraser. I thought you were in the library. I brought—oh!”
At least the dragon of a housekeeper hadn’t discovered Nicky.
“I’ll take that.” Mattie crossed the room and retrieved the gown.
“Did you want me to take your coat?”
“No, thank you. You may go.”
Betsy backed out with one last curious look at Nicky, whose eyes were the size of carriage wheels.
“Well,” Mattie hastened to reassure Nicky when his brows drew together in concern at being discovered, “Stumpy’s death should make me safer.”
He pulled away and reached into his coat. “If ye want to stay safe, Mattie, ye ought to take better care of this.” He extracted her pistol from his waistband, and passed it to her.
The pressure in her chest—her heart swelling with love for this boy—forestalled the flow of air to her lungs. “You found it. I wager this is the first item you have ever returned to its owner.”
He flashed her a grin that failed to alleviate the concern in his old man’s eyes. “Ye must leave, Mattie. Back to America. Yer brother’s enemies know where ye be.”
“For all we know, the shooter could have been someone Stumpy cheated out of a few shillings at cards.” Not a scenario she believed, but perhaps one that would allay his fears.
But Nicky was too streetwise for such suggestions. “Ye can’t stay ‘ere.”
But she had nowhere else to go, and no funds to get there.
“I ‘ave other news for ye. That gent yer looking for? Rumor is that ‘e’s back.”
“Viscount Somershurst?”
“That one.”
The decision of a lifetime—the quest for which she’d sacrificed her home, her country, her possessions, even her self-respect—loomed before her. She stared at her hands, at the fingers still wrapped around the gun. Doubts appealed to her heart, reminding her of Caro’s friendship, Lady Chambelston’s kindnesses, Kit’s … what?
“Mattie?”
And then she looked at Nicky, seeing in his troubled face a young George Fraser’s forlorn features. A captain was the absolute ruler of his ship. An English court would never convict Viscount Somershurst of murder, even should Mattie have him charged. She hardened her heart. She was her brother’s only hope for justice.
“Mattie?” Nicky repeated her name.
She, however, would be punished. Most likely a hanging—because the English would find a woman shooting a nobleman to be a far greater sin than that same man having her brother beaten to death.
But then, it seemed someone already wanted her dead.
“What are ye doing, Mattie?”
Her hand shook as she checked the pistol’s flashpan. Then she grabbed her coat. The wool had absorbed the afternoon’s rain, making it even heavier than usual. No matter. She wouldn’t need the garment for long. She swung it around her shoulders and shoved the gun into its pocket. It burned against the side of her body, straight to her cold heart. “I’m going to pay Viscount Somershurst a visit.”
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
Nicky watched her, apprehension drawing his brows together. “I’ll come with ye.”
“I …” For the first time since she had sold the store in Washington, she wavered, as concern for Nicky and satisfaction for her brother warred within her. “No, Nicky. I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt.”
Pleasure sparked in his dark eyes. “Ye needn’t worry about me.”
“But I do.” Besides, she didn’t want Nicky to witness her end. “If you love me, Nicky, please go.”
Stubbornness quivered on his outthrust lower lip. “Mattie, please don’t—”
“Here.” She dipped her hand in her pocket, pulled out the change that remained from her venture with Soggy and thrust the coins into Nicky’s hands. “You’ll need more but this will get you started. Promise me you’ll find a ship. I want you to go to America.”
“But Mattie—”
“Go to Washington and ask for Lilla Boyd. She was my neighbor.” And the closest thing Mattie’d had to a mother during the past sixteen years. “She’ll help you find a job, maybe an apprenticeship somewhere.”
“But—”
“Start a new life.”
“But I want a life with ye, Mattie,” he whispered.
“Go.” She wrenched open the door before her resolve wavered. The hall was empty. “I love you, Nicky,” she whispered to herself.
Then he turned and walked away, leaving her alone with her gun.
Mattie’s fists blasted against the door like gunfire. She waited several heartbeats, then struck the door again.
A faint glow glimmered in the transom, then the door swung open.
“I insist—”
This wasn’t an imperturbable butler.
The deep tan that stained this man’s face and the stubble that flecked his chin couldn’t disguise his identity. Not when the candle flame glinted on his blond hair and glimmered in his deep blue eyes.
Eyes so familiar another fissure split her heart.
“You must be Miss Fraser. Won’t you come in?” Julian DeChambelle, Viscount Somershurst, stepped aside and gestured her into the foyer. Even his voice matched that of his brother.
Well, her brother’s voice had been silenced forever—because of the order of this one man.
She ripped the pistol from her pocket and leveled it at him. “You’ve been expecting
me.”
His crooked smile mocked … whom? Her? Him? “Shall we adjourn to the library for this conversation, Miss Fraser?”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
He was more rugged than handsome, his face weathered brown leather with crow’s feet serrating the corners of those DeChambelle eyes. Mattie hardened her heart against his marked resemblance to those who had been so kind—his mother, his father, even Caro. He nodded toward her pistol. “Is it loaded?”
“Of course.” Why didn’t she shoot him and be done with the deed?
“You should know that I didn’t impress your brother, Miss Fraser. That responsibility—seeing the ship is completely manned—belongs to the first lieutenant.”
“Your excuses won’t change my mind. As captain, you are responsible for all that happens aboard your ship.”
“Just so, Miss Fraser. I was responsible, and your brother was irresponsible. Are you certain you would not prefer to sit in the library?”
“No! Nor do I want to hear about my brother’s failings.” She knew what kind of man he was but he still hadn’t deserved to die.
“He stole from me, Miss Fraser. And then he refused a direct order to return the purloined article.”
“He wasn’t a citizen of your country, and the peace treaty had already been signed.” Her voice rose and she paused to collect her composure. “He didn’t even belong on your ship.”
“Be that as it may, Miss Fraser, we have already agreed that as captain I was responsible for everything that happened on that ship. Everything. And that includes punishment for thievery.”
“Of a piece of paper! What was so important that you were willing to kill for it?”
“My reputation.”
The gun wavered in her hands. She jerked it aright. He never flinched. “No one can steal a reputation, Somershurst. You gave it away.”
“So wise. I begin to see how you have so fascinated my brother.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She focused on his nose—his un-scarred nose—rather than those features so similar to Kit’s. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—think of Kit now. She tightened her finger around the trigger. She would not let his words rattle her, sway her. Stop her.