by Anne Mallory
“What are you doing?” she hissed. “Didn’t we just establish ourselves?”
“I’m making us invisible to the rest of the pub, except to those lechers that get off on this kind of thing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He nodded to the corner. Through the shifting bodies she could see a man and a woman writhing against one another, their mouths fused and their hands in motion. No one was paying them any attention.
“We are not doing that.”
He had the temerity to laugh, a warm, rich sound this time.
Soon they had their drinks. Marietta thought she hadn’t tasted anything quite as awful as the ale in front of her, but she forced herself to take small sips.
Noble and she whispered back and forth as they sipped their ale and watched the regulars. Every so often he pulled her into a mind-drugging kiss, if they’d gone too long without one.
His strategy seemed to be working. They had passed the initial inspection and were now mostly ignored.
The hierarchy in the pub became obvious. The men around the bar area were clustered around a few central figures—the leaders—while a few men by their sides—the main lackeys—held their chins aloft. The other men vied for attention or listened attentively.
The men seated at the tables looked to be a bit more democratic in their groupings. Still, the main cluster at the bar held the power. That was where they would find their information without asking direct questions, as those men looked as if an audience was their most desired commodity.
She hadn’t even needed Noble’s subtle finger pointing to tell her that. And when another bunch of men squeezed into the bar area looking similar to the band of men already there, it was like seeing two sides square off for a prize.
Noble leaned into her and nuzzled her neck. He captured her hand in his when she jumped. “Just relax, Marietta. Watch the two men near the edge of the bar. The ones who lead their groups. Don’t make it obvious. Tip your head back. That’s right.” The side of his face rubbed along her throat, his lips dropping kisses as he mapped the area. She couldn’t think while he was doing this. He clamped his lips around her pulse point and the men wavered in her vision. “No,” he whispered. “Don’t close your eyes. Tell me what you see. Softly.”
“The man in green is—” Her breath caught. “—arguing with the man in blue.”
The conversation filtered a bit their way. The bodies shifted and the noise dimmed, as if everyone else in the pub wanted to be privy to what was happening too.
“I don’t care what you think you can do, magistrate, we handle that area.”
“Who said that?” Noble whispered into her ear as his hand worked up her side and one thumb grazed her breast.
“Green,” she choked out.
“—as if you can handle your own district, watchman.”
Noble’s thumb began a slow circle around her breast through the dress, stays, and chemise. Thin protection against his warm, moving fingers, his hot palms. “Blue.” The word got strangled in her throat as he brushed the tip.
“Shhh, shhhh.” He whispered against the skin under her ear. “I’ve got it. Just relax and watch. I’ll listen.”
She didn’t think that was possible. Any outrage and maidenly virtue had flown right through the pub’s doors. Her body was undulating, sinking into his, like the charmed snake she had seen at a sideshow. Her eyes fought to remain open as his lips moved against her throat, under her ear, beneath her chin, and his hands spiraled a coil of heat that kept spreading further outward.
“Marietta, stay with me.” His hand moved down along her breast and brushed between her legs. Her eyes flew open. He rested his hand on her thigh, which at this point was about the most innocent placement she was likely to receive.
“Damn magistrates thinking they can run things. Stay in Holborn where you belong.”
“Listen to them whine, Sam, you’d think the poor watchmen didn’t need help with their street fights.” She could barely concentrate enough to see the leader in blue say that to a crony over his shoulder.
The leader in green visibly bristled, his shoulders coming up and flaring out. He took a step forward. “As if you helped in that scuffle. You were in the way. Davey and the boys had it under control. You just made it worse.”
The other man stepped closer as well, putting their noses inches apart. “Dangerously close to Holborn territory. You know that’s our jurisdiction.”
“As if we’d forget, what with you whining about it all the time, as if you miss your mummy and she’s nesting on the line.” A nasty smirk appeared.
“You keep believing you are capable and we’ll keep being amused.” The sentence was delivered calmly, but the man’s knotted fists said otherwise.
“Problem?” A new voice entered the fray, and Marietta got a reprieve as Noble’s lips moved from her neck. A lock of his hair tickled her chin as he stole a glance at the newcomer.
The man was of average height, but the way he carried himself made him seem taller. He stood next to a few of the more hulking men, and even though he was shorter, there was something distinctive about him. Not something necessarily nice, but dignified all the same.
“Here we go,” the man in green groaned, lifting his pint and tapping it against the side of a fellow watchman’s.
“No wonder the crime in Middlesex is so high. Too busy drinking your pints to patrol,” the new man said.
“Here now, the murderer’s been caught. And by one of our own. Didn’t see you catching him, and wasn’t that your job, Runner? Didn’t see you collecting the reward.” The green watchman leaned back, physically taunting the man as well.
Marietta tightened her grip on Noble’s hand and he gave her a comforting squeeze back. They were in the midst of a tavern filled with watchmen, magistrate appointed patrollers, and a Bow Street Runner. And all of them were jockeying for position.
Noble moved so he was near her ear again. “This is exactly what we want. Relax.”
“He was lucky. If Penner hadn’t needed to piss himself so badly, he never would have found him.”
“Call it luck all you want, Runner. But it’s not you that gets the glory. And the patrollers have to continue licking the magistrates’ ballocks just a few days more.”
The man in blue and his fellow patrollers bristled.
“You think that stopping one man, one murderer, is enough to put you on top? To stop the might of Bow Street?”
The Runner had dignity, yes. But it was a forced dignity. Like that of a competent man who always felt the need to prove himself.
“Oh, la, la. The might of Bow Street. Hear that patrolman Joe? We are facing the might of Bow Street.” The watchman in green smirked at his counterpart in blue.
“I’m shaking in me boots.”
“You would be wise not to incur our wrath.” The Runner was either an idiot or dangerous. She wasn’t sure which yet.
“Always a pleasure to have such an educated gentleman in our midst, eh, boys?”
The tide had turned from the two groups fighting one another to showing a united front. She would bet a pound though that as soon as the Runner left, they would be back at each others’ throats.
“Look around Runner. These are pleasures you’ll never have. A fine ale, a fine woman.” She saw the man point to the couple in the corner and then straight to them.
The Runner locked eyes with her, and his narrowed. Noble hooked his fingers around her thigh, brushing against her again at the same time he pulled her ear-lobe in between his lips.
She arched back and gasped. The Runner’s lip curled and he turned away.
“You can have your weak drink and pox-ridden prostitutes.”
Marietta felt a slice of outrage pierce her haze. She was neither a prostitute nor pox-ridden. The green man with his comment of “a fine woman” rose through the roof in her esteem, while the Runner buried himself six feet below.
The Runner sneered at the serving gal, and all hell broke lo
ose.
“Don’t you sneer at Betsy!”
She felt Noble chuckle against her throat, warm puffs of air hitting her skin and then skittering away. He looked up and sat back to watch the fray. She grabbed her ale and took a few quick gulps.
“Betsy, is it?” The Runner looked their waitress up and down, his eyes communicating that he found her wanting.
Betsy narrowed her hard, lined eyes. “Rumor whispers you have the cock of a worm. Hard to catch the pox with such wee bait.”
Marietta spewed her beer forward. Noble patted her on the back as the pub roared with laughter at Betsy’s response.
“Just what I expect from a lady in this pub.” The Runner moved to the back and settled into a seat. His eyes scanned the room, assessing everyone and watching their movements. Marietta grew increasingly uncomfortable.
With the arrival of the patrolmen’s group and the Runner, pubgoers had been forced to spill outside.
“Come.” Noble pressed closely to her ear. He nudged her up and they made way through the crowded pub. Their table was swallowed up immediately behind them.
Marietta caught a last sight of the Runner’s eyes following them as they stepped through the door.
They spoke with people of all types as they exited the pub and milled around the street—pickpockets, patrollers, prostitutes. Most of them had seen nothing. Some had seen the arrest. It wasn’t until nearly one in the morning that they found treasure.
The gap-toothed prostitute, smelling of gin and sex, looked Noble up and down. “I seen another man, yea. He was standing over both of ’em—the girl that got herself killed and the boy they arrested.”
Marietta froze, her arm still wrapped in Noble’s as it had been the entire night.
“What did he look like?” Noble’s tone was curious, but she could feel the tension vibrating through him as well.
“Hard to tell, yea. But dark hair. His clothes was dark too.”
“Could you recognize him, were you to see him again?”
The prostitute smiled, the spaces between her teeth wafting a smell in Marietta’s direction that was anything but pleasant.
“Prolly not. Coulda been you for all I seen.”
“Why didn’t you tell the watch what you’d seen?” Marietta asked.
The prostitute looked at her for the first time, and her eyes narrowed. “Cor, you sound a right high, your highness.” She laughed at her own joke, slapping her thigh. “Best get those airs gone. Though I s’pose some men might toss for it.”
She eyed Noble again. “Maybe should get me an air.”
Noble squeezed Marietta’s arm. Her crisp speech had not helped, though the prostitute seemed too far in her cups to care. Marietta tried again in a more moderated tone. “Why didn’t you tell the watch?”
“That ol’ Daise had seen something else?” She laughed riotously. “Got to get back to me corner, unless you want somethin’ besides talk?”
Noble gave her a coin—well more than he had given the others, who were more mentally fit—and Daise shuffled away.
“Why don’t we have her tell the watch? They’ll have to let Kenny go, or at least submit it at his trial.”
He looked back at her from where he had been watching Daise walk. “Don’t be silly. They would no more believe her than they would believe us were we to walk inside and declare him innocent.”
“Well why not? Her story matches Kenny’s and—”
He released her arm from his and turned to lift her chin. He tilted her head gently as he searched her eyes. “It does you credit to say that she is a valid source of information, even if it is only to get your brother released. But most people would not trust a drunken prostitute like Daise. Would you have two weeks ago?”
She blinked at him. “I don’t know.” She hadn’t even thought about prostitutes, drunken or not, two weeks ago. “That could be me on the corner were things different.” She swallowed. “Or if they go differently, it still could. I would want someone to believe me.”
His eyes were shaded with the fall of the gaslight and she couldn’t read them. “Marietta, you—”
“Isn’t this touching. A broker and his lady together on the street.”
They both turned to see the Runner standing at the corner. Daise must have beaten a hasty retreat. She felt Noble stiffen.
The Runner’s eyes ran over them, back and forth. “I’ve been watching the both of you all night. Stirring up trouble about the murderer? Should I arrest you for harassment or try and discover your larger scheme?”
“You have nothing with which to arrest us.” Noble tipped his head so his eyes were in shadow.
The Runner strode forward. “I don’t need much.”
“Even a Bow Street Runner needs evidence, and it seems that you might need more than most. Little trouble with your last case, I’m taken to understand.”
The Runner stopped a few feet away and his eyes narrowed. “I thoroughly document every case. There is never anything wrong with my evidence.”
“More than five hundred captures to your name even though you are fresh to the hire, isn’t that so?”
The Runner’s eyes sharpened and Marietta felt a twinge of real fear. What was Noble doing? He might be as wealthy as Croesus, but Bow Street Runners could cause real trouble.
“You seem to have an advantage over me,” the Runner said. “What is your name?”
“Terrence Jones, not at your service.” Noble made a mock bow.
“A smart one, I see,” the Runner said distastefully. “Why are you interested in the Middlesex murders?”
“My lady has an interest. I make sure to sate all of her curiosities.”
Marietta dredged up a smile. The Runner gave her a disgusted look and turned away, but his head whipped back and he studied her.
“And what is her name?”
Obnoxious toad. Not even asking her the question, as if as a woman she didn’t have two solid thoughts between her ears.
“Cornelia Jones. No relation.” Noble smiled in the character of an obnoxious rake with his lazy posture and sly look.
The Runner continued to assess her, eyes narrowed and piercing. “I don’t think that is her name. But I don’t plan on seeing either of you again, do you understand?”
“Of course not, dear honorable sir.”
The Runner stiffened, but turned and left.
Marietta let out a breath. “I think he might have recognized me. I don’t know how. But there was something in his eyes.”
Noble had dropped his pretense and straightened to his full height, eyes narrowed. “Yes. It is just our luck to have Arthur Dresden still interested in the case. I thought he had moved on, but it must be true that he can’t let things go when he doesn’t solve it himself. This makes our task more difficult.”
Marietta had heard of Dresden even before Anthony had mentioned him. He was known for his tenacity. Like a terrier that wouldn’t let go. Always trying to bring peace and justice—at any cost. Although he was reported to be a by-the-book investigator, he had been reprimanded more than once for his tactics in extracting information. As long as the bad men were punished and the good people saved, he was reputed not to care if the means justified the ends.
He was not the kind of man one wanted to be noticed by.
But then neither was Noble. For all that Dresden looked like he wanted to toss them in the nearest cell for just existing below his moral code, Noble was far more dangerous in other ways.
He abruptly cocked his head.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I thought I heard something.” He shook his head. “As to what are we doing, I do remember saying something about what position you might find yourself in at the end of the night.”
Tingles on top of her skin overlapped the increased pace of her heart beneath.
One long finger touched her cheek. “Over a pub table? Up against an alley wall? In a carriage, the windows open, the wind blowing through as we race down the s
treets and you ride me to the end?”
She swallowed, then swallowed again.
“Yes, I think I like all of those images. I can see your head thrown back and that long, smooth neck exposed to me in all of them.” His finger trailed down the side of her throat. “Your eyes are becoming even more smoky and sensual, Marietta. From the inside out now, rather than the outside in. Shall we see what happens when the knowledge blooming there becomes a large petaled rose?”
A muffled cry shook the night and he pulled her behind him. The sound seemed to be emanating from a darkened street. With her still behind him, flat to his back, he walked forward. It wasn’t until they came to a connecting alley that they saw who had made the sound.
A man, reedy with menace, hit a woman. It was obviously not the first strike—the right side of her face was swollen and cracked in the faint gaslight.
She felt Noble move. A sickening crunch echoed in the alley, and the reedy man howled.
Noble stood to the side, wiping his hands on his trousers as if the mere touch to the other man’s arm had left him with the plague. “Shame about that arm.”
The man charged him.
Marietta winced as another crack sounded, unnatural and loud.
“Do try that again. It would be a pleasure to watch you eat without the use of your hands for the next three months.” He leaned down to the man, not close enough to be struck, but enough so the man shrunk toward the wall. “I will find your address and happily feed you every bite.”
The man gripped his arm and stumbled from the alley. His beating footsteps retreated, leaving the lane in silence.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the woman said. “Eugene will be real mad once he stops being piss scared.” Her chin trembled.
Noble flicked out two fingers holding a card. “Go here. Ask for Peg. She will help you.”
The woman grabbed the card, eyes weighing, no trust in sight, then turned and disappeared the same way the man had gone.
“Will she go?” Marietta asked, shock still holding her immobile but something in the woman’s eyes prompting the question.
“Perhaps. Some do, some don’t. One has to want to be helped. Come.”