“I will need it,” he answered curtly. Callet didn’t need to know everything; he knew his captain needed his coin, and he would give it. Callet was loyal and willing to do whatever it took to follow orders…even if the man were incapable of fending off and capturing two children. “And you own me after letting those two gutter rats escape.”
Callet grunted. “They was like two greased pigs. Tryin’ to hold on to them was like tryin’ to keep a sow in a pen with no fence,” he grumbled and, despite his annoyance, Brendan couldn’t help smiling.
“And watching all that trying was like watching a great big oaf make a fool of himself,” Brendan drawled, unable to keep the snap of humor from his voice. Aye, most thought him a beast, but those who truly knew him knew there was a side to him he rarely showed. The side only his family and closest friends saw. Friends like the great big oaf, Callet.
“Hurry up, man,” Brendan barked, his humor gone. “We’ve a whore to visit.”
Chapter Two
“What is it?” Etienne asked, holding the sealed letter up to the candlelight to get a better look. The candle, like the rest of their meager belongings, had been stolen; the candle from a chandler shop. It was the last of their stash but it would have to do until they could go out tomorrow and get another.
Etienne, squinting, moved the envelope closer to the flame.
“Watch it!” Rio barked, snatching the envelope from the boy before he could burn it to ash. “It is an envelope. There is a letter inside.” Though none of them could read, she knew that the quality of the seal and the richness of the paper meant that whatever was written inside was important.
Important enough to send that giant of a man chasing after them.
Remembering the beast who’d nearly captured them, Rio shuddered. Taller than any man she’d ever seen, and so broad he could carry four of her crew on his shoulders. Not to mention the amount of pure muscle she’d seen bulging beneath his fine clothing as he prowled toward them in that cul-de-sac. She had never seen a man quite so immense and intimidating before.
He’d been a giant, charging a mouse, and she’d felt every moment of their blissfully short encounter. How could a man grow to be so large? He shoulders were so wide, he barely fit through the alley opening, and his chest was broad, hard—there hadn’t been a bit of fat on him. And noticing all that while also running for her life was telling.
The man she’d robbed was not like any other man.
And it wasn’t just his size that had made her heart stop, it had been the green fire in his remarkable eyes. There was unspent rage just beneath the surface, and she could rightfully guess that his rage had been directed at her. She’d taken his satchel right off his shoulder, and would have gotten away with it if he hadn’t reached to check for it before she could get more than three feet away. It was by the grace of whatever back alley saint was listening that she was able to run faster than him, because Lord knows the brute could have easily crushed her if he’d gotten a hold of her.
Tucking the envelope into her coat, she patted it, her thoughts whirling.
“How many coins did you snag, Etienne?” she asked, knowing the boy had spent most of his evening targeting gulls outside Marguerite’s, the whorehouse with more men and money than Rio had ever seen. Usually, she chose to go there and work the crowds moving in and out of there, before and after their entertainments, but…something told her to stick close to home that night. Thank God she’d listened; the coins she’d found in the giant’s satchel would be enough to feed her and her crew for a least a week—and not just the slop from the inn, either, the good food from the patisserie on Rue du la Ren, the scents of freshly-baked croissants and spiced cakes making all who pass by lick their lips.
Speaking of scents. She bent her head and took a whiff of her chest. She wrinkled her nose. Aside from the stench of the streets she often sported, there was a subtle cloying scent, like leather and cloves.
Reaching into her coat, she fingered the envelope. Besides having the look and feel of wealth, it smelled of wealth as well. Which meant that whatever was written on the missive inside could be important.
Important enough to roar like a bear and chase after the one who stole it?
Oui.
Scrapper, the lad who’d accompanied her that evening, had fallen to sleep as soon as they’d reached their hideout beneath the abandoned milliner’s shop. The little rascal had had a frightful and busy evening, running for his life and escaping the clutches of that wide, bearded man who’d come with the giant.
Rio glanced over at him curled up into a ball on the pallet he shared with another of her crew, Remick. Those two were the youngest at six and ten, and then there was Etienne at twelve, Bruiser at thirteen, Jacques at seventeen, and then her…a surprising twenty-two. Surprising not because she was still on the streets at her age but rather because she’d lasted that long at all. Picking pockets wasn’t the safest of vocations, but it was the only thing she was good at—had been doing it for as long as she could remember. And it was better than working on her back at Marguerite’s. Besides, she needed to watch over her “family”, of which she was the only female, like their mother, their sister, and their caretaker all rolled into one increasingly restless person.
Sighing, Rio dragged her fingers through her shoulder-length hair.
“I only got a pocket watch and a handful of livres, nothing like the haul you landed, Rio,” Etienne finally answered after emptying his pockets and laying his own “haul” on the floor between them. “You think we can have meat tonight, Rio?” he asked, his dark brown eyes wide with hope…and dull with hunger.
They were all hungry. It was increasingly difficult to keep herself and her boys fed, but she would do whatever it took to make sure none succumbed to starvation. Not like many of the lads’ siblings had before they’d found their way to her.
For the last ten years, she’d become like a surrogate mother, the one the urchins went to when they had no one else. In the beginning, she’d only been eleven herself, but she’d already lived on her own for two years by then. She knew the ins and outs of the streets, where she could bed down in relative safety, the shops that threw out the freshest foods, and the men to avoid. The men who ran the streets with their gangs of ruffians, stealing from the poor, killing, raping, and turning the streets she had begun to think of as home into a nightmarish place.
Since then, Rio had been doing everything she could to help those she could, even going so far as to training the younger ones to pickpocket, creating a gang of her own. A family of her own. And they all looked out for each other. But was that all her life would be? Picking pockets, living on scraps, sleeping on cold, hard floors, skulking through rubbish, living and breathing in the muck of the underbelly?
One of her only memories of her mother was of the woman coming home from work, just before dawn, her body weary, her face care-worn. She sat down next to where Rio was laying, awake because of the shouts of vendors as they gamboled by with their carts. Their little flat was below-grade, their only window the sewer grate, and so when the street outside woke up, so did Rio.
And that morning, Rio’s mother sat beside her and heaved a heavy, hopeless sigh. Rio sat up, her hand finding her mother’s where it was cradled, cold and callused, in her lap.
“Mamma?” she murmured, troubled by the look of abject sorrow in her mother’s eyes.
“Anamaria, my darling…” her mother rasped, tears in her voice. “Promise me something.”
Rio nodded emphatically; she would do anything for her mother.
“Promise me that if you can find a way out, you will take it.”
Shocked at the vehemence in her mother’s voice, Rio had grimaced.
“Mamma?” she asked, suddenly terrified. “Where would I go without you?”
Her mother’s hand grasped hers, squeezing. “Promise me—please,” her mother begged, her soft brown eyes filling with tears.
Struck dumb, Rio could only nod again. Her mother
leaned down, kissing her forehead and murmuring, “I love you, my sweet angel.”
Her mother left for work seven hours later and never returned.
It was soon after that that she’d been turned out onto the streets, alone, frightened, and desperate to survive. Now, thirteen years later, she wasn’t alone, she no longer feared the streets, but still, survival was a daily task. Grinding and grinding to make enough to feed the growing number of mouths in her care.
It was wearing on her.
And at night, when the others were asleep, she would lie there, staring into the cobwebs dangling from the floorboards over their heads. Remembering her mother, that promise, and that loss.
She wanted more. Dammit, she deserved more!
Her hand slipping up to cradle the envelope against her chest, a thought formed. Why worry about having meat just tonight? With the money from the satchel, they’d eat meat for the week…but why not longer? If the giant had that many coins in one place, perhaps he could get his hands on more money. Perhaps he’d be willing to pay Rio for his letter back?
“Tell you what…” she announced, “gather the other boys and have Bruiser head to the butcher over on Remuelle before he shutters the shop for the night. Have him buy up a slab of two-day old beef.” Rio pushed off the floor, dusting off the dirt she could and then wiping her hands on the front of her coat. She peered down at herself; her coat, shirt, breeches, and boots had all seen better days. Her lean body was curvy where it needed to be, but her teacup-sized breasts allowed her to hide her sex behind her ill-fitting clothes. None besides her crew knew she was really a female, and she liked it that way. It kept things simple, clean. No one bothered with a dirty boy, passing over her as she scurried by in a back alley.
“Where you headed?” Etienne asked, moving to stand as well, several coins clasped in his tiny fist.
“I have an idea…do not wait up for me. Buy meat, eat—I will be back before the church bells toll the morning mass.”
With that, she hurried to the sewer grate that acted as a hidden entrance to their basement home and pushed it upward, her eyes and ears alert for the sounds of passersby.
That time of night, nearing the dinner hour, many were at the inns and pubs and whorehouses, eating, drinking, and getting their needs met.
She sneered. She’d never understand that latter one, though the older boys in her crew did little but steal and then ply putains for discounted pleasures.
Pulling herself up through the opening, she stood then turned to secure the grate and keep their hideaway hidden. In the dark of the alley, she pondered her next course of action.
She’d pilfered the satchel from outside the le Coq Inn, perhaps that was where the giant was staying.
Instinctively patting her coat to make sure the envelope was still there, she headed north, toward the inn, and a possible payout large enough to get her off the streets for good.
La Revanche tucked the last packet of “confiscated” letters into the dark maw beneath his bedchamber floor. Smiling down at the collection of other items, he felt the swell of pride in his chest. A sneer lifted his lips, even as the chill of purpose suffused his blood. Shutting the two-inch thick safe door with a resounding thud, he secured the lock with the key he kept around his neck. Once locked, he hid the safe’s enclosure with a four-foot-by-four-foot plank of wood, then covered it with a plush rug. He’d had the safe installed when he bought the house five years ago, knowing he would need a large, secure vault where he could secret away all the precious items he required for his plans. Grand plans. Plans that involved forming a small but growing network of easily controllable scoundrels, masquerading as nobility.
His sneer turned to a snarl.
“Nobility,” he ground out into the silence. “Those noble dogs are more whores than any putain that ever lifted her skirt.” The heat of his anger rolled from him in waves, dousing his banyan in sweat. Moving away from the hidden compartment, he walked to the window, opening it to let in the cool night air. The sounds of the twilit city drifted in on the breeze; the occasional passing carriage, gentlemen hailing hackneys. And the scents that assailed his nose were a combination of the smoke and sewer of the teeming metropolis, and the cloyingly sweet stench of the flowers in his garden. He’d much rather be smelling tobacco and brandy, and hearing the cries of his enemies as they felled themselves on the swords he provided.
Chuckling to himself, he pushed away from the window and turned to look about his bedchamber. It was an elegantly appointed room with rich gold and crimson brocade, stout, dark furniture, a large fireplace with a fire roaring away in the hearth, and all the accessories and symbols of a man of wealth and privilege. Pride surged in his chest. It was all his—he’d earned it by sweat and blood, gnawing and clawing, by bending over and then breaking backs. He’d done whatever it took to become the man he was, the man he wanted everyone to see. The gentleman of leisure and useless politicking. He was a man of easy smiles and flamboyant flair. But, in the silence and loneliness of his chamber, he was someone else; a man driven by his salacious hunger for power, for pain, for vengeance. He was the man no one would ever expect him to be: their greatest enemy.
No one knew who he really was, what he was truly capable of doing. The underworld mantle he wore hid more than his identity, it was the tool by which he wielded his power unblinkingly. People feared the name La Revanche as much as they would come to fear the end of all they would ever know. And it wasn’t just his name they would fear, but also the network of spies and blackmailed nobles he’d painstakingly built over the course of a decade. He’d handpicked each member, and each member had a closet full of skeletons, and he was the one who knew the markings on each bone. Just as he would know the secrets of all the members of the French aristocracy—the men and women who dared to act as though they were above reproach.
Black-hearted blasphemers, the lot of them. At least he was honest with himself. And once the first step of his grander plan was complete, he would tear apart the noble houses of France, brick by brick, and build a fortress so great, all would break themselves against it.
If only that blasted wretch Van Rompay and his cutthroat brother would come to heel. The two pirates were reveling in their cruelty and misdeeds, and it was costing them more than they realized. The power-addled Les Porteurs d’eau spent far too much time stealing from the Spaniard pirates and not enough time tending to his business—the business of taking from the wealthy—on land and sea, and using the money earned from their thefts to grow their influence across the Continent. He’d made it his business to know everything about everyone and to use what he knew to rise above them all and make them pay for their avarice. For their arrogance.
But it would all be ruined if the Van Rompays continued with their carelessness—already he’d heard there was a Welshman, a blasted Rees, at the docks, asking questions about them and their connection to Spanish ships docked off the port of Calais. The last thing he needed was to incite the notice of the Welshmen; their smuggling network was vast and well-hidden, they could cause serious, unforeseen problems when he finally moved forward with the next part of his plan.
He slipped from his bedchamber and down the hallway to his study. Lighting the lamp, he set about pouring himself several fingers of his best cognac, one of the many vices he’d adopted since becoming the man behind La Revanche. Drink in hand, he settled into his seat behind his desk, his dark thoughts on dark deeds.
He needed to rid himself of his ties to the pirates before the two led the Rees right to his door. And as he sipped his cognac, the drink burning the back of his throat, he set to planning.
Calling for his footman, he penned a quick missive, marking it in such a way that the recipient would know it was a matter of utmost importance and secrecy. With the letter dispatched, he settled into the upholstered chair facing the terrace doors. The garden was unlit, but he didn’t need the light to know what he would see. Tall hedges surrounding a garden comprised of raised beds lined with
hearty English blooms, imported from across the Channel. Roses, daisies, and columbine filled the air with their scents—he was glad he’d left the doors shut. He couldn’t stomach the scents, not when they reminded him, too much, of what he’d lost. Of that diseased part of himself that he cut away so that the rest of him could grow stronger.
There, in his study, staring out over his night-cloaked garden, he watched as the moon bathed the world in cold light, and waited for the darkness of his soul to claim him once again.
Chapter Three
Brendan slammed his tankard of ale on the table, his frustration at tidal levels.
At the whorehouse, Marguerite had been indisposed, meaning she was with a customer and would likely be busy until the next morning. Which meant he was left with his ass flapping in the wind, trying to figure out how to find this “Rio” and get his damned satchel back—and when he got it back, that damned letter had better still be in it.
But what would a gang of urchins want with a letter anyway? Perhaps they took the sack of coins, the clothes, and left the satchel somewhere along the route from where they’d escaped to their hideout. As soon as his thoughts caught on that possibility, his hopes were dashed. Without knowing where their hideout was, he’d have no way of knowing which path to take, where to look.
Having returned to the Coq, he sent Callet back to the ship for the night; he had nothing to do on land, and the ship needed a commander on board to keep the men in line. Brendan, however, paid for another night at the inn, a night he would use to figure a way to find Rio and get his satchel back before his time in Calais drew to a close—because it would. Soon. Saban expected him back in Port Eynon Bay by the end of the summer, and he would damned well arrive ahead of time, with the letter from the Demonios, the letter that would mean the Ganwyd o’r Mor were free of their ties to the Spaniards. It was something they had been anticipating for over a year, ever since Saban required a favor from their leader, Santiago Fernandez, to help Saban’s wife, who was, in actuality, a Spanish lady.
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