My Lord and Spymaster

Thirty-two

HER NAME WAS BRIDGET AND SHE CAME FROM County Mayo in the west of Ireland. She was a whore, a good one, and as shrewd and grasping as a magpie. Even respectably dressed, she looked like three pence against the nearest wall or ten pence upstairs in a bed.

She drank ale from a large pewter tankard and wiped her mouth. “She’s gone. Girl slipped out at first light and left those lumbering fools behind.”

“Alone, then.” The Irishman set his elbows on the sticky table. “Was she carrying a bag?”

“You think I pranced up and asked her? Jaysus.” She drank again. “And you bastards owe me a pound, even.”

“Later.”

Next to him on the bench, the other man said, “If she’s leaving England, we know where she’ll be.” He shoved to his feet. “Let’s go. Out the back way.”

“You could pay for me drink,” the woman muttered. “Pigs.”

PITNEY wasn’t at his house. His housekeeper, all flustered, said he’d come in late last night and packed a bag and left. He wasn’t at the warehouse either. When Jess checked the safe, the ready money was missing, so he’d been there and gone. But he wouldn’t have been fast enough to sail out on last night’s tide. He was still in London.

She took a hackney to Commercial Road, which was as far as the jarvey wanted to venture into these waters. A sensible man. She counted coins for him while her bodyguard assembled at a discreet distance.

She’d dodged Sebastian’s men, but not the Service. That was the next item on her agenda. Cutting loose the Service.

She slipped around the corner and down the alley, listening to heavy boots hurrying after her. At the end of Goose Lane she climbed a rain barrel and went over the palings into the narrow, crooked pathways nobody ever got around to naming. They were in her part of town now.

CLAUDIA sat in the ugly front parlor at Meeks Street, red-eyed, clutching her reticule in her lap.

“. . . his clothing gone from his room. All his things. The door to your study was open.” She swallowed and went on. “The drawers of your desk have been pried out. The miniatures are missing from the upstairs hallway, and some of the other paintings. My jewel case . . .” She kept her face averted from them while she talked. Her eyes stayed fixed on some knob or curlicue on the hideous sideboard to the left of the door. “My jewel case was extracted from my room last night, while I slept. I found it in your office, on the floor, broken open and emptied. Eunice’s jewels were—”

“He’s run for it.” Sebastian stopped her. There was no need to make her count through the whole wretched list of what was stolen. He felt sick. “It was Quentin all along. Quentin and Whitby. It adds up.”

“Quentin.” Adrian was doing some adding of his own. “But not Josiah.”

Doyle didn’t move from his position near the window. “It’s Pitney.” Doyle met his eye, soberly. “Your cousin knows Pitney, not Josiah Whitby. It’s Pitney who carries paperwork to the Board of Trade.”

“A conspiracy of small fishes,” Adrian said. “That’s why we missed it. Sebastian, I’m sorry.”

Service agents were silent at the edges of the room, watching.

Adrian said, “Your cousin had access to secrets. Pitney could use Whitby company ships any way he wanted. Josiah wouldn’t question him.”

Quentin had done treason. Quentin lived in his house. He’d sat beside him, eating dinner every night. He’d offered sympathy, damp-eyed, when the Neptune Dancer went down. His cousin had been playing a part for years. “Quentin is in charge. His ideas. He needed a man with access to ships, so he pulled Pitney into it somehow.”

Adrian was up, pacing off the room. “Jess knows it’s Pitney. ” After a minute. “She knew it when she left last night. She warned him.”

“Pitney was waiting at the gate when we left the Admiralty. ” He remembered what Jess had said. He remembered their faces—Jess resolute and frozen, Pitney gray as death. “She told him right under my nose. I watched her do it.”

“Mr. Pitney.” Claudia’s voice was tight. Her hands twitched in her lap. “From the Whitby company. When he came, they’d leave the house and walk along the street, to talk. Quentin made certain they wouldn’t be overheard. I knew something was wrong. I saw Quentin, once, hand money to him.”

She had the attention of every man in the room.

“I have known, for some time, that Quentin was engaged in something shameful. I had hoped it was . . . an unimportant corruption. My father committed numberless depravities without becoming a traitor.” Her face was proud. Impassive. “My brother has not succeeded in even that.”

“Claudia . . .” This was his fault. He should have seen what was happening in his own home. He’d ignored Quentin because he disliked him. What could he say? She’d never wanted friendship or comfort from him before. He didn’t know how to offer it now. “Where has he gone?”

“To Hades, I devoutly pray.” Claudia rose and shook her skirts out. “It’s as well the Ashton name will die in this generation. The bastard shoot is the best we’ve produced. Have a care to your Jessamyn, Sebastian. I’ve seen how Quentin looks at something he plans to steal. He watched your Persian miniatures that way. That’s the way he looks at Jess.” She smoothed her glove. “And he likes to hurt things.”

Jess was headed to Pitney, wherever he was hiding. To Pitney. And to Quentin.

FROM the outside, all rookeries look the same, but some are more dangerous than others.

Ludmill Street was peaceable in its rough way. Safe enough, if you knew what you were doing. When a pair of Irishmen approached, making monetary offers, she snapped back, sharp, in Italian. They left her alone, thinking she belonged to the Italians. There were lots of hot-tempered Italians in this section who didn’t like even their whores approached by Irishmen. A few hundred yards farther on, she sent an Italian boy on his way with a Gaelic curse. Lots of hot-tempered Irishmen in this quarter, too.

When she got to the Limehouse, to Asker Street, it would be considerably more dangerous. She’d be unwise to visit alone.

The Reverend’s soup kitchen was open, and the door to his office unlocked. Guess he felt the same way she did about locks. An invitation to thievery, locks were. Being the Reverend, though, he probably came to the same conclusion in a more roundabout way.

When he walked in a few minutes later, she had his communion chalice down. “I should get you something better than this,” she said. “Something that’s real silver, at least.”

“I don’t own anything worth stealing, Jess.” Which was more or less what he said to her the first time they met, when she was eight and planning to lift that particular cup.

She set it back on the shelf. “Reverend, you would not believe the trouble I’m in.” Which was exactly what she said to him on another memorable occasion, a couple hours before she sold herself to Lazarus.

WHEN Sebastian came into the study, Josiah Whitby was staring into the fire. The old man didn’t look up. Not making a point, just not much interested. Some rumor from last night had reached him. He knew it’d been Whitby ships.

Sebastian collapsed into the chair. “I’ll take that port you didn’t offer me yesterday.”

That got Whitby’s attention. A cool, shrewd look, and Whitby read everything he was saying. Confirmation of his innocence. The amende honorable. Apology.

Whitby responded with his own set of messages. He brought the bottle and two glasses to the desk and poured for them both. “Looks like you could use it.”

“Why the hell didn’t you get Jess out of England the day you were arrested? Anybody but an iron-plated bastard like you would have kept her out of this.”

Whitby saluted with his glass and drank. “You’ll find, Kennett, that there’s a fine art to giving Jess orders.”

Time to tell him and pray the man knew something that could help. “An hour ago your daughter ran into the Whitechapel rookery as if all the Hounds of Hell were after her.” He waited for that to sink in. “Unless you can think of some way to get her back, she’ll be in a brothel by tomorrow morning. Learn to take orders there, I should imagine. Salut.”

The old man’s eyes turned to brown rock. This was the Josiah Whitby who’d faced down the mob in Izmir and plucked a crew of men back from hanging. This was the king smuggler who ran his gang of cutthroats under the noses of the customs. “The Hounds of Hell being yourself, I take it.”

“Being the British Service.” He didn’t try to hide the anger that filled him. “She gave the slip to men who were supposed to protect her. Fast as a greyhound, your Jess. Comes from all those years doing your dangerous errands. And Lazarus’s. She must be used to running scared.”

Whitby slapped his drink down, rattling. “No games, Kennett. I don’t need to be rooked into helping Jess. Why’d she run from you?”

“We would have stopped her going to Pitney.”

There was not the smallest change in Whitby’s eyes. “Pitney.”

“The part of Cinq that used your company to commit treason.”

A minute passed. Whitby gave a nod. “I wasn’t sure myself, till they told me it was Whitby ships. Then I knew.” He wiped at the spilled drops of port with the side of his hand. “I wish it hadn’t been Jess who found this out. She’ll take it as her fault somehow.”

“He has a dangerous partner—the man who was behind this all. If Jess shows up, Pitney won’t be able to protect her. I have to get to her. Where are they?”

“What happens to Pitney?”

He didn’t answer. They both knew there’d be no amnesty for Pitney.

Whitby sat back in his chair and stared out the window, past the bars. Three sparrows were on the windowsill, tucking into crumbs of bread. It’d be Whitby who set that out for them.

“I’ve known Pitney for thirty years.” Whitby drank and set the glass down. “Jess is headed for the docks. There’s a warehouse. The old Belkey warehouse on Asker Street. That’s the conduit out of England.”

Asker Street. Jess had lost her bodyguard near Commercial Road. That was a long, treacherous walk for a woman. He stood up. “I’ll find her.”

A sleek gray muzzle poked out from behind the curtain. The beady nose sniffed in his direction and slithered toward him. Jess’s vermin.

He said, “Touch my boots and you die.”

There was no fear in the ferret. It was like Jess, that way. It stood on its hindquarters to snuffle up his leg to the thigh. Then it set a clawed foot on him, for balance, and started sniffing across his hand.

“He smells Jess on thee,” Whitby said.

“If it bites, I’m going to wring its neck.”

“I’ve thought of fricassee ferret, myself, from time t’ time.”

“She can’t walk through Limehouse alone. Who will she go to?” The ferret made an odd half scramble, still sniffing, following him to the door.

“It’s been too long, Kennett. Her old friends have gone. Everything’s changed. She doesn’t belong there anymore.”

“Then she should damn well stay out of there.”

The study door wasn’t locked. That was Adrian’s acknowledgment of Whitby’s innocence. The ferret, damn its furry soul, scuttled along at his bootside like a pointy-toothed dog.

“Take him. There’s a carrying cage in the hall.” Whitby stood to watch him go, his hands on the desk, balled into fists. “Take him along for luck, Kennett. He won’t get in the way. And if you get close to Jess, let him out, and he’ll find her for you.”

It was easier to bring the vermin than argue.

“She’ll get to Pitney, wherever he is,” Whitby said. “Whatever he’s done, she’ll get him out of England, and safe. Loyal to the death, my Jess. That’s another reason you have to be careful, giving her orders. If you belong to her, she’ll move the foundations of the earth for you.”

PITNEY dropped the seabag at his feet. It was the same one he’d carried thirty years ago when he signed on with Josiah. Nothing in it but some handfuls of money and a few changes of clothes. Not much to show for a lifetime. He was old now and a pariah and he’d sold his soul for a mass of pottage. It’d be hard to start over in some seaport in the East.

He said, “I left a letter.”

“Inevitably,” the smooth, cold voice beside him said. “The tool turns against its master. Napoleon himself was betrayed by Barras.”

“I named Buchanan. I told them he planted the false evidence and where and how. I named the Frenchmen. And you. I’ve left more than enough proof to hang us all. Josiah’s going to walk free before this day is out and he’ll come looking for vengeance. He won’t come after me, because we were friends, once. But I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“I’ve arranged my own protection against Whitby. He won’t touch me.”

“Maybe not.” It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much that mattered to a man after he’d betrayed his friends. He couldn’t even say why he’d done it. The company felt like his own, after all these years. The warehouse and the ships. It hadn’t seemed wrong to do some smuggling on the side and keep it off the books.

It had fallen apart. He’d done treason. He still didn’t know how he’d come to it.

The voice behind him just wouldn’t stop. “The Republic doesn’t forget its heroes. There’s a place prepared for me. I go into honorable exile, and only for a time. When the emperor rides in triumph down Pall Mall, I’ll be one of the men behind him. They’ll need Englishmen to lead the new government. I have experience.”

Pitney heard the cocking of a gun. He allowed himself one final look at the brown water of the Thames and the clean blue sky above it. He turned.

He didn’t want to be shot in the back.

LIMEHOUSE was full of sailors and stevedores of every country and race known to man, most of them rolling drunk, even in the middle of the day. It was a gauntlet she wouldn’t have wanted to run alone.

Belkey’s warehouse was a quarter mile farther on, in Asker Street, in a row of falling-down waterfront warehouses, slated for destruction. Most were empty now or holding bulk storage.

The Reverend kept beside her. His black jacket and white collar cleared a path for them through the sailors and whores. Men respected his cloth or wanted to avoid the sermons men of religion passed out in this part of town. The locals recognized him and knew he was under Lazarus’s protection.

Asker Street, by the docks, was mostly deserted. The Belkey warehouse, halfway along, had been closed up for a year. Grass grew in the spaces between the cobbles of the loading yard. The windows were broken, even up on the third and fourth story. Must have taken weeks for the local lads to throw rocks that high and break out every blessed pane. Nothing like a challenge.

No sign of life. Nobody had made himself at home in that rubble on the far side of the yard or in some cozy corner of the fence. That alone meant somebody stayed here regular to rout the squatters out. Dogs had set up housekeeping, though. There were a dozen of them, mean and hardy and wise, crouching behind the broken boards of the fence. They watched strangers cross the open space, staying safe in the shadows. The boys in this district taught dogs to be wary of humans.

The river smell was strong. Just the other side of the warehouse wall lay the stinking mud of the Thames. Cold, damp air blew off that water, leaving a bad taste in the mouth. At the wharves, just out of sight, ships creaked and snapped and banged. Chain rattled and there was a sudden loud pop, like a distant gun. It was never quiet down at the docks.

Pitney might still be here, waiting, out of sight, or he might have come and gone. Either way, there’d be a man inside the warehouse, alert and capable, with a boat ready any hour of the day or night. Papa always had a back door out of any city they lived in. Nobody more careful than Papa.

The door in the side of the warehouse was an inch open.

“This is unlocked,” the Reverend said.

“I expect the locks got pulled off some time ago.”

At first, when she walked in, the place looked empty. Gutted. The storage racks had been pulled down and the wood stolen for fuel. Bars of sun slanted through the broken windows.

Somebody was living here. She smelled beer and piss and charcoal and stale food. There’d be rats. There were always rats. “You better stay outside, Reverend, till I see what’s what.”

“I won’t leave you alone. I’ve seen worse, Jess.”

On the far side of the open floor, below the windows, a bedstead was shoved up against the brick wall. Beside that was a charcoal stove with a kettle on it. Good signs. Whitby’s man would show up soon enough.

She led the way inward, past dark, empty arches where they used to store cargo, toward that patch of domesticity. She didn’t see what stepped out behind her and looped a cord around her throat. The world was gone, sudden as snuffing out a candle.

“IT’S the Reverend,” Adrian said.

Sebastian rolled him over. The man groaned and his eyelids fluttered. There was blood on his forehead where he’d hit the floor.

Jess had been here. The ferret chittered in its cage, lashing its body back and forth.

“He was hit from behind. Here.” Sebastian’s hand came away bloody. “This just happened. A friend of Jess’s?”

“Friend of all the world. Jess must have gone to him. Smart, smart girl.”

“Two men . . .” the Reverend’s eyes opened, “took her.”

“Don’t move. Trevor, stay with him. When he can walk, get him to my aunt.” Sebastian laid the man gently back on the floor. “Pitney didn’t order this. Quentin has her.” She could be anywhere on the docks. On any ship. “I need to see Lazarus. I need men to search the docks.”

Adrian stood up. “When’s the next tide?”

“Three hours.” They didn’t have much time. Maybe no time at all.

Doyle’s face was grim. “The Reverend’s under Lazarus’s protection. So’s Jess. He’s going to kill somebody for this.”

Good. “Let’s get moving.”

DARKNESS brightened first at the center. Not with light. With pain. That’s how she knew she was alive. Being alive hurt.

She was wrapped in sailcloth, being carried like a bundle over somebody’s shoulder. He sang. He crooned to himself. She thought it might be Gaelic. Her head flopped again and again against his back. Through a gap at the end of the smothering folds she could see the black wood planks of the dock and blinding sunlight glinting off the river. She was being taken to a ship.

She fought to wake up, sick and terrified. If they got her on board, she’d drop out of sight like a stone in the ocean. Maybe exactly like a stone in an ocean.

One chance. She worked her hand up to her throat and snagged the ribbon at her neck. Got it off over her head and pushed her hand out of the cloth . . . and she let her mother’s locket go. She let it fall on the dock.

Find somebody. For God’s sake find somebody and tell them where I am.

It might work. Folks didn’t leave gold lying in the dirt.

She set to making herself conspicuous, yelling and flopping and trying to kick the cloth off. It didn’t make any difference, as far as she could tell. The bloke carrying her didn’t speed up. Nobody stopped him to ask why his bundle was making a fuss. It wasn’t three minutes later she felt the change in his steps that said he was going up a gangplank. The slosh and clank said ship, and she was carried aboard. Ship smell surrounded her. Nobody would find her now.

She was tossed down and spun out of the wrapping. She landed with a thud that knocked the breath out of her. Shock stole her sight.

Her eyes cleared. She lay on her back, on deck, faced up to the sky. Above her was dazzling blue sky with a mast in it. She let her head roll to the side and saw Blodgett. Captain Blodgett. So she knew where she was. This was the Northern Lark.

Lark was old and lumbering and always in need of repair—a poor excuse for a ship, but she stayed just barely profitable. Lark carried dirty cargo she didn’t want fouling better vessels—horse hides and dried fish and such.

Strange how it didn’t come as a shock to see Quentin here, his back to her, arguing with Blodgett. It was like her brain had kept working and calculating, and it’d already come up with Quentin’s name and was just now getting around to telling her about it.

Quentin and Pitney. Quentin was the schemer. Pitney would never have come up with this on his own.

Lark’s crew was aboard. She could feel their footsteps on the deck boards. Fine weather for sailing, and it sounded like they were getting ready to do it.

“Jess . . .”

She turned her head. Light on the water blinded her. Then the shapes sorted out. It wasn’t a pile of dirty cloth next to the rail. It was a man, tossed down and twisted unnatural.

“Jessie . . .”

She rolled to her belly and crawled to him.

Pitney had been shot. Blood pooled on the deck under him. He had red at the corner of his mouth. It was blood with bubbles in it, and that meant he’d been hit in the lungs. Men didn’t live when they were hit in the lungs. “Pitney.”

“Jessie girl. I didn’t . . .”

His mouth was full of blood. He couldn’t finish the words. She could. “You didn’t mean this. None of it. You wouldn’t hurt me. Wouldn’t hurt Papa. I know that. I never thought anything else, not for a minute.”

She managed to sit and pull him up, into her lap, so his head lay against her. His clothes were sticky wet. So much blood in a man. The tears coming down her cheeks fell on his face.

His breath sucked and bubbled. “. . . just letters, Jess. Letters to France. I didn’t know . . .”

“You didn’t know they were treason.”

Easy to see how he’d been tricked into this. Just letters. That’s how it started. He’d taken a coin or two to send packets of letters, secret, to France. “To my sister.” “To my business in Lyon.” All those years smuggling lace and brandy and tea in good faith, he wouldn’t think about treason. Not till he was in too deep to stop.

“. . . I wouldn’t . . .”

“You never would. Not treason.”

“Thought Josiah would get away . . .”

“He doesn’t blame you.”

“I tried to . . .” His breathing took on the rattle that meant death was coming. “. . . stop . . .”

“You stopped them, Pitney. You did fine.” He was still breathing, but his eyes didn’t see anymore. He could hear, maybe. “Yer always saving me neck. You remember the time you come in arfter me, when I fell out of that damn dory off Hythe? And we neither of us could swim a lick. Papa was so bloody irritated. He yelled at me about it, off and on, for a year. You would not believe . . .”

There wasn’t any more life in him. She could tell the change, holding him.

LAZARUS held court in the same house, in the dim, vulgar parlor. In the back, four men piled the tables with swag from a large robbery. Two others talked to an old woman hunched over an account book. Most thieves paid their penny to the local Runner, but if you took gold, you had to come to Lazarus, to the old woman, to pay your pence. There wasn’t a fence in London would touch it otherwise.

Sebastian strode up the center of the room, Adrian beside him. None of the thugs lounging to the left or right said a word or tried to stop them. All those cold, violent eyes followed them.

Lazarus was holding a fine sable robe, admiring it. He ignored Adrian and cocked his head toward Sebastian. “What the hell’s going on, Captain?”

“We know who Cinq is. He’s got Jess.”

ON the far side of the deck, Quentin wound his way through a long, arrogant, complicated complaint. Blodgett was answering. None of it meant anything. She lay Pitney’s body back to the deck and closed his eyes. When she turned, Blodgett was saying, “. . . shoot him here. Then you bring me Whitby’s daughter. Get her below, for God’s sake.”

Quentin was different, here. He stood proud as a rooster. Swaggering. “I said to cast off.”

“We will, Mr. Ashton. We will. Nobody’s going anywhere on the slack of the tide.” Blodgett spat, showing his opinion of landsmen. “Billy, clear these boxes out of the way.” He kicked a valise.

“Take her to my cabin,” Quentin ordered a passing sailor. He sounded excited, like a kid going on holiday.

Blodgett snarled, “Not now. You, Henshaw, wrap some chain on that body. We’ll roll it overboard, downriver. And get the damned girl belowdecks.”

“Aye, Captain.”

They caught her before she made it over the railing. A pair of them slammed her to the planking, hard. One added a quick punch to her stomach to make her think twice about trying that again.

When the red faded out of her vision, Quentin stood over her, blotting out the sky. “You have given no end of trouble. And for nothing.” He poked his boot into her ribs. “You waste your time. You waste my time. You cause me expense and danger. It’s ridiculous. You two, hold her. I cannot understand why—”

He’d killed Pitney. She lunged for him. A sailor kicked her down and held her.

“Coward. Sodding, poxy, slimy, lying—”

Quentin leaned down, nagging. “You will learn to do what I tell you. There are good reasons for everything I do. Matters of state beyond your comprehension. If you would stop and listen to me for a minute—”

“I said to get her under cover.” Blodgett shoved Quentin aside and grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. “We’re at dock in the middle of London. Every ship has some fool with a spyglass. You can play with her when we’re out at sea.” Blodgett pushed, and she fell, staggering, against the belly of a huge sailor. “Stow her.”

She fought while they dragged her off and screamed every time she got her mouth loose. It took two of them to haul her away. She hurt them some. But not as much as they hurt her back.

Down below, in the cargo deck, they twisted her arms behind her and pushed her into a locker built tight to the hull. They kicked it closed and locked the door behind her and left her alone in the dark.

“HE wants her for ransom. And to give to the French.” Sebastian paced the carpet. “She’s only valuable to him alive. He has to keep her alive.” He was trying not to think about all the ways Jess could be hurt, and stay alive.

Beggars, thieves, cutthroats, and pimps detoured around him, making their way to Lazarus for orders. Word was spreading out. Every minute, more and more of the scum of the earth were looking for Jess.

Somewhere out there, she was afraid. Maybe hurt. He wouldn’t believe she was dead.

He stepped over the ferret. Adrian had let it loose in here for some goddamned reason. It kept getting underfoot. “Quentin won’t risk moving her twice. They’ll take her directly to the ship.” What else? There had to be more he could figure out. “It’ll be a small ship. Fifty tons or less. Small enough to have a crew that can be trusted to keep quiet. They’re smugglers or worse. He wouldn’t try this with an honest crew. We’re looking for a small ship with a bad reputation.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Lazarus signal his boy, Twist, to his side, and whisper orders, “. . . tell the Measle . . . Bernardo . . .”

Quentin had been listening to Jess at dinner every night. He had to know the net was closing. Quent had laid plans for his escape. “Look for a ship’s been sitting idle a week, with the crew aboard. They’ll have some excuse.”

Lazarus said, “Take those words with you. Pass them along. Don’t stand there. Go.”

Twist sprinted down the room. Adrian wandered over to stand next to Lazarus. “He’s slow. You can’t get good help.”

“Some of you turn out better than others.” Lazarus eyed him. “Some even go honest, like Jess.”

“Using the broadest possible definition of honest, yes. Is Twist the best you could do?”

“He’s new to it. It’ll be another couple months before he stops thinking he’s smart.” Lazarus contemplated the doorway. “You been careless with my Jess, Hawker. I expected better of you.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Too bad for Jess.”

“Sebastian will get her back. If she’s alive under the sun, he’ll get her back.”

“I hope you’re right. But part of her never healed up from being scared so bad, that last time, when she got hurt. She’s fragile inside, in the heart of her. Like eggshells. If we’re too long about it, I don’t know what we’ll get back.”

Doyle was talking to a pale-haired woman with a baby in her lap. She sat cross-legged on a small rug, wrapped in the long sable coat. Her hair was a snow-colored curtain, loose around her, spilling over her shoulders and down her back.

“That’s the girl you sent to Eunice, isn’t it?” Adrian said.

“Fluffy. She showed up at the door last night, saying she was my responsibility, if you please, and I wouldn’t get rid of her that easy. I don’t know what to do with her,” he scowled at her a minute, “. . . or that damned smelly bundle she’s so fond of. She’s named it after me.” He pushed to his feet. “I’d better stir her up to get us some tea. It’s going to be a long day. And you can tell me why you brought that bloody ferret with you.”

DARK was solid as the wood around her. She could reach out and touch every edge of the locker they’d put her in. It smelled of old contraband . . . tobacco, brandy, tea. Water slapped just on the other side of the planks, cold and angry-sounding. When she put her hand down to hold Mama’s locket, she remembered it was gone. She’d thrown it away. The last thing gone.

She curled up in the Dark. She could see Sebastian in her mind as clear as if he was next to her. See him the way he looked this morning, in bed, with the sun on him in long streaks.

Sebastian would think she’d left with Pitney. He’d think she went to Pitney right from his bed without saying good-bye, not intending to come back. He might even think she’d been part of Cinq all along.

He wouldn’t come looking for her. No one would come.

Dark wins, in the end. The last candle goes out and Dark wins.

A rat scuttled in the passage next to her. Rats. She made herself into a tight ball and put her hands over her face. Somebody nearby began moaning a single note.

No. Not nearby. She was the one doing it.

“WILL you stop that! Bloody blazes.” Sebastian plucked the bedamned ferret off the table. “Get your nose out of that.”

The old woman who kept Lazarus’s records hissed like a stray cat and scraped her bangles and gold chains back into a pile. The ferret had collected himself a ribbon and was too busy holding onto its booty to bite him. He tugged the ribbon away from the pointy white teeth.

The thin blue ribbon had a gold coin hanging on it.

Not a coin. He was holding a plain gold locket, buffed smooth against flesh, worn to a soft glow. He opened it with his thumbnail. A design was etched inside, delicate and perfect. A flower.

“This belongs to Jess,” he said.

Lazarus took it from him. “You’re right. Jess wears this. Who brought it in?”

JESS lay on her side in the cell. If she was quiet, maybe the rats wouldn’t come. But they smelled you. Even if you held your breath, they smelled you and found you.

I can’t get out.

Bad dreams. She was caught in bad dreams. She was back to being a kid, that last time on the roofs, when she fell. Rotten timbers gave way. The air shaft in the old warehouse collapsed around her, and nobody came. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody could hear.

I can’t get out. Bricks and wood and plaster came tumbling down on top of her, pinning her down. Burying her alive.

She got so thirsty. When she couldn’t scream anymore, she made a sound like air squeezing out of a bag. Then the rats came.

“You can’t have me.” She told the rats that. She kept telling the Dark that, hour after hour. Telling the Dark, “Leave me alone.” The rats didn’t listen. Her hands got slick with blood, fighting them off.

The Thames River was at her back, on the other side of the boards. Dark as blood, that river. Old dreams crawled out of it and sucked at her. The worst dreams. She knew how they ended and she couldn’t get out of them.

The smell of shattered wood and plaster and mold filled her lungs. She was so thirsty, and she couldn’t get out.

The Dark won. She gave up and didn’t remember doing it.

She wasn’t fighting anymore when Lazarus crawled in and woke her up and dragged her out. He hurt her. Pain washed, red and black, again and again, when he uncovered her. The Dark tried to get him, too. Timbers caved in. Lazarus kept the falling bricks off her with his own body. He jostled and pulled and carried her through the Dark, pain after pain.

“Hold on, Jessie. One more stretch and we’re out.”

Then they were in the padding crib. In the dream she heard herself say, “I’m cold.”

“You’ll be warm in a little while.” Lazarus held her wrapped in a blanket against his chest. He was bothering her with a cup. “Drink this.”

It was an order. She tried to make her mouth obey. “Don’ want it. Wanna go to sleep.”

“You can’t go to sleep till you drink it, Jess.” So she tried. She couldn’t make her lips work.

“Here’s the man who’s going to fix your arm. You finish drinking this, and you’ll go to sleep.” Dark laid layer after layer around her. Buried her. “When you wake up, it’ll be over.”

Cold fingers closed on her arm. Exploring fingers, like evil icicles.

“It ’urts. It ’urts bad.”

Men whispered. More hands came to hold her still. Agony hit like black lightning. She screamed and fell into the Dark.

In the hollow aftermath, Lazarus said, “Go ahead and cry, Jess. That’s right. Nobody here to see you but me and Black John. Just your friends. Nobody else.”

Lots of nightmares hid inside her, waiting to come out. They were with her in the whispering Dark.

There’s always something to do.

Shaking, she pushed herself up to her feet, hunched over. Not much room in here. The wood was damp and chill, slimy to touch.

It wasn’t just nightmares in her. There were good days to remember. Think about . . . the Greek islands. Flowers. Air clear as glass. And she’d seen the northern lights over the snow fields in Russia. Think about that. She’d named a Whitby ship Northern Light. Pretty little sloop.

The hull was at her back, only the cold water of the Thames beyond it. What about this overhead? She braced herself on damp wood and pounded with the heel of her hand, trying to jar something loose. Solid as the earth, this wood. They just had to build this damn locker like it was going to hold wild bears.

Remember good days. Think about Sebastian leaning over her in the garden, dark as the devil, laughing at her. “It’s square. Look,” and he showed her the stem of the horehound. She could smell the clean, green smell of it like it was in here with her.

She kicked at the doorframe, where it swung closed. Weakest point.

She could see the purple of those flowers Sebastian held. Delicate as butterflies, they lay safe inside his hand, in a circle of muscles like steel.

Sebastian was going to find her. Any minute now, he’d come. Or next week or in six months. That was one of those things you could count on. The sun would rise. Sebastian would come for her.

Dark chuckled down the back of her neck like a drip of cold water. Always wins, Dark does.

SEBASTIAN stalked down the wharf, assessing ship by ship. Some of them were already casting off, drifting into the current of the Thames. These were coast huggers here below Asker Street. Scows and dirty fishing boats and coal barges. There were too many to search, and Jess could be in any of them. There was no time.

“About ’ere.” The young thief swept an expansive hand. “Somewheres along of ’ere, more er less. Found it onna ground.”

Dozens of ships on the wharf ahead. More farther down. There were too many. They’d never find her. “Let it loose. Do it.”

Adrian set the cage down and pulled back the bolt and opened the door. The ferret spilled out like it’d been poured from a cup. It circled and looped, back and forth as if it wanted to test a smell from all directions. Then it put its nose to the ground and dug excitedly.

“Now, ain’t ’e the smart little ratter.” The boy walked over and squatted down on the muddy boards. “It were roight ’ere. Picked that bauble up roight ’ere. Good as a dog, ain’t ’e?”

Kedger took off, flowing over the rough, uneven planks. Sebastian paced after it, pulling a pack of silent men behind him.

He was a fool to follow a bloody furpiece. But it was the only chance he had.

GOOD Lord, but it stank. Quentin pressed a scented handkerchief over his nose and tried not to breathe.

“She’s in ’ere.” The sailor held the lantern up to a section of wood. Behind the panel, the Whitby girl didn’t make a sound. She was in there planning something.

“If it’s alla same wif yer . . .” The sailor hawked and spat on the deck. “I’d jest as soon ’ave a man at my back if I open this up.”

She’d shot a bandit in Turkey, once. He’d heard the story, but he’d never believed it. Not till now. Not till he’d seen with his own eyes what she could do. She’d punched a sailor in the face and broken his nose, shrieking like a fishwife. Clawing and kicking like an animal. What was Whitby thinking, raising his daughter to be a savage?

A day or two in this foul hole without food or water would go a long way toward making her sensible. Naturally, he didn’t want to hurt her. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Not willingly. But sometimes a man didn’t have a choice.

“Jess.” The wood felt clammy on his cheek when he pressed himself close. “Answer me, Jess.”

Silence.

“If you’re good, I’ll let you out. But you have to behave yourself. I’m not going to hurt you if you behave yourself.”

He’d let her out when she was weaker. She had to be in a state to listen to reason. He’d open the door then. Not yet.

But it was . . . disturbing to hear nothing at all.

“You’re in no danger, Miss Whitby. You won’t be hurt if you cooperate.” He couldn’t hear her breathing. Had she died in there? They’d hit her hard. Maybe he should check . . . “You’ll be perfectly safe. You have my word of honor. I’m asking for nothing but rational cooperation.” She was his prize. His gift to Napoleon. The Whitby heiress. A man who moved in the first circles of government, the way he did, understood these matters. This insolent, bumptious girl was the vessel of power. Power in the East. He’d give that power to France. “You’ll be perfectly comfortable. I’m a decent man. This doesn’t have to be frightening for you.”

He’d take her to the house on the coast and keep her there till she was a fit gift to the Republic. Weeks. Or months. It might take months till she was humbled and cooperative. He might even find a way to collect ransom from her father. That would be clever. That would be best. Yes.

No sound came from the storage locker. She was playing with him, trying to trick him into opening the door. He wasn’t that stupid. Let her lie in her own filth for a while. She wouldn’t be so damned superior then.

“Don’t force me to be . . . stern. It’ll be your choice if I have to hurt you. Remember that.”

Why didn’t she answer?

The sailor pulled at his sleeve. “We’re casting off, sir. I gotta be on deck.”

“You’ll leave when I say—” The sailor just walked away, taking the lantern with him. “Now, wait a minute. I didn’t give you permission to leave. Do you think I can be flouted by a . . .” He had no choice but to follow the lantern. There was no other light in this filthy hole.

Did this dolt think he could get away with this insolence? Blodgett would deal with him. He’d tie this blockhead over the yardarm and beat him till his skin peeled off. That was justice at sea. Manly justice. The ship was a microcosm of the rational social order. Everyone working for the good of the whole. Like the Republic. When he explained it to Jess, eventually she’d understand. The social order was too valuable to allow one person’s selfishness to threaten it. Jess would learn not to fight him. If she got hurt, it was really her own fault.

He climbed out of the companionway into the sunlight . . . and tripped over Blodgett. The captain of the Lark sprawled limp across the ladder, his eyes staring, the handle of a knife sticking out of his throat.

A dozen men moved across the deck, perfectly silently killing people. One of them was Sebastian.

It was happening so fast. Why hadn’t anyone come to warn him?

This was horrible. Horrible. Ten feet away, a man thrashed on the deck, his throat slit. That could have been him. He had to get to his cabin and barricade himself in there till the fight was over. If he stayed on deck, somebody might kill him by mistake.

Sebastian didn’t slow down, didn’t speed up, just came inexorably toward him.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Everything was falling apart.

“Don’t come any closer.” He pulled the pistol out and backed to the railing. He’d have to run for it. A great man knows when to cut his losses. He’d leave it all behind. He still had the bank account in France and the guineas in his money belt. They’d welcome him in France. He’d be a hero there.

Sebastian said, “Where’s Jess?”

“Somewhere safe. Get out of my way, Sebastian. I don’t mind shooting you.” I’ll enjoy it. He’d reloaded, after disposing of Pitney. The gun filled his hand. Heavy. Solid. A Bourdiec pistol, the best gun ever made. Accurate to a hair. He’d force Sebastian with him, past the other men, to the gangway, and kill him there, and escape in the confusion. “Nobody’s going to get hurt if you let me pass.”

“What have you done with Jess?”

Jess was Sebastian’s weakness. And the man with the gun was always in control. “Nothing’s happened to her. Yet. I’ll tell you where she is when you let me go.” Wait. Wait for it. You only have the one shot.

Sailors were being herded into a ragged, terrified line at the stern, surrendering. But he’d escape. He’d use Sebastian to get him off the ship. He was in command. “When I’m on the dock, I’ll tell you—”

One of Sebastian’s mongrel friends ran up. Hawkhurst. “She’s below.”

They were gone, running across the deck. They acted as if he wasn’t there. “Stop. I’ll shoot—” There are two of them. If I kill one . . . They ducked down the ladder to the hold before he could do anything. He had a pistol, damn it. He had his finger on the trigger. They couldn’t ignore him.

On both sides of him, sailors were leaping from the ship, swimming in the toxic waters of the Thames, trying to climb the pilings to the dock. He backed to the rail and threw one leg over. He’d get the guinea belt off and abandon it. All that gold. It’d weigh him down. He pulled his shirt out to get to the tie. Was there some way to take the money with him—

A long, gray streak of rage ran right at him. That ferret. He pointed his pistol. He had only one bullet. If he shot the animal, then he couldn’t—

Claws raked his eyes. He screamed and felt himself falling. The water closed over him.