Two flags of color rosied the jut of his cheekbones, giving him an unexpectedly boyish look. “Why don’t you tell me the real reason you called on the lady?”
“If you don’t believe what I’ve told you, ask her,” I suggested, feeling a little pang in my heart. He’d been a lovely boy, and he was a fetching man, but he was only a few steps above a beater. “I’m sure they’d pass her a note from you, as long as it’s got a Yard seal and has been sprayed for nits. Not like you’re a nobber, right?”
Doyle shook his head. “You shame your mother with that mouth, Kit.”
“And you’ve covered the Doyle name with glory?” I leaned forward. “What would my dear old uncle Arthur, rest his spirit, think of his grandson, Tommy the copper?”
I’d hope that would provoke him enough to send him on his way. Instead, he grinned. “Grandda would have loved seeing me earn my shield, you brat, and you know it.”
His grandfather had come from royal blood, the highest of high posh, the truest of the blue, but the old gent had been inordinately fond of Toriana’s vast working classes, especially those who protected the innocent.
“Aye . . . you’re right. He’d have been proud of you, Tommy.” So was I, and in that moment I wished we were two other people. As we were, we’d never have a chance.
He gave me a speculative look. “Why did you leave Middleway for Rumsen? You’ve no people here, Kit.”
“No one there, either.” I wasn’t going to tell him how horrible it had been, living in the house where my parents had died, sick with grief, unable to think. How the vultures had barely waited until Mum and Da were in the pyre before coming for me. “As you see, I’m doing all right.”
“Very well.” He retrieved his longcoat. “After your mother was sent from the queensland to Toriana, my grandfather made her his ward. She enjoyed his unwavering affection, his protection . . . and confided in him her most guarded secrets.”
Old Arthur must have let something slip; he would never have told anyone, not even his own blood. “You needn’t hint, Doyle. I know my mother was a nameless bastard.”
“Is that all you know?” Before I could reply, he said, “You’ve worked on the Hill in the past, so you know what you’re tempting. Walsh will do whatever he must to protect his wife’s reputation. But first, he’ll go excavating.”
I shrugged. “Let him.”
“Walsh belongs to the Tillers,” he continued, referring to the grandest of not-so-secret secret societies for men in Rumsen. “He won’t just dig, Kit. If he can’t find what he wants, he’ll plant it.” He took out a card, wrote something on the back, and handed it to me. “Directions to Mum and Da’s place. I know they’d love you to call.”
“How kind of you to say.” I took it, and after a small hesitation gave him one of my own. “Should you ever find yourself in need of my professional services, my rates are quite reasonable.”
“I think ten years policing have disenchanted me nicely.” But he pocketed the card. “You’ll stay off the Hill, then?”
“I have no plans to return,” I said honestly.
He touched his brim. “Then good day, Miss Kittredge.”
“Inspector.” I bobbed with the same courtesy.
Chapter Six
The gurgling sound of my BrewsMaid roused me from the last minutes of my uncomfortable night sleeping on the office settee. I might have rolled over and tried for another restless hour or two, if not for the tasks that awaited me.
Tom Doyle could have done a lot more than simply ask questions on behalf of Nolan Walsh. Last night he could have hauled me in for questioning, or even tossed me in a cell to be held under suspicion. I appreciated his restraint; I also heeded his warning about Lady Diana’s husband.
Too many odd things had been happening too fast. I’d met the ghost of a grandfather I’d never known existed. Doyle had been sent to question me and then had hinted he knew more about my mother than I did. Even Dredmore had made a point to warn me off Walsh while nattering on about his dark and dire forces, whatever that meant.
I’d never investigated myself or my family, but it seemed a prudent time to remedy that. I’d start by going down to the City Archives, where I could search the Hall of Records.
Before I left the office, I retreated into my private lavatory, where I kept several changes of clothes. In going into the realm of men I had two options: donning my gray switch, some face paint, and my blacks to project the appearance of a widow lady, which would be costly, or stripping myself down to the skin and donning my bucks. Since Walsh might be having me watched, and I never cared to hand out bribes unless they were absolutely necessary, I decided to go native.
Erasing every aspect of my gender didn’t take much time. I sprayed my face, arms, hands, ankles, and feet with bronzen, which darkened my tanned skin to a copper brown. Making my brow fringe stand on end and stay that way required the careful application of axle grease mixed with a bit of flour. I could do nothing about the color of my eyes, but enough native women had been captured and released along with their too-dark children during the settlement that tribal people with light eyes were not uncommon now.
Finally I stuffed my crotch with a stocking-covered sausage, a trick Rina had picked up from her clients and had passed along to me. “If you’re ever wondering if the bulge your beau sports is real,” she had advised, “introduce him to a hungry dog.”
My garments were fashioned out of scraped hides sewn together with leather lacings and decorated modestly with native beadwork. Out of respect for the real natives, I didn’t wear any feathers in my hair or on my person; those were reserved for braves who had bloodied themselves in war. They were also sported by the only natives I truly despised, the shamans, who claimed to have the sight.
Native magic was every bit as phony as the kind performed by Rumsen’s resident magefolk, but far more dangerous. The city practitioners faked their spells out of greed, in order to swindle their victims; the shamans used their false conjuring to control their entire tribe, to whom magic was like a religion.
The only drawback to going native was the lack of transport; I couldn’t take the trolley or hail a cab, and natives were not permitted to own carris or coaches. Instead I hired a pleasant mare from a public stable and rode on horseback to City Hall. There I had to ride past a native stablehand, but he must not have looked too closely at me, for he made only the terse, sidewise jerk of the head that served as a wordless greeting among the tribes.
Natives lived outside Rumsen on the lands permanently deeded to them by the Crown after the last treaty had been struck, and they did not permit their women to leave its boundaries. However, after failing to become the farmers the Crown had desired them to be, the tribesmen had gradually drifted back to Rumsen to seek work in the city. They were generally employed to look after horses or livestock, as they preferred animals to people, or worked in tanneries or potteries. I’d seen a few light-skinned braves serving as drivers and footmen to young bachelor masters, as they were ferocious fighters and made the best bodyguards. Given the distressing history between the races, few families trusted them around their females, and so natives were never brought on as household staff, even among the working class.
The one prime convenience the treaty had brought for the natives was equal rights as voting citizens. New Parliament had argued for years against it, but a change in attitude toward the preservation of indigenous peoples throughout the Empire had resulted in the males of the tribes being made full citizens. Posing as a native male I had the right to access any of the government’s archives whenever I pleased—something not even the wealthiest of white women could do without paying a prodigious number of bribes.