He had plenty of time to entice and lure her. He’d be fixed in London a while, seeing to the hanging of Josiah Whitby.
Four
HE LAY BESIDE HER FOR A LONG TIME, KEEPING her covered, watching her sleep. She sprawled with a limp, defenseless abandon he found incredibly touching. He wanted her asleep beside him, like this, tonight and tomorrow and for an endless string of nights in the future. This was no girl for a quick tumble. When a man found a mistress like this, he kept her. Maybe he kept her life long.
He’d be doing her a favor, buying her and seducing her into love with him. She needed somebody to take care of her.
“You’re a trusting fool, Jess, whatever else you are,” he went on without a pause or raising his voice, “and if men slip by my guards and try sneaking up on me, I’m likely to gut them first and regret it later.”
“How is she?” Adrian was in the cabin, silent as if one of the shadows had stepped off the wall and gone walking around. He was that good.
“Drunk. Asleep. Hurting. Not sure where she is or why. That crack on the head has her confused. She’ll be better when she wakes up in the morning.”
“Good.” Adrian’s voice was cold. “Now tell me why she’s naked in bed with you, you rutting bastard.”
Hell. He rolled off the bed fast. His feet thumped to the boards, and he stood, confronting his friend across the dim cabin. There was no trace of amusement in Adrian’s expression. He was dead serious. Angry. Very angry. This was Adrian as his enemies saw him.
He remembered Adrian kneeling over Jess in the alley, smears of her blood on his hands. Quick, clever Jess, with the Cockney accent and pockets of surprising knowledge. She was Adrian’s match in so many ways.
He should have known a girl like this would belong to somebody. The certainty hit him like a blow.
I’ve taken Adrian’s woman to bed.
Adrian said tightly, “What have you done to Jess?”
There was a time for truth. It was not now. “Nothing. I didn’t do a thing to her you couldn’t have watched.”
“Nothing?” The blanket had slipped. Jess was showing a yard of wanton golden skin. “Why do I find that so hard to believe? Gods in Hades, she’s stone cold unconscious.” For an instant, Adrian looked as dangerous as he was. “I wouldn’t have thought you were a man for complicated revenge. What are you doing?”
“What revenge?”
A stark minute ticked by. Adrian said, “You don’t even know who she is.”
“Your woman? Tell me, goddammit. Is she your woman or not?”
“You don’t know.” Adrian’s face was utterly unrevealing. “You took one look at Jess and tumbled her into bed. Why didn’t I see that was going to happen?”
“I didn’t tumble her anywhere. I was keeping her warm.”
“How very gullible I must look these days.”
The bloody-minded, antic bastard was laughing at him. “She’s not yours.”
“I should make you sweat, Bastian. I really should.” Slowly, his friend’s face changed. Unholy amusement gleamed in his eyes. “You can stop looking like I’ve gut-shot you. She is not, as you so engagingly put it, my woman.”
His breath loosened. “She’s not one of your agents?”
“Not remotely.”
He hadn’t realized how rigid he was till his muscles loosened. Relief swept through him, amazingly strong. It was an emotion he set aside to analyze later. “Who is she?”
“Ah. That is the question of the hour, isn’t it?” Adrian stood beside the bunk, watching the girl, a complex, unreadable expression on his face. “The last time I spoke to her, she was fourteen, skinny as a lamppost, and flat as a board.”
“She’s changed. Now tell me who she is.”
Jess turned onto her side and moaned softly. They both looked down. Adrian was there first, pulling the blanket to cover her, lifting her hands and tucking them inside . . . a protective gesture, but curiously detached. “Let’s take this up on deck. She sleeps light, and I don’t want her to see me.”
“She doesn’t sleep light with a mug of brandy poured down her throat.” He shouldered past and sat back on the bed beside Jess. She’d got her hair caught under her arm. He set it free, spread it over the pillow so she’d be comfortable. She didn’t wake up. She nestled into his hand, putting her breath into his fingers. “She’s not hearing a thing. What the deuce is going on? Who were those men?”
“Let me think about this for a while. Do you have any brandy left, or did you waste it all knocking Jess out?”
“Talk.”
“I’m thinking.” Adrian picked up the glass Jess had used and sniffed at it. “You drugged her.” He held it up in the light. “What did you use? I’m always willing to try new things.”
“The powder I picked up in Alexandria. Just medicine.” He held on to his patience. When Adrian was like this, there was nothing to do but wait it out. “What was she doing on Katherine Lane?”
“Now that I can tell you. She was lurking with intent, very artfully. Waiting for you.”
He stayed sitting beside her on the bed. Her hair was soft and a little damp between his fingertips. She might have sensed him. She stretched restlessly, not waking up. Her head butted his knee, and she sighed and relaxed against him, as if she’d just tied up safe in the shoals of some tricky bay. “What does she want from me?”
“She wants to pick your pockets, of course. Doyle supplies that exciting news. She did not tell him why.”
Doyle was British Service, Adrian’s second-in-command. “That was Doyle in the alley, with the lead pipe.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him. Not many men in London his size.”
“I didn’t see his face.” If the British Service was interested in Jess, she was in deep trouble. “Why does the Service have its top field agent following a Cockney pickpocket?”
“I will amaze you by revealing that she is not a simple Cockney pickpocket.” Adrian lifted the decanter and poured, stopping neatly halfway up, as if there were an invisible mark on the side of the glass. “Doyle has the greatest respect for her, by the way. He’s managed to inveigle himself onto her payroll. He says he’s getting rich.”
“Why was she picking my pocket?”
“An irresistible interest in their contents, I’d imagine. She has the most endearingly straightforward mind.”
“Why?”
“That, we do not know. She does not trust Doyle with her girlish secrets. It’ll be something pocket-sized, one presumes. Shall we investigate? Empty out, and we shall see.”
Damn Adrian. “You want to see what’s in my pockets?” He coiled off the bed. His greatcoat and jacket were slung over the chair, wet, dirty, and bloody from the fight. He pulled out a coin pouch and spilled it into his palm. “Five shillings. Half crown. Ha’pence.” He slapped that on the table. “And in the pockets we have . . . couple of pence . . . another grubby ha’penny. That’s seven and nine. We can buy out the store with that. What else? Silver watch.” He pulled it out and laid it next to the coins. “If you want my pocket picked, why don’t you do it yourself?”
“I’m not the one light-fingering about your person. Jess is. What else?”
“If this is one of your games, I’m going to wring your neck.” He turned out the pockets of his coat and added to the pile. “Jackknife. Key to the strongbox in my desk at home. House key. And now we strike gold—a letter from Cousin Penelope in Little Thrushing, Hants. She’s putting in roses. You’ll find that riveting.”
“Enormously. What’s the rest of that?”
He’d stuffed a few papers into his greatcoat at the last minute, leaving the shipping office. “Invoice for the sale of oranges. Receipt for 300 yards of rope. Copy of the waybill for some furniture I transshipped to Scotland.” He dropped them on the table. “That’s the lot. What’s going on? I want the short answer.”
“With Jess, alas, there are no short answers.” Adrian quested with a finger, turning papers over. “This is unpromising, isn’t it? What are you hoping to find in my friend’s pockets, Jess? He has captured your vagrant regard, and that I find very interesting indeed.”