"Let go of me. You ain't my father."
Nancy's voice carried. Heads turned. The locals eyed me with disapproval.
"If I were your father, I'd lock you in the cellar."
She jerked from my grasp. "And I'd scream the place down. You ain't my protector, neither. If I was, I'd do everything you said, always."
Nancy fled from me. I threw a crown on the table and hobbled after her. The inhabitants watched me go, likely glad to be rid of me.
"Nance," I called into the night.
I heard her footsteps moving away through the narrow lane, but I could not see her in the darkness. I hobbled after her, though I knew I'd never catch her. She was expert at disappearing. I would simply have to get to Covent Garden theatre a little early and spirit her away before she and Jemmy could carry out their plan. I had no cellar to lock her into, but I had the keys to Mrs. Beltan's attics. I could put her in there until the danger had passed. She'd not thank me, but at least she'd be alive.
I went to another tavern closer to home and had another tankard in peace. No black-haired girls with ridiculous ideas burst in to bother me, and if Grenville's lackeys were looking for me, they were not looking very thoroughly. At half past ten, I returned to Grimpen Lane. I did not see Grenville's carriage, or any of his efficient footmen, so I concluded they'd decided it not worth waiting for me and had returned, empty handed, to Grenville.
At half past eleven, I went to Covent Garden theatre, which reposed at the end of Bow Street. The carriages of the wealthy still came and went in the front of the edifice, but behind it, darkness was complete. I shone my lantern around the blackness of the narrow passages, but except for a rat and an old man who scurried away, I was alone. The rat remained.
The clock at St. Paul's, Covent Garden struck the three-quarter hour. Running footsteps sounded, and I set my lantern down and stepped back into the shadows. I recognized the light footsteps of Nance, and presently, she trotted into the lantern's feeble glow.
"Who's there?" she said, much too loudly for my comfort.
"Me."
Her teeth glittered as she threw herself toward me. "Aw, Lacey, I knew you'd come."
I seized her wrists and jerked her to me. Her eyes, close to mine, opened wide.
"What are you doing? Are you trying to kiss me?"
"No, I am restraining you."
She looked at me in alarm then, and drew in a long breath, preparing to scream. I clamped my hand over her mouth. She tried to kick me, but I pinned her against the wall with my weight. She bit my hand. I snarled at her. She went suddenly limp and silent.
I jerked her upright and began to tow her back to the street, scooping up the lantern as I went. She trotted along, sniffling.
At the corner of the theatre, four men stood waiting. None were Jemmy. I took a step back, but they followed.
I tossed the lantern in one direction, and Nance in another. She squealed as she fell among the rubbish, and the lantern rolled and extinguished, plunging the passage in darkness.
The men struck. I dodged swiftly and felt a breeze brush my face. I wrenched my sword from my walking stick and clenched the scabbard in my other hand. I heard a strike coming, and I lunged out. A man grunted in surprise and pain.
They grappled with me in the darkness, trying to get under the reach of my sword, trying to get behind me. I put my back to a rubbish heap and struck hard and fast. Sometimes I hit, sometimes I didn't, but it kept them at bay.
But for how long? I could not fight here forever; already I was tiring. I couldn't depend upon Nance to run for help. She was crying loudly off in the darkness, making no effort to get away. She might be hurt. One of them might have her.
A blow got through and landed on my chest. I exhaled sharply, but kept my feet and struck back with my fist and scabbard. I felt teeth. The man I hit cursed and spat.
A sudden light blinded me. A lantern shone in my face, dazzling my eyes. I quickly closed them and looked away, but too late. A sharp blow fell on my left knee, and hot fire streaked through it. I struck out. In the light, another blow landed on my sword arm, then three men closed on me and wrenched the sword from my grasp.
"Hurry."
I recognized Jemmy's voice and sensed his flat face behind the lantern. I fought on. Another kick to my bad leg wrenched a cry from my lips, and then my hands and face struck the pavement, rough cobbles stinging.
They kept pummeling me. I curled inward, protecting my face and belly. My knee was a mass of pain, and I could feel little else. When the numb haze receded a little, I realized they'd stopped hitting me. I moved my arm, and heard myself groan. Sticky blood tickled my cheek.
I opened my eyes. In the light of the bright lantern, I saw a slender foot in a soiled slipper inches from my nose.
"It's a fair turnabout, ain't it, Captain?" Nance asked softly, and then she kicked me in the face.
When I came to myself again, a long time later, I lay on a thin mattress and had a blanket thrown over me. Light-daylight-trickled through the broken slats of a wooden-shuttered skylight. My limbs felt curiously heavy, and the fiery pain I'd expected was now a dull, distant throbbing.
I tried to move and discovered my hands joined behind my back, the cords that bound them tight and biting. My feet were likewise tied, my boots gone.
They had not covered my mouth. I licked my dry lips, and drew a breath to call out, but only a whispered creak emerged, like a breath of wind through branches on a summer afternoon. My bed-no, the entire room, rocked gently, and I smelled mud and brine and filth. Shadows danced below the skylight, up and down, up and down, telling me that I was afloat. Somewhere. The air held the stink of the city, not the clean smell of open water, so I assumed the Thames, still in London.
Was I alone? Or did someone man the tiller? Perhaps the boat would sink, taking me down alone to the bottom of the river, my body lost forever.
I was thirsty and hungry and terribly sleepy. Even in my alarm, my eyes drifted closed, my body seeking the oblivion from which it had risen.
When I opened my eyes again, the light was fading from the skylight. A day had gone by. Only one? Or two, or more? My befuddled mind had an inkling this was important, but I couldn't make myself care. At least the boat was still afloat. I heard a man's voice outside the cabin door, then another answering. So I wasn't alone. Perhaps they'd shoot me first, before they scuttled the boat.
I went through my fuzzy memories. I could not recall much of what happened after I'd been pummeled by the four men and Jemmy behind Covent Garden theatre. I did remember lying in a darkened carriage, groans escaping my lips, and I remembered a hand forcing me to drink something bitter and burning. Opium. That would account for my numb heaviness, my indifference as to my plight. When the opium wore off, I'd be wretched indeed.
My cracked lips formed a smile. I'd explain to Louisa, if I ever saw her again, that I'd missed her supper party because I'd been drowned while trying to rescue a sixteen-year-old prostitute from her own stupidity.
Nance had tricked me, and I'd walked right into it. She'd known I would not be able resist trying to keep her out of my business, and she and Jemmy had laid a simple trap. Jemmy worked for Denis, and the four men who attacked me reminded me of the bully in Denis's library. Denis must have assumed I wouldn't be able to walk away from him without an attempt at retaliation. He must have seen in my eyes the stupid idea of trying to shoot him before it had even formed. So he'd struck first.
The rickety door opened, and two large men entered-I assumed to kill me.
They beat me instead. Soundly, thoroughly, with fists and cudgels, they pummeled my body until pain stabbed me even through the opium. Hoarse screams I could not control leaked from my mouth. I looked straight at one man, into the same flat, uncaring eyes that Denis possessed.