Somehow I found myself outside the familiar green door of the Cocked Pistol. I opened my watch. Not yet ten o’clock. I must speak with Gabriela – but not now. Not until I could be sure that her husband was out on his own business.
A night visit to St Giles, God help me. I would be damned lucky to survive it.
Sam was sitting on the stairs, sharp chin resting on his knees. He grabbed my coat as I passed him. ‘Mr Hawkins-’
‘Not now, Sam.’ Not now. And if my darkest thoughts were true – not ever.
Kitty waited for me by the fire in our room, her father’s journals in a stack by her arm. I was struck by the sharp hinge of her life. Nathaniel Sparks had been a distinguished physician and a gentleman, and the family had lived in great comfort. But he had died, and Kitty’s mother had lost herself to grief. Lost herself to gin too in the end, falling further and further until she was selling herself for it. Kitty had escaped, or had been abandoned – it was hard to say as she refused to speak of her mother. She might even be alive yet, though I doubted it. Half the town knew that Kitty had inherited a fortune when Samuel Fleet died, and from what I’d heard, Emma Sparks would have been the first in line demanding a hand-out. It was five years at least since Kitty had seen her mother. How she had survived on her own was a mystery. All I knew for certain was that she had somehow remained a maid, and could fight like a demon. No doubt these two facts were connected. I had tried to coax the truth from her, and she had bitten and snapped like a vixen until I gave up.
I had thought there would be time. We had only met last autumn and there had been no rush. And now I had more pressing concerns. Seeing Nathaniel’s medical papers reminded me how little I knew about Kitty Sparks. I knew her heart, at least – and I suppose that in the end that was all that mattered.
Alice brought us a late supper and then we retired to bed, exhausted by another troubling day. I held Kitty in my arms and we talked drowsily of small things. She had slipped the queen’s ring onto her wedding finger, where it twinkled softly against the sheets. I was tempted to ask her again to marry me, but I knew she would refuse. Tomorrow. I would ask her again tomorrow.
Chapter Seventeen
A soft pressure on my shoulder. ‘Sir. It’s time.’
I opened my eyes. Alice tiptoed out of the room and downstairs while I dressed haphazardly in the dark. I could hear Kitty breathing deeply against her pillow, quite still. I leaned as close as I dared and touched my lips to her hair.
I had asked Alice to wake me at four o’clock. She had stayed awake down in the kitchen, cleaning by candlelight. She poured me a bowl of coffee, which I drank quickly, feeling it sharpen my senses. She didn’t ask where I was going. It was not her place.
Sometimes, when I looked at Alice, I saw her as she had first arrived in this house, covered in blood. Red smears on a ghost-white face, and blue eyes staring fixed in terror. A gruesome palimpsest, the Alice of that night placed in front of the one she had become. Our Alice, always scrubbing and mopping and sweeping as if there were layers of dirt that only she could see.
Some part of me had always wondered if we had accepted her story too readily, but now I knew she was innocent and was glad Kitty had brought her here.
‘Keep the doors locked and the windows shuttered. Don’t let anyone in until I return. And don’t let Miss Sparks out.’
If Kitty knew where I was going tonight, she would insist on coming with me. I would not risk it, not after Howard’s attack on the boat. Let her curse my name and tear out her hair in fury, I didn’t care.
‘How will I stop her?’
A good question. ‘Just try your best, Alice.’
She nodded, frightened. I was sorry for it – Alice had suffered enough these past weeks – but it could not be helped. At least she did not know where I was going.
St Giles – in the dead of night. A short stroll into hell. But first I needed a guide.
The previous morning, Fleet had told his men that I worked under his protection. The word was passed about the gang. One small benefit of our agreement and one I had not expected to need so soon.
Fleet had said that if I needed to speak with him, I should leave a message at the Coach and Horses on Wellington Street. I headed there now through the ink-black streets. The tavern was empty, but a message was sent. Ten minutes later, one of Fleet’s men arrived and motioned me towards a dark corner of the room.
‘The Captain’s working.’
I nodded. In fact, I had depended on it. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘He won’t come here tonight, Hawkins.’
I lowered my voice, though there was no one to hear us. ‘Then take me to Phoenix Street. I can wait for him there.’
He chewed his cheek, thinking. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Not your business.’
He frowned at that, but it was the right thing to say. He wouldn’t trust a man who spilled his secrets so easily. Thought some more. ‘I’ll take your pistol.’
I feigned reluctance, then handed it over. I had kept my dagger, hidden in the lining of my coat. Fleet’s man gave my pistol to the landlord for safekeeping and said I would collect it later. Later. An imagined time, when the night was over and I was safely home again. We would see.
We carved a straight route through St Giles; none of Sam’s scampering back and forth. I knew where Fleet lived and there was no need to hide it now. We sauntered down streets that would have throbbed with danger had I walked through them on my own. I still felt fierce eyes watching us, heard the whispers in the walkways above our heads, but I had been granted safe passage into the heart of the stews. How I would come out again I wasn’t sure. I never was very good at planning ahead.
We came into Fleet’s house through the square this time, instead of Sam’s preferred route over the rooftops. Ducked into a mean timber house and then out again through a narrow passageway to the back yard. We had reached the centre of the hidden square. Candles burned at the top of Fleet’s home, but otherwise all was still. It was four-thirty in the morning. Most of the gang would not return until dawn.
A few men stood guard inside, drinking and playing cards to pass the time. They nodded as I passed them. The message had reached them long before we had.
Gabriela sat by the fire, in the room at the top of the house. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she looked very tired. Another night keeping vigil for her husband. How could she stand such a life?
I bowed quickly and rubbed my hands to warm them. It was a bitterly cold night. There were a few flakes of snow sparkling on my coat. It had begun falling as we entered St Giles and now the world beyond the windows was a blizzard, bright white and silent.
Her lips puckered in amusement. ‘You blue with cold again, sir?’ She drew up another chair close to the fire. ‘We wait here. James will be home soon.’
Not too soon, please God. ‘I was hoping we might speak, Mrs Fleet.’
‘Gabriela. Sit. They have taken your weapons, yes? I am sorry, I must ask. We are alone.’
She poured me a cup of hot wine. We were not alone, of course. Fleet’s men were close by. Did she guess that I might have a dagger, hidden about me? It would be a mistake indeed to underestimate her: James Fleet’s wife. No doubt she too had a blade somewhere, tucked beneath her skirts. I let my gaze wander across her gown. It was plain and grey, but it fitted neatly to her figure. If it had been stolen, someone had restitched it very well. Her waist was thick from bearing her six children, but she was still a fine, handsome woman, save for the scar. And even that seemed to suit her, now I had grown more used to it.
A golden brooch glinted at the centre of her chest and I thought of Eva’s red gauze scarf, threaded with gold. Her mother, it seemed, allowed herself at least one small trinket.