Firelight (20 page)

Cold air, heavy with icy shavings of soot, filled her lungs. She resisted the urge to tuck her head farther into her collar. One walked with purpose here, or one would be quickly singled out. But the smell brought tears to her eyes. Onions, piss, shit, rotted meat… The thick stench of rot was the worst, working its way into mouth and throat, a promise of one’s future: death and decay. She pressed her lips tight and forged on.

Her mark stood beneath one of the few working lampposts. Nearly a head taller than the rest, he was as lanky as a garden ladder, his shaggy brown hair dull in the flickering light. He was older, just as she. Fine lines fanned out from his cheerful brown eyes. But the grin. That gap-toothed grin remained the same, an equal mix of ready humor and malice. A group of younger men and boys surrounded him, watching his every move, modeling their behavior to his. He was boss now to this small group, after having worked his way up through the ranks. His velvet green bowler and mustard-colored sack suit were a bit less shabby than the clothes of his mates. Perhaps one day he would run the whole area.

Her steps slowed. How to get him alone? It wouldn’t do to come upon him with his gang hanging about. Willing to wait, she leaned against an abandoned lamppost. The lamplighter had passed it by. Passed by most of the street lamps here. This neighborhood wasn’t deemed fit to have good light, or fresh water for that matter.

A sudden anger sparked hot in her breast, and with it an idea. Perhaps she alone could smell the acrid sweet tang of gas that had leaked out of the unused lamps to pool in the thin, trash-filled gutter running down West Street. It was enough to burn. One small spark would do the trick. Her loins tightened with a throb of excitement, and a familiar power ignited within. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets to hide their trembling, and her fingers curled around the cool coin hidden there. She held onto it like a lifeline. Should the task be done incorrectly, the whole of West Street could ignite like a lamp. In truth, the very fog-fouled air of London was an incendiary bomb waiting to go off. Nothing too grand, she promised herself as a cold sweat broke out over her skin. Only a small spark, directed with precision at the gutters.

An organ grinder and his monkey danced by. Then she acted. A shiver of pleasure pulsed through her limbs, and the gutter along West Street flared to life with a sudden hiss. Gasps rushed through the night as a yellow river of fire ran between the throngs of people. Among the laughter of surprise and the general mayhem, Billy Finger lifted his head. His brown eyes glared round before catching hers. They narrowed for one cool moment. Miranda touched her brim, and the familiar gap-toothed smile curled in response. She was, as they say, all in it now.

“ ’Ello there, darlin’,” he said as he came near. “Know how to make an entrance, you do.” The overpowering scent of grease, sweat, and bay rum—most likely lifted from a recent house job—followed him. “An’ how’s me favorite mot on this fine night?”

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed in a low voice.

His feathery brows rose. “Wha? Mot?”

“ ‘Mot,’ ‘darling.’ ” She stiffened her shoulders to make them appear broader. “I’m a man, remember.”

The gap-toothed grin appeared again. “Right. An’ a very convincing cove you are.” He snorted, blowing stale breath over her. “Only a blind codger would happ’n upon you and not want to put his old
nebuchadnezzar
to the grass.”

“Don’t be disgusting.” She shifted down farther into her collar where the air was fresher. “I’m not planning on showing my face—”

“Eh, Billy, who’s the fancy bloke?”

Billy turned with a snarl to the younger rough that had come upon them. “He ain’t no bloke! This ’ere’s Pan, a regular brick and me pal, so I’d watch me mouth if I was you.”

The rough, who was no older than sixteen, backed up. “No need to raise your dander.”

Billy gave a sharp jerk of his head. “Eh, hook it. An’ keep an eye on Meg. Lazy toffer’s been treatin’ her corner like a doss.”

The youth ambled off.

“Turned to the skin trade, have you?” Miranda asked. The idea of Billy as a pimp soured her stomach.

Billy gave a twisted smile. “A man’s got to make his livin’, hadn’t he?” He picked at something between his teeth and then spat. “An’ you’re getting too old to blend here, Pan.”

Which was more than likely true. Versed as she was in blending on these streets, she was now too tall to pass as a youth and too slender to look like a man, despite her bulky attire.

“We made a fair bit o’ tin together,” he went on, “but it ain’t safe. Even for you.” The hardness in his eyes would never truly fade, but for a moment, they softened in concern.

Looking at him, she felt the same sense of oddness as always in his presence. That he, the youth who would have raped her in an alleyway some three years ago, should be something close to a friend these many years later. Their paths had crossed for the second time when Father had lost his fortune and forced Miranda into a life of petty crime. Only Billy Finger, who’d been nipping palms, among other unsavory activities, found out one day, spying on her as she lifted a wallet from a nob walking down Bond Street.

He followed and, once again, cornered her in a dank alley. With no mysterious stranger to come to her aid, Miranda had been forced to show him just how unfriendly she could be. Only she’d become carried away, and the entire alley became engulfed in flames. His piteous screams tore into her conscience. Horrified by the damage she wrought, she stamped out the flames consuming his ragged clothes and took him home to wrap him up in cool cloths soaked in milk Miranda had filched from the market.

From that day on, Miranda had a partner. It was Billy who taught her how to be a bouncer, to pretend to be an honest customer in a shop, flaunting her beauty, distracting the clerk while Billy, as palmer, pinched his goods. The most miserable days of her life.

Yet they had become something of friends. He taught her more than any respectable lady could imagine. And when he was caught on the job, he held his tongue, and did not rat her out, but did his time. No longer was he her partner, but still an invaluable resource for information should she need him. She needed him now. No stone could be left unturned.

The fire in the gutters flickered then died, and the crowds surged in, an occasional nervous laugh the only sign that anything untoward had occurred.

“What do you make of this?” Miranda handed him Archer’s coin. He turned it over with his stubby fingers, and she caught a glimpse of the tight, shining skin rippling over his left wrist. Scars that had earned him the esteemed new moniker of Burnt Bill. Her fingers went numb.

“An odd sinker, this. Lookin’ for bit fakers, eh? I know a few…”

“No,” she said. “I don’t need counterfeit money.” The idea was laughable. “I thought perhaps it might be a marker for an address.”

“Might be. I’ve ’eard tell of fancy blokes usin’ such rubbish for their lil’ societies.” Billy’s blunt nose, crooked from too many breaks, twitched. “Right glockey, if you’re askin’ me.”

She smiled but only just; should Billy realize he had made her laugh, he’d wax comical to distraction. “It was just a thought,” she said with a shrug. A sinking realization that she might be spinning her wheels made her insides burn.

Billy shifted closer. Behind him, the laughter of street doxies seemed to swell before settling down into the din of West Street. “This isn’ about them peerage slayin’s, is it now? I ’eard your new cove is in the thick of it.
Lord
Archer, is it?”

Shock pounded against her temples. “How did you know?”

He rocked back on his heels, gripping the green-and-yellow plaid satin lapels of his coat. Really such attire should be outlawed. “Me ’ead isn’ stuck up me arse. I ’eard you got hammered for life to one Lord Archer. A right canny fellow, if them news rags is to be believed.” Keen eyes bore into her. “Wotcha doin’ g’ttin’ involved with that lot, anyways?”

“I had no idea you read,” she said in true surprise.

His scanty brows rose. “ ’Course I don’t bleedin’ read. Meg’s the one with the learnin’. Don’t listen to her go on normally, ’cept for this here…” He reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of newsprint.

The corners were battered and a spot of grease marred one edge, but it had been carefully wrapped in a length of wax paper to protect it from further harm. She unfolded the paper with a trembling hand. There—along with a story proclaiming Archer as a person of high interest in the peerage slayings—was a line sketching of Miranda, named as Archer’s mysterious and exotic new bride. Her lips had been drawn into a rather smug-looking smirk, but the artist had captured the essence of her quite well.

Billy bent over the paper, bringing along a fresh wash of ripe onion to her nose. “A right fair doodle, if I say so.”

“Quite,” she rasped. Such salacious news stories had ceased to bother her. But that Billy kept a drawing of her on his person… Guilt clawed at her throat with wretched, hard fingers. She hadn’t given him a passing thought in a year.

Eyes carefully averted, she handed him the drawing. “Have you heard of a West Club? Or Moon Club?”

Billy shook his head. “Only club ’ere is ’Eaven an’ ’Ell.” He jerked a thumb toward a solid structure three houses down whose doors were opened wide to allow for the steady stream of London dandies and roughs coming in and out. The small sign above the door read
H
EAVEN
on top with a pair of angel’s wings and a blue arrow pointing up and
H
ELL
with a distinctive red pitchfork pointing the way down.

“Fancy a romp with a judy an’ it’s up to ’eaven you go.”

She ducked her head as a group of gentlemen got out of a newly arrived carriage. Some of them looked vaguely familiar, and no doubt counted themselves among those who frequented the same parties that she did. “And what do you do in Hell?” she asked, eyeing the men from under her brim.

“ ’Ell’s for darker stuff, love. A bit o’ this an’ that…” A gleam of mischief lit his eyes as he flipped Archer’s coin through his fingers with ease. “Fancy a look?”

“Thank you, no.” She took the coin midflip. “Is there a Moon Street in London, perhaps?”

“Not that I’ve ’eard.” He scratched beneath his hat, sending it further askew. “Look ’ere, if anyone’s ’eard of this West Moon Club, I’ll find ’em, right?”

“Thank you, Billy.” She handed him a wad of pound notes.

“Keep your chink.” He shoved her hand away. “It ain’t like that wi’ us.” A shocking wash of pink crossed his wide cheeks. They both looked the other way in awkward silence, and she noticed an older man headed in their direction. He moved with a presence that rippled down the whole of West Street.

The man wasn’t very tall, probably as high as Miranda’s shoulder, and wore an unassuming suit of black under his thick dark cloak, but the crowd parted for him with a deference that spelled trouble. Billy cast his eye that way and paled. He made to grip her elbow but stopped, realizing that the gesture would mark her as a woman.

“Let’s make scarce.” He kept his stance casual, not looking toward the man, but he remained aware of the man with all his senses.

“Who is he?” she murmured as they walked toward a small alley.

“Black Tom. He runs the Dial’s. Knows who belongs an’ who don’t. He ain’t keen on outsiders unless they’re ’ere to pay. Come on.”

They turned a corner, almost making it to the safety of the alleyway, when they ran into a wall of men. The motley crew eyed them with various levels of humor and malice.

“Goin’ so soon there, Billy?” came a musical voice from behind.

A foul oath passed Billy’s lips as he slowly turned, taking her with him.

Black eyes gleamed like onyx beneath thick brows as the man Billy had called Black Tom regarded them. A wide brim top hat lay cocked upon his head, leaving greasy locks of raven hair to fall about his large ears and into his high collar.

“I should be offended, not gettin’ an introduction,” Tom said lightly.

Billy shifted his feet. “Blimey, Tom, didn’t think you’d want to bother wi’ such riffraff.”

“Thought wrong, boyo.”

A soft chuckle went through the group as though they were one entity.

Stiffed-backed, her pulse throbbing, Miranda could only stand and wait. The black eyes of the boss hadn’t left hers for a moment.

“Tis me kinsman from the East End,” said Billy through white lips. “A simple lad, really. Right nickey in the noggin’, he is.”

A scant brow rose. “Get on wif you, Billy. Havn’ a laugh at our expense? Why, it’d take a flat not to know toff from a toffer. Even in cove’s clothes.”

Strong hands wrenched her from Billy’s side. Her head hit the iron lamppost as two roughs pinned her against it for Tom’s inspection. At that, the small man doffed his cap and offered an eloquent bow. “ ’Ello, there, darlin’.”

Resignation pulled down Billy’s long features as two others took hold of him. The boss stepped in close, the smell of gin and unwashed male hitting her nostrils like a brick.

“Wha’s your name, then, luv?”

“Meg,” she mumbled, trying to sound as simple as Billy claimed. A useless endeavor. A simpleton would only be easier sport.

A dirty finger traced her cheek, his long nail scraping flesh as he licked his wet lips. “But you’re a fine bit o’ stuff, aren’t you now.” A smile split his cragged features. “This ’ere’s my bit of dirt you’re standin’ on.” He took a step closer, and the men held firm, their hard fingers bruising her flesh. “Wha’ come on my turf is mine. An’ I takes wha’s mine.”

Male arousal hung thick in the air, a palpable excitement that turned her stomach. Crowds of people milled about, not one of them looking, not one of them foolish enough to do so. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, their laughter penetrating the weak veil of darkness. She was as good as raped and dead if she did not act. Yet a cold sweat broke over her skin at the thought. She shivered, sickness and rage gaining purchase with equal speed. The sounds of the night came in from all sides. A street filled with people. Witnesses all. And innocents as well.