Loving Julia (2 page)

“Yer gettin’ some real nice little titties on ya, Jewely,” Mick whispered in her ear as he rubbed himself against her again.

Jewel clenched her teeth in revulsion. She
hated
Mick…. What she would really like to do was stick a knife in his middle. But since she didn’t have a knife on her she made do with the next best thing. Catching a fold of the flesh in the soft area near his armpit, she twisted it between her thumb and forefinger as viciously as she could. Mick yelped and jumped back, helped by a mighty shove from Jewel.

“Ya keep them filthy ’ands an’ that filthy mind offa me, Mick Parkins, or I’ll slit yer throat for ya some fine night whilst you lay sleepin’,” she hissed, glaring at him ferociously before stomping on through the door. Behind her, she heard Jem’s bark of laughter.

“Better watch yerself, me bucko, or she’ll be carvin’ ya up for fish bait,” Jem advised with a chuckle.

“She’ll sing a different tune one o’ these days, the little bitch, mark me words,” Mick growled.

Jewel tried to ignore the little shiver of fear that ran up her spine at the threat. Mick was getting bolder with her all the time, and one day soon she feared that even the threat of Jem’s retaliation would not be enough to keep him off her.

“C’mon, let’s get goin’. We ain’t got all night.” Jem was walking beside her now, and Jewel put the threat of Mick aside for the moment. Mick came up close behind her, as she didn’t resent his nearness. Now they were merely partners in crime, all three intent on the job they had to do.

Even at noontime the narrow cobbled street was shadowed by the dilapidated buildings of timber and brick covered with dingy, peeling mortar that leaned one against the other, blocking out the sun. Now, as Big Ben boomed the strokes of two A.M. in the distance, the street was as dark as the inside of an unlit cellar. There was a sputtering streetlamp on the far corner, but its light came nowhere near the middle of the street where the three of them walked, Jem and Mick in shabby frieze coats and slouch hats pulled low, and Jewel in her red silk dress with her hair twisted up into as close as she could come to a fashionable knot.

Thick fog rolling in off the Thames shrouded everything, making the air heavy and damp and depositing slimy particles on Jewel’s hair and skin. She shivered at the cold, glancing resentfully at her companions.
They
wore coats while she had to be next door to naked to attract the pigeon. But then, feeling cold was nothing new to her. She didn’t know why it was bothering her so much lately. Maybe she was getting old….

The smell from the nearby river and the overflowing gutters underfoot was enough to knock the uninitiated right off their feet. Jewel, sucking in the stink along with the fog, barely noticed it. Just as she barely noticed the drunks lying in the gutter, or the shadowy forms lurking in doorways or skulking along the labyrinth of connecting streets through which they passed. Like the rats, the cold, and the stink they were a part of life in the slums of Whitechapel.

“Ye’ll do jest fine, Jool-girl.”

Jem, clearly sensing her nervousness with that strange sixth sense of his, clapped a hand on her bare shoulder as he spoke. Jewel jumped at the unexpected touch, but the large warm hand steadied her as it propelled her toward the cross street where the streetlamps sputtered fuzzily through the fog-muffled darkness. It was almost time….

She rubbed her arms, left bare by the short puffed sleeves of the low cut dress, wishing vainly for the warmth of summer as she did so. It was mild for early March despite the fog. But it was still much too cold for her fashionable bodice. Her work clothes, she thought with a grimace, and rubbed her arms again.

They reached the lamplit street, and with a final encouraging squeeze of her shoulder Jem pushed Jewel out into the light while he and Mick ducked into a nearby alley. It was her job to walk along the street, with Jem and Mick following in the shadows, until she found a pigeon. Then she had to lure him in, and she hated it. In her usual lay, she had respect. She worked the shoppers haggling at street markets in her own territory, where she was well-known amongst the street people. There, her friends would cover for her if things went wrong. What made the new lay so dangerous was that they were operating outside their usual territory; tonight Jem had decided that they would work the area near Covent Garden, hoping to catch a cit or a toff heading home from a night on the town with his pockets well lined and his wits befuddled by drink. They planned to relieve their victim of all his valuables instead of just his ticker or his purse, and if the pigeon was plump enough they wouldn’t have to work again for several days.

Jewel had to admit that a single hit with this lay brought in considerably more than she usually managed to pinch in as much as a week on her own. The pigeon was chosen with care, and Jem and Mick were thorough, stripping the man of every single valuable, from the occasional fur lined cloak to the more common fat purse, ornate gold watches on heavy chains, profusions of rings, fobs and seals, silver hip flasks, small painted miniatures of family members framed in gold (it was amazin’ what some folks carried on their persons!) to sometimes even his clothes and shoes, if they were grand enough and if Jem felt they might fetch a good price resold. Yes, it was certainly quicker prigging the whole man rather than just lifting the items from his pockets, but it was more dangerous, too. In this lay, the three of them came face to face with their victims. They could be identified with ease.

Along the cobblestone street other females moved, some with their heads down and covered with shawls to denote their modesty, some lurching along as they lovingly swilled the contents of stone jugs, some decked out in tawdry finery and on the prowl—as was Jewel.

Two men, well-to-do cits by their clothes, were walking along the street together, steady on their feet and sober of countenance. Not very good prospects, Jewel thought, forcing herself to concentrate on the business at hand. The sooner she played her part, the sooner it would be over with.

Ahead of her, a whore in a floss-trimmed dress so faded that it was difficult to tell if it had once been blue or green approached the men, smiling so that her few teeth showed and thrusting her body forward so that they could get a better look at her ample—and nearly bare—bosom.

“Wanna ’ave some fun, gents?” she whined, her coy smile not masking the avarice in her eyes. One of the men looked at her with some interest, but the other pulled him away.

“Don’t be daft, George, she’s likely got the pox,” snorted the second. Then to the whore he added, “Get on away from us, or I’ll have the watch on you!”

The woman snarled, her face contorting with malice, and let loose with a stream of profanity that made the men’s cheeks redden. Her language didn’t bother Jewel at all. Jewel had heard as bad or worse all her life, and was capable of doing a sight better herself when the occasion called for it. The only thing that bothered her was that the two men were now hurrying away. They hadn’t been good prospects together, but would have been perfect if the whore had managed to separate them. But she hadn’t, and now the area was deserted except for street people.

“Damn it, Jool, get your arse walkin’. We can’t stand around ’ere all bloody night!”

The hissed admonition from Mick caused Jewel to grit her teeth. She wasn’t his bloody doxy, to be ordered around as he chose! But she forced herself to relax, and concentrate. The sooner she found a pigeon for the plucking, the sooner this night would be over, and she would be safe in her warm pallet under the eaves.

“ ’ey, Jool, you takin’ up whorin’? Whisht I was a skirt, so I could fall back on sommit like that! Lord God, light as the gentry’s pockets are lately, I be like to starve to death!”

The half admiring, half envious voice of the old man behind her made Jewel start. You be as jumpy as a parson with a whore, she scolded herself as she turned to grin at him. Willy Tilden was an inch or so shorter than her own medium height, and he was even thinner than she was. If not for the web of wrinkles that lined his face, he would have looked like a boy. But he was nearly sixty, they said, and he was one of the best, a master pickpocket. He had recognized Jewel’s talent early on, and gave her the respect one professional accorded another. Jewel admired him, but she was also wary of him. Another of Willy’s lays was the providing of females to Mother Miranda, the notorious abbess. Jewel had no wish to end up lining Willy’s pockets by being sold off like a parcel to that one.

“Not too likely, Willy,” Jewel responded. Her tone held the respect an apprentice owes a master, and the old man grinned at her before moving on. She didn’t like the idea that word would soon be out on the streets that Jewel Combs had turned whore, but there was nothing she could do about it.

“ ’ist, ya bleedin’ wantwit, keep yer mind about ya! ’Ere comes a ripe ’un.”

Jem’s near shout of a whisper came from a recessed doorway some few feet behind Jewel. Jewel looked up quickly to see a young man, a toff by the evidence of his fancy wine coat and tan breeches. He was staggering down the street and she was amazed that she had not noticed him some ten minutes earlier. He was singing “God Save the Queen” at the top of his lungs; the sound echoed off the narrow buildings to provide its own ringing chorus. From his singing, to say nothing of the way he stopped to lean a hand against a storefront for support from time to time, it was clear that he was extremely well to live. Jewel’s eyes gleamed as he passed beneath a streetlight, and she saw that he was very young, not yet twenty, she guessed. An easy pigeon to pluck, she thought with relief. Mick should have no excuse to rough him up at all.

The old whore in the faded dress perked up and started toward the yodeling newcomer. A furious mutter from behind her reminded Jewel that she had better make a move fast. As drunk as this young toff was, he was unlikely to be discriminating in his appraisal of female flesh.

“Sorry, ducks, but this gent be mine,” Jewel said as she overtook the old whore. Sidling up to the gentleman, she slid a hand caressingly up his velvet sleeve, giving the other woman an ungentle shove with her hips at the same time.

“I saw ’im first!” the whore screeched as she recovered from her sideways totter, glaring at Jewel, who glared back. Both were prepared to fight for their prize like hungry mongrels, if need be.

“This is-is most flattering, ladies, but b-believe me, there is no need,” the gentleman interrupted, his eyes blinking as he focused on first one then the other of them. Jewel was ready to swear that he could not differentiate between them. He was really magnificently dog-bitten; the odor of rum hung about him like the old whore’s cheap perfume.

Jewel glared at the other woman, who was trying to edge back into contention, then smiled at the young gentleman with exaggerated sweetness, thrusting her chest forward provocatively. He was not to know that her ripe looking curves had been greatly enhanced by the old rags she had thrust down into the too full bosom of her dress to fill it out and force her own small breasts upward. From above, all a gentleman could see was creamy, ripe looking flesh.

“Listen, you bitch, that’s my fella!” The old whore, enraged by Jewel’s success in fixing the gentleman’s attention at last, gave the younger girl a hearty shove. Jewel staggered, keeping herself upright by her hold on the gentleman’s coat—he staggered with her—then swung on the other woman, her lips parted in a vicious snarl.

“Get on away from ’ere, ya scraggy ol’ witch, afore I knock yer block off! Ya ’ear me, now?”

“I tell ya, ’e’s mine!”

The battle was about to begin in earnest when the gentleman stepped between them, shaking his head with regret. Under the gaslight Jewel noticed with the tiny part of her mind that was not focused on her rival that his hair was very blond….

“Ladies, I beg you, do not fight over me. I find you both very, very fetching, but, uh, well, to be quite frank, tonight I fear I am not quite … quite myself. To be perfectly plain with you, I do not … do not think I am … capable of the feat you require. So sorry, ladies.”

With a lopsided grin he bowed in the general direction of the lamppost and started to lurch away. Desperate, Jewel grabbed at his arm. She could not let him get away now.

“Wait! I, uh, seein’ as yer so ’andsome an’ all, I’ll give it ter ya real cheap. Yer sure ter my taste, guvnor.” She smiled at him and rolled her eyes in the way that she had seen the whores do. He smiled back at her, and for a moment she thought she had him. Then he shook his head.

“You’re a pretty wench, I think. I can’t quite see properly at the moment. Are you hard up for cash? If so, I’ll be glad to make you a little … a little loan….” With that he reached into his pocket and pulled out a purse that bulged at the seams. Jewel’s eyes bulged nearly as much as he opened it, and peeled off a couple of notes from the pile to tuck into her bodice. Hardly feeling his fingers brushing her flesh, she could not tear her eyes from the thick roll of notes remaining in the purse. It must contain hundreds of pounds—a fat pigeon indeed, and she was losing him!

“I’m ’ard up too, sir,” whined the whore, and if looks could kill the older woman would have been stretched out dead at Jewel’s feet. She was sure she could get him to at least walk with her a little way—far enough to where Jem and Mick could drag him into an alley—if only the old bitch would go away!

The toff tucked some notes into the crack between the other woman’s fat breasts, smiled seraphically at the pair of them, and again started to lurch away. Down the street a ways, a ramshackle tavern belched forth a quartet of shabby revelers; joining arms, they staggered off in the opposite direction. The toff followed happily in their wake, and Jewel ground her teeth. Then, with a single seething glance at her rival, she would have gone after the toff, but the older woman stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“We need to ’ave us a little chat, lovey,” she purred menacingly, her grime encrusted nails digging into the soft flesh of Jewel’s upper arm. Jewel turned, feeling the roots of her hair tighten with temper. Hissing like an enraged cat, she started to give the woman the roundhouse punch she had been asking for. But the sound of the toff’s voice, high pitched with drunken indignation, jolted her attention back to him.