The Danger of Desire (4 page)

And in that instant, she upended the whole bloody basket onto his lowered head.

He threw up his arms to cast the damned thing off and scatter the clinging, obscuring bits of cloth that fell over his head. When he did, she darted to his right. But when he turned to grab her, she bounded off the wall with her left foot, and with her right, came down with infuriatingly accurate force upon the weak spot on his thigh.

Pain exploded up his leg, hot and cutting. He crumpled to his knees from the force of her blow, even as she pushed off from his leg with a dazzling display of agility to bound back to the right upon a windowsill set high into the building, and then back again, flinging herself across the air above his head to scramble up over the top of the wall.

Slumped to the ground beneath, Hugh could only look up at the empty space into which she had so neatly and so completely disappeared. He couldn’t quite believe it. She had zigzagged her way up and over him as easily as if she had been scaling a ladder.

But there, at the top of the wall, was a shiny patch of fresh blood. She must have cut herself on the glass. And she had done so without a sound. She was gone, as quiet and lethal as a Mohawk Indian.

Even as he damned the desperate determination that allowed her to injure herself in order to escape, he admired it. Oh, she was good. Damn him for being bested by her, but she was very good.

At his feet, the scattered linens fallen from the overturned basket were getting soiled, absorbing the damp grime of the alley. He rummaged through them, half expecting to find her abandoned booty amongst them, and half knowing she had well and truly bested him.

There was no watch, nor fob. No purse, either. Nothing. But there, there among the linens, was that beautifully and carefully embroidered letter “T,” in flowing, flourished script. And something, some bizarrely insistent remnant of his clearly malfunctioning instinct, told him she had actually done it—embroidered it with her own dexterous hands.

If he had not seen her with his own eyes bound over the wall like the feral cat she was, he could almost have believed she really was the impoverished seamstress she so brilliantly claimed to be. Almost.

Hugh heaved himself to his clumsy feet, rubbed his aching thigh, and set his rumpled clothing to rights. And that was when he felt it. The empty space in his pocket where his own watch had lately been.

The cloud of his hollow laugh echoed off the brick walls and evaporated slowly into the frigid air.

Oh, God, yes. She was very, very good. And he wanted her more than ever.

CHAPTER 3

J
esus, God in heaven, that had been cutting it far too fine. And she’d gone and lost the bleeding laundry and the basket. Well, she could send Timmy back later, long after the pale-eyed toff should have cleared off. Gave her the jim-jams, that one. Meggs twitched her shoulders to shake off the shivers at the thought of his eerily hot, pale blue gaze.

In the meantime, she had to do something about the ferociously stinging cut across the palm of her hand. Nearly lost her hold on the blighter’s watch when she’d hit the jagged glass. Meggs fisted her fingers tight over the pain and held the hand well away from her body. On top of everything else, she didn’t want to ruin the damned shop dress with bloodstains. At least she still had all the take. Timmy had the money from the other purses, but she had the two thimbles.

The first watch was tucked close in the hidden pocket along the inside of her leg, and the other she had hastily slid down her bodice on the run. She could feel the chain all the way down, pressed in by the busk of her stays, warm and strangely liquid against her skin, like a slithery metal serpent.

Hopefully, they’d fetch decent change at a pawnshop, and they would make enough on the day despite the loss of the basket and linen, or God forbid, the lost days if her hand were too badly cut to work. Her right hand, too. It hurt like the very devil.

Damn the man all the way down to hell. She should have known he was more than trouble the minute she’d clapped peepers on him.

Meggs ducked into a doorway to catch her breath and make sure there was still no sign of pursuit from the icy-eyed cove. She was nearly to Covent Garden—she’d be safe as a dove there.

She leaned her head back against the wall and eased open her hand. She couldn’t stop the hiss of pain escaping through her tightly clenched teeth any more than she could stop the sluggish flow of blood seeping through her fingers.

It was bad. From the lowest joint of her index finger, all the way across the palm, as if a fortune teller had traced her future in blood. Fie and damn and—oh, she couldn’t even come up with curse words bad enough to express the well of fear and anguish and frustration that opened up within her.

But she bloody well wasn’t going to go all soft and bawling like a bantling. Old Nan had taught her better. She would make do. She would get a potato from a stall in the market and put a raw slice across her hand. Potatoes were brilliant for that. Old Nan had bound one up over a burn on her arm once, and it had healed up twice as fast.

In the market, Meggs paid for the tattie instead of stealing it, mostly because she didn’t think she had the nerve or skill for it at the moment, but she
did
have the devil-eyed toff’s purse to hand. She fished out a couple of pennies and, without looking, palmed the rest down into her pockets before she tossed the incriminating evidence of the sueded purse into the refuse underfoot for some other sharp-eyed street arab to find and take to a fence or ragwoman. She pulled her disarrayed kerchief from around her neck and wrapped it carefully around the wound.

“Meggs!” Timmy ranged alongside. “Wot happened? Took so long I thought you’d been boned by the trap.”

For safety’s sake, Meggs made no objection to Timmy speaking the thieves slang when they were on the street. “It wasn’t the trap tried to shoulder-clap me.” She shook her head and nodded forward, out of the market, pushing east toward Great Russell Street. She felt an implacable, itchy need to keep moving. “That bloody swell was flash, but I finally tipped him the double. Lost him back near the Old Round Court.”

“The fat geezer? Didn’t think he could run without wheezing.”

“No, the other cove—the gimp.”

“Never. That gimp chased you? Why? Didn’t bung
his
pockets, did we?”

“Dunno,” she lied. “Chased me all the way from Cockspur. Nearly got me, the bloody bastard. And I’ve done for my hand.”

Timmy’s laugh was half shock, half glee. Normally, she tried to watch her language around him. Not that he couldn’t hear worse on the streets any day of the week. But still. She wanted to set a better example.

“Lemme see,” he demanded, all gory curiosity.

She shrugged him off. “I’m all right. Let’s keep moving.” Meggs had them turn south again toward the east end of the Strand, making sure they stayed well clear of both Seven Dials to the north and St. Giles to the east, especially with the lour still in their pockets. If they ventured into those areas, they’d be sure to fun afoul of some well-honed sharp who wanted her to strap for him.

Make that
another
well-honed sharp. Out-running the pale-eyed cove was more than enough for one day.

Because since the sad day old Nan had met her astonishingly swift end with the drop of the rope, Meggs had sworn to steal only for herself. And Timmy. After all those years of living hand to mouth, she vowed to do anything she could to keep from giving the lion’s share of the cut to someone else. Today, and every day since last Eastertide, all the lovely, golden meggs in their pockets were for her and Timmy alone.

Once she was more than sure they had not been followed, Meggs found a quiet spot near the entrance to St. Clement’s Church to fish out the take. With her back turned into a wall, she dug down into the hidden pocket and let her clever fingers sort out the coinage. She’d known it was heavy, the cold-eyed toff’s purse, but weight alone proved nothing. She’d come up with a load of pennies before. But the coins felt right, heavy and warm in her palm, so she pulled one out.

Golden guineas. She let her fingers count—four and change. Thank God. She didn’t want to think what she would have felt if she’d gone through all of that for mere pennies. But guineas—meggs they called them—were always well worth the trouble of a chase. It should be as fine a haul as they’d ever had. They would come through just fine for a while, even if she were caw handed.

“Right. What’s the take, then?” She kept her voice pitched low. No need to attract unnecessary and unwanted attention.

Timmy was quicker than a Change Alley clerk. “Five quid in flimsies.” He handed over the banknotes. “Two, three and six from the first, and”—he counted out the remaining coins—“eighteen meggs, six and four from the fat man. You do know how to pick ’em, Meggs. Regular goldfinch, he were, pockets lined with gold.”

“And I’ve another four. A grand total of—”

“Thirty-one, three and ten. Thirty-one quid, Meggs! Damn, that’s prime.”

“Shh.” She shot an uneasy glance around the empty space. No one appeared to have been listening. Still. A body couldn’t be too careful. “Save your breath to cool your porridge. It’s too much to have about.”

Too much money was always, always a mistake. So much money tempted a body to spend it recklessly. When a body had so much, it was too easy to piss it away on pies and shoes, blankets and coal. But they’d done without for so long, they could do without for a bit longer.

She’d get rid of it—put it safely beyond their immediate reach. Beyond immediate temptation. “I’ll off to Threadneedle Street.”

“What about the pie?”

Lord, he was always hungry. And he was too thin. His eyes looked huge in his face. Surely out of thirty pounds they could spare a decent meal. At least for him.

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?” She counted out the coppers. “You can get a whole pie for yourself over Temple Bar way.”

Timmy let out a yelp of delight and bounded to his feet, eager to be off. She didn’t follow. “What about you?”

Meggs shook her head. “Threadneedle Street for me. And then fence the goldfinch’s thimble. You double back down Strand and see if you can find the basket down behind that derelict lot down Vine Street. The one leads to that passage to Chandos.”

“Got it!” Timmy wasn’t even listening anymore, and he scarpered right off to find his breakfast.

“Mind yourself, Tanner,” she called after him, though he was already gone. She finished the rest under her breath. “And for fuck’s sake, look sharp.”

Look sharp. That was bloody ironical wasn’t it? Now he was gone, Meggs peeled back the crimsoning bandage covering her hand. She could no longer deny it—it was more than bad. It was worse. The burning misery was making her clench her teeth and suck in air through her nose. A raw tattie wasn’t going to fix this. Nothing was.

She hadn’t looked sharp and now her hand was ruined. She’d be lucky if she stole so much as a pie ever again.

Threadneedle Street was in the heart of the old city and the home of the firm of Levy and Levy, Brokers and Men of Business.
Her
men of business. Meggs was proud of the fact that what had always set her apart from the rest of the nypers and foysters was that she could add two plus two and come up with five.

She had early on understood the value of economy and had practiced it from the beginnings of her career as a cutpurse. She’d palmed a penny here and a tanner there from what she brought to old Nan, until she’d had five pounds of her own stuffed under the sole of her worn-out, too-small shoe and persuaded Mr. Michael Levy, the younger, to take her account.

And along with economy, she had diligence. The amount had slowly, but steadily, increased with the years, and in the little under the eight-month since old Nan had been put to bed with a shovel, she had made sure she and Timmy relieved the unworthy gentry of at least thirty-two shillings per day, or no less than eleven pounds, four shillings per week.

Some days were better than others, but in trying diligently to meet their daily goal, they had provided themselves with a fortune of close to four hundred quid, three hundred of which was currently invested in the safe and sound “cent-per-cent” funds.

It was very nearly enough. Meggs had her heart set on a fortune of five hundred pounds to get them out of London for good. Get them back to the life she had longed for, but now had very nearly forgot.

Today she was thirty pounds closer. And still a world away. She cupped her burning, maimed hand and kept moving past St. Paul’s and into Cheapside. Kept thinking. It was more than thirty pounds, she reminded herself. There was not only the fat goldfinch’s watch to pawn but the sharp-eyed cove’s as well.

But that’s why she’d got rid of Timmy, because she hadn’t told him about the second watch, had she? Nor where the extra four meggs came from. Nor anything about their encounter in the passageway behind Chandos Street.

Nor about the temptation he made her feel.

“Steal for
me,”
he had said.

Right. Hadn’t she heard that before? But never in that way, with that voice that sounded like whiskey and moonlight. A voice that soothed even as it lured her deeper into his net.

She’d sworn off kidmen, but he didn’t look like any kidman she’d ever seen. All that country bumpkin she thought she’d seen in him on Cockspur Street had disappeared when he’d come after her like a hangman with an empty noose. He had been all smooth agility, even with that leg. She’d tried all her best dodges on him. Hate to think what might have happened if he’d been fit. Or had a stick. Man like that was bound to know how to handle a weapon. Man like that looked solid and hard, as though he’d never been scared a day in his life.

But he didn’t have that meanness, that surly pleasure all the greasy sharps had in giving others pain. He hadn’t tried to hurt her to bring her in line, quick-like. And he hadn’t pawed her at all. Of course, she put paid to him before he’d had any chance, but something told her he wouldn’t have cut up rough even if she hadn’t.