The Prisoner (16 page)

“We want to steal from Mr. Ingram's shop, not burn it down,” pointed out Annabelle.

“I won't burn it down,” Simon retorted, insulted.

“I would also like to go.” Charlotte regarded Jack earnestly. “People always stare at me when I walk by, so that might help to take their eyes off of you.”

“I don't want people starin' at you,” growled Jack, infuriated by the idea.

“It won't bother me, Jack,” she assured him in a small, soft voice, “if I know it's going to help Genevieve.”

“I don't want to be left out,” lamented Jamie. “Couldn't I help too, Jack?”

Jack stared at the imploring crescent of faces before him.

His first impulse was to tell them that they were too young to accompany him. But he had survived on his own since he was nine, which was but a year older than Jamie was. That was when he had finally realized that his mother was never going to keep her promise to rescue him from the hellish existence he was enduring with the vile husband and wife she had placed him with shortly after he was born. Over time her brief visits had grown less frequent, but when she appeared she was like a warm wash of sunlight in his otherwise cold and miserable life. Heavily powdered and rouged, her amply fleshed body squeezed into overly tight corsets and faded gowns that revealed a generous knoll of snowy bosom, she was always unbearably soft and lovely and exotic to Jack. She would ruffle her fingers through his hair and draw him close, holding him tight as he inhaled the mysteriously sweet scent of her, a fragrance that reminded him of flowers and honey, but which he later came to recognize as cheap whiskey.
It won't be much longer, my sweet lad,
she would promise him.
Only a wee bit more to save and then we'll buy a fine cottage and live in it together, as cozy as two mice in a teacup.
After she was gone the old man would drink and beat Jack until he could barely stand, saying his mother was nothing but a drunken whore and he couldn't afford to give her little bastard his charity any longer. Finally her visits stopped and the savagery of Jack's beatings grew, until one day something within him snapped and he decided to fight back, with a shovel.

That was the day he ran away, uncertain whether he had become a murderer or not.

Jack was accustomed to surviving on his own and stealing by himself, without the comfort or complication of knowing that there was someone else working with him. But his customary solitude had worked against him recently, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment in the Inveraray jail. There might be merit to having accomplices on this particular job, he decided. After all, every pair of eyes could keep a sharp watch and warn him of any trouble brewing. And if something did go wrong, it could prove helpful to have others there to create a distraction, as Annabelle had suggested.

“Fine,” he relented finally. “You can all help. But you must do exactly as I tell you—is that clear?”

The little band of aspiring thieves solemnly nodded.

Chapter Six

S
NOW FELL IN RAGGED WISPS OVER THE BLACK
rooftops and cobblestone streets, dressing the town of Inveraray in a foamy white cape. It fluttered over the gray, choppy waters of Loch Fyne, dancing upon the chilly air before it kissed the frigid water and disintegrated, and piled in frothy layers upon the elaborate hats of the ladies and gentlemen walking through the frosty streets, making them look as if they were balancing enormous cakes upon their heads.

Jack stamped his feet, vainly trying to restore some heat to them. The boots Genevieve had given him were far too big and the snow had seeped through the worn leather, soaking his stockings. He wished he had thought to stuff some newspaper in them. He could not remember ever having a pair of shoes or boots that fit him well. Over the years he had utilized a variety of techniques for either filling up the excess, covering cracks or relieving blistering pressure. A cushion of newspaper would have made his boots more comfortable and had the added benefit of increasing their insulation. Their previous owner had obviously not spent much time standing about in the freezing wet snow, he reflected irritably.

He would have preferred not to do the robbery on such a miserable day.

Fresh snow had the distinct disadvantage of leaving a trail of footprints, particularly if one tried to escape down a previously untrod lane. It also reduced the number of people milling about and shopping, which would make it difficult for him to lose himself in the crowd once the jewels were safely in his pocket. Unfortunately, a delay in their plans was impossible. According to Simon, the bank had insisted upon payment immediately. Genevieve and Haydon had arranged to meet with the bank manager that very morning; therefore, the children had been excused from their regular studies. Jack had quickly offered to take them out for a walk in the falling snow, a suggestion that Oliver, Doreen, and Eunice agreed to happily, thinking it would enable them to get their own work done without having all the children getting in their way. Jack did not mention that they would be going to Inveraray's main street. If anyone questioned their presence while they were there, he could easily explain that they were merely enjoying the Christmas decorations adorning the shop windows.

“There's an old man and his wife in the shop now, looking at a pair of silver candelabra on a table,” reported Grace, returning from her stroll past Mr. Ingram's window. “Mr. Ingram is helping them.”

“Are they anywhere near the jewelry case?” asked Jack.

Grace shook her head. “The table is at the front of the store.”

“Can we go inside now?” Jamie had been amusing himself by forming little mountains of snow with his boots and then pretending to be a giant and crushing them flat. “I'm cold.”

“Jack said we had to wait until the store was crowded with people,” Annabelle reminded him.

“But we've been here forever, and there are never more than one or two people in the shop,” Jamie complained. “Mr. Ingram should try selling something better than all that old stuff—like cups of hot tea and chocolate.”

“Why don't we go to the tearoom and have something to eat?” suggested Simon. “I'm hungry.”

“You're always hungry,” teased Charlotte.

“We can't go to the tearoom—we haven't any money,” Annabelle pointed out.

“We could go back home and ask Oliver to give us some,” said Simon.

“Oliver's not about to give us money for tea when we're already at home,” argued Jamie, scraping together another mountain with his feet. “He'll just make us sit in the kitchen and eat something that Eunice has made.”

Simon's mouth began to water. “Maybe she's made some treacle scones.”

“We're not goin' home,” Jack said firmly, “until we've done what we came to do. Now pipe down and pay attention.”

The children obediently quieted.

“Mr. Ingram is havin' a bit of a slow day, so we're going to have to go ahead with our plan with just that old couple in the store. Does everybody know what they have to do?”

They nodded.

“Good. Make lots of noise as you go in—we don't want Mr. Ingram to think you're tryin' to sneak about. I'll come in by myself a moment later. Grace will keep watch for me while I get into the case. The rest of you do whatever you have to do to keep Mr. Ingram's attention away from me. The most important thing to remember is, if anything goes wrong and I'm caught, all of you get out of there as fast as you can. Don't try to help me—understand? Just keep movin' and go home.”

Charlotte's eyes widened. “But Jack—”

“If you won't swear to me that you'll do this, we'll bloody well go home right now,” Jack snapped.

Charlotte dropped her gaze to her wet boots.

Jack instantly regretted his tone. He had to learn to be more gentle with Charlotte, he realized in frustration. She didn't have the same confidence and resilience that the others enjoyed. It was clear to him that she had been deeply affected by the life she had led before Genevieve took her in. He had no desire to further erode her already fragile countenance.

“I'll be fine, Charlotte,” he assured her, his voice low and edged with apology. He reached over and tipped her chin up, making her look at him. “Trust me.”

Charlotte stared at him, her gaze glistening with emotion.

He held her chin a moment, staring deep into the swirl of her brown-and-green eyes. There was fear there, fear and regret and something else that he could not quite understand. He frowned and studied her longer, holding the delicate round of her jaw in his fingers. Snow was drifting like goose down around her, forming a lacy pattern on her hat and coat and in the auburn silk of her hair. A flake settled upon her cheek, an exquisite work of the finest frozen lace. She seemed more perfect to him in that moment than any of the ladies in the paintings Genevieve had taken such pains to show to him; more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Her skin was cool and pale, but there was sufficient heat to melt the intricate snowflake, turning it into a single, silver tear. And suddenly he understood what he was seeing in Charlotte's enormous eyes.

Charlotte
cared
about him.

A slender ray of warmth shot through him.

“Everything is going to be fine, Charlotte,” he said gruffly. He released his hold on her chin to gently brush the silvery tear from her cheek with the back of his fingers. Then he cleared his throat. “I promise.”

“I'm getting cold,” complained Jamie, rubbing his stiff little hands together.

“We're going now,” Jack decided. “Keep your hats low and your scarves up around your face, so no one gets a clear view of any of you. The snow is comin' down hard, so people won't think it strange that you're bundled up. When you see me movin' away from the jewelry case, that's your signal to leave. Don't race out in a pack—go to the door nice and slow, as if you've finished whatever you were lookin' at and are now moving on to another shop. We'll meet by the church at the end of the street and go back home together. Does everybody understand?”

They nodded.

“Good.” He swept a critical gaze over them, trying to be certain that there was nothing about any of their appearances that would give anyone pause. They were all reasonably well dressed, with freshly scrubbed faces and cheeks chilled pink from the cold. None of them looked like a ragged, starving urchin who might be about to filch something.

“Let's go, then.”

A little brass bell tinkled cheerfully as the door opened, heralding their arrival. The six children poured into the shop, giggling and chattering as they made a great show of stamping the snow from their boots and brushing it from their shoulders. Once they had given Mr. Ingram time to appraise them and realize they were relatively well dressed and were not trying to escape his notice, they each wandered into different areas of the store, so that the shopkeeper would have to keep shifting his gaze to keep track of what each of them was doing.

Jamie went to stare in awe at the gleaming suit of armor that stood guard in one corner of the store, while Annabelle adopted a tragic expression as she studied a painting of a heartbroken young woman cradling her murdered lover in her lap. Charlotte limped over to a bookcase and became engrossed in several leather-bound volumes that had their titles stamped in gold on the spines, and Simon frowned at a statue of two naked men battling each other. Why the artist had chosen to have them fight without any clothes on was absolutely beyond his comprehension—he thought they looked ridiculous. Grace went to the back of the store and made a show of examining a pretty set of blue-and-white plates that had been carefully arranged upon an elaborately carved sideboard, not too far from where the jewelry cabinet stood.

“…and you're absolutely sure, Mr. Ingram, that these candelabra are from the palace of Versailles?” inquired the bloated gentleman in the black felt hat and enormous overcoat.

His flaccid-faced wife apparently suffered from an equal fondness for rich foods, and had barely been able to squeeze her colossal, crinolined backside into the allotted space beside the polished mahogany table upon which the enormous pair of candelabra were displayed.

“Belonged to King Louis the Fourteenth himself,” Mr. Ingram assured his prospective buyer. He was a compact little man of slightly less than average height, with a neatly combed mat of carefully arranged graying hair upon his head, and a slightly strained expression upon his face. Clearly he did not enjoy having the authenticity of his wares questioned. “Truly a magnificent pair, and extremely rare. Stolen by a French duke who was an adviser to Louis the Sixteenth at the time of the Revolution. Poor chap barely made it out of France with his head on his shoulders. One can only imagine the remarkable events in history to which these handsome pieces were witness,” he continued, embellishing his sale with a whiff of intrigue. “The workmanship is so superb, I almost hate to part with them,” he added wistfully.

Jack sauntered nonchalantly toward the back of the shop. An ancient, battered sword caught his eye, and he paused for a moment to study it. He didn't think an old, rusted weapon like that could be worth very much, but he decided that if he ever had a home of his own, that was the kind of thing he might like to hang on the wall. All the other ornate furnishings around him made him feel uncomfortable, as if the furnishings themselves thought they were better than him.

“Pssst!” Grace tipped her head slightly in the direction of the jewelry cabinet.

Jack nodded once. He glanced back to make certain that Mr. Ingram was still engrossed in making his sale.

“Think of the dinners they have overheard—the drama, the mystery, the romance that has unfolded before their elegant presence,” Mr. Ingram continued, making it sound as if the candelabra had eyes and ears. “What an impressive addition to your home these pieces will make—you shall be the envy of all those who see them….”

Feigning interest in several objects that lay between himself and the jewelry cabinet, Jack surreptitiously continued his trek to the back. One more quick glance to make sure that Mr. Ingram was still engrossed in making his sale.

Then he slipped behind the cabinet and ducked down, unobserved.

Grace had been wrong, he realized, cursing silently. A small padlock clamped the door to the case closed. Jack had not yet mastered the skill of opening a lock without the benefit of a key. He thought he could probably break it off easily, but that would make too much noise.

Better to unscrew the pins holding the hinges in place.

He raked his gaze over the table behind him, where a number of objects were waiting to be cleaned and tagged before being put on display. A small, gleaming dirk lay in a nest of packing straw. Checking once more to make certain Mr. Ingram remained occupied, Jack snatched the dirk and bent down to set to work.

The point of the blade fit almost perfectly into the head of the screws. Working quickly, Jack twisted the blade round and round, releasing the small screws and setting them silently on the floor. Finally the hinge to which the lock was linked was freed. Jack pulled it off and eased open the door to the cabinet.

A dazzling array of jewels sparkled before him. Glittering rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emeralds of every size and color were artfully arranged in glorious necklaces, brooches, rings, and earrings. Within that single case there was sufficient wealth to keep him comfortable for his entire lifetime—or possibly two. One quick sweep of his hand across the blue velvet-lined case and he could be on his way to a new life—one that was free of perpetually searching for food and wearing blistering boots and sleeping on the streets. He wondered what the penalty for such a tremendous theft would be. Would they hang him if he was caught, or worse, put him in jail for the rest of his life?

“…I don't know,” the boiled dumpling of a wife was saying, shaking her head until her powdery jowls trembled. “I had been hoping to find something bigger, perhaps with a bird or two worked into the pattern—or maybe even some fruit….”