Chapter 3 #2
I’d never longed to keep the items I stole, even the pretty ones.
They were just fripperies that turned into money for necessities—the extra rent so Sarah could stay in my room without having to work for Amelia, food, tea, a full scuttle of coal, warm clothes, boots because Sarah’s feet grew a size every six months, a rag rug for warmth, a new feather pillow.
Between my take from thieving and wages I’d earned, I had some money put by, a collection of coins in a small pouch under a floorboard in my room, a decoy for a larger pouch hidden in yet another compartment beneath the first. But no matter how heavy those pouches, my fears were heavier.
Sarah depended on me, and we had no one else.
What would happen if I got sick for a spell?
If, God forbid, I was caught? Or if she needed a doctor for weeks on end, like when she had whooping cough?
When Ma lay dying, our money had dwindled until we’d scrounged for halfpennies.
I took to visiting the butcher at day’s end for scraps, and Sarah fixed her eyes on the pavement to avoid seeing the bread loaves in the bakery windows.
I never wanted to return to that. No, I wanted enough money that I needn’t worry ever again, though I wasn’t sure if there was such an amount.
Nell’s hands finished unbuttoning and shifted the fabric over my shoulders, and I shimmied out of the dress.
“Cor, look at the filigree work,” Josie said, eyeing the hatpin Cathy held. “That bit o’ peridot is gorgeous, ain’t it?”
“Aye,” Cathy agreed, setting it on the table with reluctant fingers.
Amelia paused in her writing and her mouth tightened; some of the girls tried her patience. Her gaze shifted to me. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I laid the dress on the table, like a corpse in a casket, and Bea’s hands slid below the hand-sized false pocket into the large thieving one.
“Four sets of gloves, fine kid,” she said as she withdrew them, and Amelia noted it. “Satin ribbons, six. And . . .” Bea’s eyebrows rose as she examined the coins. “And two pounds, ten?”
“The clerk’s pocket.” I grinned and laid the back of my hand theatrically to my forehead. “He was overcome with distress over Mary. Easy mark as he pushed by me.”
Bea laughed.
“Hmm,” Josie said, leaning over with a sly look. “Anything else worth grabbin’ in his pocket?”
“Ach,” I replied with a shrug. “’Twas too small, couldn’t find it.”
Josie threw back her head, giving her bright laugh, and continued chuckling as she headed downstairs.
Fanny and Cathy grinned as they followed, but Bea’s face was pinched as she left the room.
Clear as day, there was something amiss between Josie and Bea.
I looked to see if Amelia had caught it, but she was writing down my poke.
Well, it wasn’t for me to say anything. Amelia turned up the wick on the lamp and slid the ledger toward me so I could put my initials beside each item for tallying at month’s end.
I handed back the pen, wondering how many times I’d scribbled KJ on these pages in the last few years.
I stepped into my own dress, and Nell buttoned me and slipped away as I sat to put on my boots. Knowing Amelia would ask about my afternoon, I took my time fastening them.
Amelia was giving one final look over the goods book. The corners of her mouth were tucked in concentration; her left forefinger slid down the side of the page as her right hand made quick notations in the margins.
Fourteen years ago, when I was six and Sarah wasn’t even born, Patty Wirth, on her deathbed, had passed the ring to Amelia Lyle, her niece, who had only improved it.
She made sure her thieves knew how to read and do simple ciphering, how to add grace to their walks, soften their expressions, and tuck their vowels up their noses when the occasion required.
Now, over a dozen of us lived in rooms near the inn, paid for by the ring.
Amelia was a good mistress, practical and unexcitable, who gave us a fair cut, so even after paying for our board and other necessities, most of us earned a nice amount each month.
Amelia blotted her last few handwritten lines, closed the ledger, and stowed it on the shelf, then gestured for me to take the chair across the large wooden desk.
From a cupboard concealed in the wall’s panels, she took out a bottle of wine, poured a crimson inch into two glasses, and set one in front of me.
Her hands moved with their usual steadiness. Still, her expression made me ask, “What’s the matter?”
“Mary was good?”
“She was fine,” I said. “A fainting spell worthy of Drury Lane.”
Amelia sipped her wine. “Anything unusual at the shop?”
I studied her. Her tone told me that this second question was why she’d held me back.
I drank the wine—bitter to my tongue—and thumbed the corners of my mouth to remove any purplish stain. Mary and I would deal with Sid, so there was no need to mention him being late. And if I told Amelia about the detective, Amelia might wonder if Mary was fit to work. “No,” I lied.
“Did you see more constables than usual?”
I answered, honestly, “We didn’t see any.”
“Good.” Amelia’s face relaxed into a smile.
In silence, we finished our wine, and she corked the wine bottle, putting it back inside the cupboard along with our glasses after wiping them with a towel.
It was supper hour, and the jolly rowdiness rose through the floorboards.
Amelia flapped her hand toward the door.
“Get on with you, now. Have some fun, yeah?”
I made my way downstairs, pausing at the landing to observe the pub room below.
A bright fire threw light fitfully, forming and dissipating shadows upon the beamed ceiling, the tattered chairs closest to the hearth, and the three long wooden tables that crossed the room, where men, women, and children crowded the benches.
Card players sat at the square tables along the far wall.
We thieves gathered by the fireplace. Sid watched worshipfully as Caleb drew a grand arc in the air with his glass of ale, telling a story that brought shouts of laughter.
Mary watched him from the bar, her expression amused.
He caught her eye and winked. Caleb flirted relentlessly with Mary, who was friendly with everyone, but she saw him for what he was—a fine-looking bloke, but shiftless, like most of the Castle men.
I started toward Mary and the bar, where people stood two deep.
The barkeep, Pat Hollings, passed glasses of ale across the high wooden plank to open hands, the tattoos on his forearms rippling as he worked the taps, his thick fingers quick but not sloppy.
While I waited my turn, I surveyed the room.
It wasn’t family, but it was familiar to me.
Except at one of the tables sat a striking woman, new to the inn.
She was about forty years of age, decently dressed in blue wool, her thick dark hair threaded with gray but still lustrous.
Her countenance was lined around the mouth and at the brow, as if her life had been hard, but even so it was evident she’d once been a beauty, with large dark eyes under well-shaped brows, high cheekbones, a firm chin, and a full mouth.
It was an arresting face, handsome rather than merely pretty.
I might not recall people’s names, but I have a peculiar memory for faces, and I’d seen hers once before.
Not here, and only briefly, some months ago, somewhere dim, as if I’d passed her on a bridge in the late afternoon or observed her in a market.
She sat at the end of a long table with a group of four women who gathered there daily, joining the conversation, laughing at their remarks, leaning in with her chin in her palm, as if she’d done it every Friday night since forever.
Her pretense of belonging made me wary.
I’m not one to ignore that feeling. I attend to it, for more than once it has kept me from choosing a poor mark or showing too much of my hand. Having the mother I did, I’m quick to detect when folks are acting a part or passing lies.
Perhaps the woman felt my stare, for suddenly she returned it. Her gaze sharpened, held, shifted away for a moment, then settled back on me, hardened, as if she recognized me somehow, or at least knew a good bit about me.
It set a chill like a cold finger at my neck.
Then she gave a bland, indifferent smile and turned back to her new friends, making me wonder if I’d imagined it.
Beside me, Mary nudged my arm. “What’s the matter?”
I started. “Ah, nothing.” I looked pointedly at Mary’s half-empty pot. “None for me?” I teased.
“I didn’t know how long Amelia would keep you. She asked about me?”
“Of course,” I said. “But she was more concerned about constables.”
“Constables?” She drew back. “I didn’t see any.”
“I didn’t, either. That’s what I told her.”
“Ah.” She raised her pot with a smile. “Well, get yours and come on.”
“I will.” I turned toward the bar. Like a tide, people shifted forward and back to make room for others, and I nudged in between old Connors, who raised a sloshy pint and belched his greeting, and Mrs. Wiggins, whose upper lip with its dark hairs held droplets of ale.
Connors flung an arm around me, but I was ready and slithered away before he could squeeze my arse.
Pat winked at me with his one good eye—the other having been put out years before in a ship’s brawl—and passed me a glass of ale, hoppy and bitter at once, which I drank down thirstily until it was half gone.
Mrs. Wiggins stepped away and James Kinnon materialized beside me, his hazel eyes bright with laughter. “Hullo, Kit.”
“Hullo,” I replied. “Haven’t seen you in weeks.”