Chapter 3 #3
“I’ve been working extra.” He set his empty glass on the bar.
“Took the afternoon off to help Emma fetch a shipment from the wharf.” He leaned in close with a show of sharing a confidence, though he had to speak up to make himself heard over the clamor.
“Josie says you’re sticking your hands in men’s pockets now.
It has Robbie all excited.” One side of his mouth curved up, and his voice was sly with teasing.
I rolled my eyes. “You can tell Robbie I won’t be sticking my hand in his pocket. I’m sure I’d be disappointed.”
He laughed and set his elbows beside mine, avoiding the spots sticky with spills. “How’ve you been? How’s Sarah?” He’d always had a soft spot for my sister. “Is she getting along?”
“From what I can tell, the work is hard, but she doesn’t complain. I think she’s afraid I might make her quit.”
“She probably likes earning a wage,” James replied. “Makes her feel like she’s grown, and she’s helping you, after all you’ve done.”
“I haven’t done much,” I said dismissively.
He left that alone, caught Pat’s eye, and pointed at his glass. “Another?” he asked me, and I nodded.
As our full glasses appeared, Pat leaned over the bar toward James, raising his voice to be heard. “You’re staying with Emma tonight? I’ve some chairs that need mending.”
“Aye, I’ll come by in the morning,” James replied and put down coins for our glasses. Pat made to wave them off, the drinks part of an easy exchange of favors, but James shook his head and shoved them toward the till.
We backed away from the bar to make space for others, and James gave me an inquiring look and raised his glass toward a small round table in the corner.
I nodded and followed in his wake as he threaded his way between tables, greeting people he knew.
James was one of the few Castle men who’d left and found legitimate work—at the Custom House, in his case, after being in prison for smuggling.
I asked Emma once how he’d wrangled that, and she’d shrugged and said she had no idea.
Rumor was he’d ratted out other smugglers, but I never believed it.
James might be a rogue, but he was no copper’s nark.
Though he lived north of the river now, James came around to the inn most Fridays, joining the group of us by the fire.
I wondered why he was pulling me aside. As I sat in one slatted wooden chair, James turned his sideways so he could rest his forearm along the top rail.
“Emma says you’ve been helping her a good deal. ”
“Well, someone had to. She had two trousseaus to finish last week,” I replied. “Needed by some West Ender in a hurry, as usual.”
One eyebrow rose. “She told me about some woman who changed her train three times.”
I snorted. “It wasn’t just her train—she couldn’t decide if she wanted her flounces gathered, box pleated, or fluted. She drove Emma half distracted.” I sipped my ale. “How is the Custom House?”
“Good,” he said. “Busy.”
“You miss smuggling? The dodges?”
He spun his glass on the table. “Nae. Clerking’s easier.”
I eyed his hand. The thick calluses along his thumb and forefinger weren’t from clerking.
“I thought you were on weights and measures,” I said.
“Started there, but I’m on records now,” he said.
“Most days it’s like trying to catch a runaway train.
We work till after dark—and there’s still ships lined up to be unloaded and counted the next morning, with the captains cussing at the delay.
But they come from all over, Kit. The East Indies, Egypt, Spain, France.
” He reached into his pocket. “Look here.” He chose a coin from the half dozen in his palm and held it out. “It’s from Greece.”
I took it, peering at the circle of silver with a young, straight-nosed man in profile on one side and on the other wheat sheaves encircling a word. “AERTON,” I puzzled out. “What is it?”
“One lepton,” he said. “Their letters are close but not the same.”
“Does it make you want to go places?” To my surprise, a note of envy crept into my voice.
“Sure,” he said. “Though some of the stories they tell of pirates make me happy to be right here.” I made to give the coin back, and he waved it back toward me.
“Keep it. It’s a curiosity. Can’t spend it.
” He drained his glass and smiled at me.
“What would you say to a proper night out? We could go to a music hall, see a show.”
I drew back. “With you?”
“Aye, why not?” he asked, unperturbed. “We’ve been friends a good while.”
I was silent.
James raked his dark curls back from his forehead. “Stop it, Kit. You’re looking at me like I’m running a confidence game.”
I laughed. “Do you know how to do anything else?”
He gave me a mock-wounded look and laid a hand across his chest as if I’d stabbed him. “Humor me. What’s the harm in a night at Wilton’s?”
“There was a man murdered there last year,” I reminded him. It had been in all the papers. A violinist had leapt into the crowd, fists flying, and landed a blow that sent the spectator down, his head smacking the floor, with blood everywhere, and the performer had been tried and thrown in prison.
He laughed. “You’re right. Tell you what,” he said, drawing a pack of cards from his pocket. “We’ll play. If I win, you have dinner with me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Everything is a game with you.”
He shrugged and dealt the cards.
Five hands later, I laid down rummy with two left over.
He laid down his cards, played the eight of spades on my run and had only an ace left over. His eyes brightened with triumph. “Saturday night, then.”
“I can’t. Sarah’s here.”
“Sunday?”
“I walk Sarah back to work.”
“What time?”
“Around five o’clock.”
“So, we could have dinner on the north shore.”
Still, I hesitated. He was a Castle man, born and raised, who’d been in prison. If those calluses on his hands were to be believed, he was still rowing at least a few nights a week, which meant he was back to smuggling.
He leaned forward, his dark eyebrows raised. “It’s just dinner, Kit.”
“All right. I’ll meet you around seven,” I said.
He opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged. “As you like.” He rose from his chair and pulled on his coat. “The Silver Plover.” He gave me the address and took up his empty glass to return it to the bar. “I’ve something to do for Emma. See you Sunday.”
He gave a cheerful grin, and I watched him leave, the burly shoulders under his rough brown coat, the dark hair that curled over the collar.
He paused at a table, where a cluster of men urged him to stay for another drink.
With a mix of familiarity and deference, he rested a hand on old Dick Yellen’s shoulder, one of the men who had known him since he was “Jimmy” and “boy.”
I couldn’t help but think of the last badger scheme we’d pulled together, the week before Amelia invited me into the ring.
The mark that night was married, which I knew not just because of the ring he wore, a gold band I could fence easily at Mr. Ardle’s.
I’d seen him at the inn before with his wife on his arm.
This time he was alone and blinked rapidly when I asked if he wanted company.
I could tell he was a safe mark; there were some who were flat-out dangerous, the ones who stared bold as brass, smirking as if they expected your attentions all along.
This bloke was about thirty or so, with weepy mustaches and a shy, uncertain manner.
He finished his supper hastily, and I brought him to Mrs. Donnelly’s lodging house next door, up the stairs to the room James and I rented for a shilling for the hour we needed it.
I eased the mark out of his coat—a bit worn, four shillings—and undid his cravat—another two—and came close, letting him peck me a bit as I shook out my hair. Like most men, he took it as an invitation to run his fingers into it, kissing my neck. I flinched and pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, no matter,” I said. “Just your ring caught my hair. Here, let’s put it in your pocket, and you can play with my hair all you like.”
He hurriedly slid the ring off and tucked it away, and we went back to kissing, which gave me ample time to transfer the items in his pocket into my own. His hands ran over my back and down to my arse—
“Take off your trousers,” I whispered. “Let me sit on your lap a bit.”
He was out of them faster than a greyhound coursing a rabbit, dropping them in a heap on the carpet.
Trousers nice, almost new, a neat label inside. Six shillings.
I sat down on his lap, put my arms around his neck, held my breath against the scent of Macassar oil in his hair, and kissed him again.
Suddenly there were heavy footsteps in the hallway outside—the knob turned—and James flung open the door, slamming it into the wall behind.
“Who the devil are you?” James bellowed, his eyes blazing, his cheeks red. “And what are you doing with my wife?”
The man leapt up, dumping me unceremoniously onto the floor. James took a step toward me, his hands reaching, leaving the path to the door clear. This mark had the presence of mind to snatch up his trousers and boots before he raced off, his bare feet pounding down the hall.
Damn it, I thought. There went six shillings and four more for the boots.
James closed the door, grinning. “That was an easy one.”
I put out a hand for him to pull me up, rubbing my hip where I’d landed. “Easy for you,” I grumbled.
“What’d you get?”
I drew the poke from my pocket—the gold ring, six pounds and a few shillings in coins and notes, and a silver pocket watch. I examined it closely. There was a monogram, SRB, but that could be churched. Plate, not real silver, but Mr. Ardle would take it.
James picked up the gold ring. “I can’t believe these fools fall for you saying it gets tangled in your hair.”
“They’re not thinking with their brains,” I reminded him. “A few kisses and you’re all fools.”
He had thrown back his head and laughed. “You’re right, we are.”
It was the same laugh James was giving now, with Dick Yellen and the other men.
Unreserved and buoyant and easy. Nearly everyone liked James, perhaps because he genuinely liked most people.
He had more faith in them than I did. Then again, he didn’t grow up with a ma who made a fussy show of locking the door carefully at night, as if she wouldn’t open it later for Jack McShane.
Who topped up the gin bottle with water, to make it appear she hadn’t been drinking all afternoon.
Who looked shocked at coins missing from the tin cup, as if she hadn’t filched my meager wages for herself.
One last loud guffaw from the men and James turned away and pulled open the door.
Unexpectedly, he turned and caught me looking.
A roguish grin creased the skin at the corners of his eyes.
With a quick lift of his chin in farewell, he closed the door behind him, leaving me rolling my eyes.
He might work away from the Castle now, but he was the same as ever.