Chapter 10
Miles had once observed a dozing cat spring up from its deceptively lazy slumber to effortlessly—and ruthlessly—dispatch an unsuspecting bird.
It was the closest thing he had to compare with what he’d witnessed in the entry hall of Mrs. Pritchard’s Gentlemen’s Establishment.
There, his new bride had transformed as instinctively as that feline into…
Miles didn’t know quite what.
In the moment, he’d had no time to consider it. He had only reacted, putting himself between Nell and what he’d perceived to be the greater danger. But it was Nell—lovely, elegant Nell, with her pronounced limp and her ridiculously large crinoline—whose reflexes had won the day.
A mechanized sword cane, by God.
Miles flashed it a frowning look as he guided her away from the brothel. It appeared no different from any other fashionably made walking stick. But it was different. Unless of course…
“You weren’t bluffing?” he asked her.
“What?” Nell’s gray gaze flashed to his, distracted. “No. Not at all.”
“Then—”
“We are stopping at the Red Lion, I presume?” she interrupted.
His muscles tensed at the prospect. He wasn’t some boorish oaf, unable to admit when a woman had had a stroke of genius. Neither was he a careless idiot who would willingly lead a lady into further danger.
“It was clever of you to ask where they spend their half days off,” he acknowledged. “In other circumstances, we might be able to pursue the lead, but—”
“There won’t be any other circumstances. We have little enough time as it is.” She directed a look behind them. “I pray Mrs. Pritchard hasn’t sent anyone after us.”
Miles fully expected the madam would do just that the moment the shock wore off. He’d been on his guard for it ever since they exited the brothel. “Not yet. Not that I’ve noticed.”
“Then we should make the most of it. It’s nearly half past six. Providing Claudine was speaking truly, one or more of Mrs. Pritchard’ girls should be drinking at the Red Lion right now. If we make haste, we may yet catch one of them.”
Miles agreed in principle, though his gentlemanly instincts were all but shouting at him to haul Nell into the next cab that crossed their path and take her straight home to St. James’s Square where she would be safe.
She wasn’t one of his reporters, to be pounding the streets for hours in pursuit of a story. She was his blasted wife.
He nevertheless steered her down the next lane and the next, not back toward Commercial Street, but toward the dissolute public house at the center of the slum.
“Did someone at the Academy teach you to wield a cane that way?” he asked her.
Like him, Nell was busy scanning the streets about them.
She seemed to miss nothing, not the unwashed louts staggering across the fetid alleyways, the children shouting as they played, or the shadowy figures lurking between the buildings.
“I was trained to wield a sword,” she replied absently. “A sword cane isn’t very different.”
“Trained by whom?”
“Various teachers.” She spared him a glance. “Many of our faculty are visiting members. They stay for a time, then move on, imparting what wisdom they can during their tenure.”
“Sword fighting,” he said flatly.
“Fighting fighting,” she said. “Swords are optional.” Her gaze met his on a rueful plea. “Please don’t let it distract you. We must keep our focus.”
He searched her eyes. “Have you any other tricks I should know about?”
“It wasn’t a trick. It was a skill. And yes, I daresay I have. But now is hardly the occasion to provide an accounting of them. For one, we haven’t the time. For another—”
“As you say,” he acknowledged tightly. “We mustn’t be distracted.” He led her around the next corner. “But this conversation isn’t over. Not by a long chalk.”
Her eyes narrowed. She looked, for an instant, as though she wanted to say something more. But she didn’t. Her attention returned to the cramped street ahead of them.
Miles frowned, his mood worsening by the second. She’d been telling him from the beginning that she could take care of herself. Perchance she had meant it.
He didn’t know why the realization should leave him feeling as cross as a bear with a sore head.
He respected strength and intelligence in females, far more than any other qualities.
It was a woman’s strength that had raised him out of the slum and set him on the path to where he was now—independent, successful, practically a gentleman.
Little surprise that he’d never had any use for damsels. He had even less liking for playing the white knight. Still, a man liked to know where he was at with a girl.
“I warn you,” he said. “The reaction your face inspired at Mrs. Pritchard’s is nothing to the one it will provoke at a public house.”
Rather than discouraged, Nell seemed to be heartened by the notion. “Good,” she said. “If they’re captivated by my face, they won’t notice my questions.”
“Your questions?”
She flashed him a half smile. “You may ask questions, too, of course, if the opportunity arises.”
Miles huffed a short laugh. “Generous of you.”
“Well,” she said, “you are the reporter.”
And what are you, I wonder? he thought. The unspoken query came with no trace of suspicion or regret. No, Miles realized, with a growing sense of disquiet. It was fascination he was feeling.
The pub was down the next street. Miles had been there before, years ago, when he’d been writing a story on a series of dock robberies. He’d little thought then that he’d return again under such unusual circumstances—on his wedding day, accompanied by his new bride.
In looks, it was much as he remembered. Dark and dismal, with a great wooden beam over the entrance and a patched glass window clouded by grease and soot.
Steeling himself for physical confrontation, he opened the door for Nell.
She preceded him into the smoke-filled barroom, her cane clacking on the dirty slatted floor.
The scattered wood tables that stood about the place were half-filled with men and women in various stages of inebriation.
Several more leaned against the bar, nursing pints of ale and glasses of whiskey and gin.
Nell made straight for the barman. He was wiping down a section of the counter with a soiled rag as he conversed with a red-nosed woman in a stained gray dress.
Miles could have predicted what would happen. Indeed, he had predicted it. The moment the man caught sight of Nell, he abandoned the woman in front of him. His face broke into a grin.
“Welcome, miss,” he said, not seeming to notice Miles’s presence. “What’s your pleasure?”
“A glass of gin to start,” Nell replied as if she’d been frequenting public houses all of her life. “And a favor.”
“A favor, is it?” Still smiling, he set out a glass on the counter and poured out a measure of gin. “What’s that, my beauty?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine from Mrs. Pritchard’s,” Nell said with a flutter of her lashes. “She comes here on her half days.”
Miles watched her work her wiles, his respect for her ingenuity growing by the second. She seemed to call on it effortlessly, as though it were less a practiced art and more a natural, God-given talent. A talent for deception, no less. An excellent thing in a reporter. Less so in a wife.
“You one of Lily’s girls?” The barman chuckled. “She’s moving up in the world.” He finished pouring. “Verity’s in the corner, by the window. Only one of Lily’s girls here tonight.”
Miles and Nell both turned to look. A dark-haired woman in a blue straw bonnet adorned with a bunch of wilted violets sat by herself at a small table, an empty glass mug in front of her. Her eyelids were drooping, and her head resting in her hand.
Finding her, Nell’s eyes took on a glint of resolve. “Another gin, if you please,” she said to the barkeep. “For my friend, Verity.”
The barman poured out a second glass. He pushed them both across the counter to Nell. “That’ll be six pence, luv.”
Miles thumped the money down on the bar, a fraction harder than was called for. He gave the barkeep a distinct glare of warning.
The barman chuckled again, his smile gone sheepish. “No harm in looking, sir.”
Nell collected both glasses in one hand. She moved a few steps away, out of the barman’s hearing. Miles followed, remaining close at her side. She sank her voice, her words barely audible over the din of laughter and conversation. “I think it better if I approach her alone.”
Miles stood over her, frowning. It went against his every instinct to permit her to ask questions without him being present.
She may be clever, but this wasn’t a game.
Nor was it a classroom at her confounded charity school.
A man had been murdered, for God’s sake.
A young girl very likely taken. There was no room for missteps or amateurish mistakes.
Yet, Nell had acquitted herself admirably at Mrs. Pritchard’s. And she wasn’t wrong in supposing that she’d have a greater chance of success if she approached the working girl on her own.
Miles resigned himself to the logic of it. “What do you need from me?”
“Money,” she said. “And the notebook with the sketch of Mr. Cowgill.”
Miles nodded curtly. Her hands were full, so he took the liberty of discreetly slipping the notebook into her reticule, along with five guineas. “I’ll be at the bar,” he told her. “At the first sign of trouble, I’m taking you out of here.”
· · · · ·
Nell crossed the crowded floor, conscious of the rough-looking men staring at her as she passed them.
As ever, their gazes seemed to flit from her face to her cane and back again.
She lifted her chin, refusing to make eye contact with any of them.
She couldn’t afford for one of them to take it as encouragement.
Not when she had so little time in which to cultivate an acquaintance with the dark-haired prostitute in the drooping violet bonnet.
Nell approached the woman’s table with single-minded intent.