Chapter 7
Holliman's Chimney Cleaning Establishment
White Chapel, London
Warrick crept along behind Beatrice, making sure to stay hidden in the shadows, but close enough to come to her aid if she needed him.
As they made their way slowly up New Gravel Lane toward the stews at the south edge of White Chapel, she balanced a large basket of apples.
Con's larcenous wife Marianne, the queen of disguises, had helped her find a suitable dress similar to those street-sellers of fruit wore.
Ho, Con's ingenious cook, had somehow found a basket full of apples at a moment's notice.
Marianne had achieved the impossible, making the lush Beatrice look like a worn-out street person, using licorice to blacken a few of her teeth and a faded, dirty kerchief to completely cover her honey-blonde curls.
A charcoal stick put the look of bruises on her perfect face, and she and Beatrice had gone out into the yard in front of Con's mews to make a sort of mud soup to finish the look of filth over the rest of her face and arms. Like most street-sellers, she had only a generous woolen shawl for warmth.
His sister-in-law had also sewn pockets to attach with ribbons beneath her skirts for weapon storage.
Earlier that week, Warrick had introduced Beatrice to his crew's chest of weapons and had let her choose the ones she'd feel most comfortable using. He'd schooled her daily since then in the art of properly throwing a dagger and aiming a small gun.
He'd warned her, "If you're going to use a gun, you have to get close...and don't aim for the head, because you'll miss. Aim for the gut. At least you'll do enough damage to slow them down or put them out of the fight."
His heart was in his mouth considering even the short distance he was staying behind Beatrice. Allowing harm to come to her was not an option. His belly rose up to meet his gorge when he contemplated all the possibilities of what they might encounter that night.
Holliman's chimney sweep business was at the end of Farmer Street off Mill Walk.
Ahead of him just then she veered left onto New Gravel Lane.
His heart nearly leapt out of his chest when a man stepped out of a dark alley and approached her.
She kept to the plan and offered him an apple for a ha'penny.
He chose one, handed her the coin, and swung off down the street, whistling an odd tune.
A sea shanty. One that his own men had used while they cranked up the ships' anchors from the depths of the sea.
But then again, they were close to the docks.
Once the man had disappeared, Warrick dismissed the familiar tune as a coincidence.
Since England's long war had ended, there were hundreds of former Royal Navy seamen on the streets, searching for jobs or looking for a way to swindle someone out of a coin or two.
He breathed a sigh of relief that the unknown man had paid Beatrice for the apple and continued on his way.
She was doing almost too good a job at pretending to be a street-seller. She nearly had him fooled. Nearly. He'd held the real woman beneath that disguise and knew the curves of her body, not to mention the little sigh she gave when he pleasured her with his hand beneath her skirts.
They continued right onto Mill Walk and then in a few minutes, neared the darkened alley way off Farmer Street where Holliman kept his chimney and fireplace cleaning establishment.
Beatrice slowed her forward momentum a bit, and Warrick could guess at what was going through her mind.
She needed to gather her courage before turning down that darkened byway.
He wished he could signal to her he was still close behind, but that could be a fatal mistake.
It was too late for reassurances. They were in for a penny, in for a pound.
Warrick slipped to the other side of the street so that he could come even with her as she headed down the alley way.
Beatrice silently repeated the prayers of her childhood as she stared down the inky hole that was the far end of Farmer Street.
She trusted Warrick with her life, but he was nowhere in sight.
She had to let go of her fears and believe he was close behind and would protect her no matter what befell them that night.
However, the feel of the hard steel dagger in the outside of her right boot also gave her a measure of comfort.
She had the means to protect herself, and besides, it was she who had insisted on coming along to surprise the despicable thieves who were using helpless children to do their dirty work and steal from her ships.
Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out the outlines of five small figures being ushered out of a doorway down at the end of the court by a taller form.
Good lord, the person hurrying the small forms out the door was wearing a dress.
A woman? Somehow, she'd expected hulking men herding the children into danger.
But a woman? Women were supposed to be the protectors of children.
And then, a swarm of men piled out of the establishment, terrifying figures in the dark.
She dared not consider the odds stacked against them. Somehow they'd prevail. They had to.
But then Warrick had warned her. He'd cautioned Beatrice that she'd see things she'd never expected, things that she'd struggle to understand.
Experiencing the sights of men, as well as women and children, sleeping in rags within dark corners of the streets of White Chapel, the smells of the open sewer drainage running down streets, and the occasional pan of slop water thrown from a tenement window were all foreign to her.
Her entire life she'd taken for granted her comfortable, sheltered existence. She'd never even worn a dress as rough as the one she'd borrowed from Marianne to turn herself into a street-seller. She was still trying to adjust to the scratchiness of the fabric and the rough seams abrading her arms.
She couldn't imagine what Warrick had endured growing up as an orphan on these streets.
Just when she'd begun to worry about where he was, warm, strong arms yanked her off the street and into an alcove of a small, darkened shop along Farmer Street, spilling out most of her apples.
She tossed the basket into a dark corner.
She was sure someone would snatch away the container eventually and make use of it before morning.
Warrick shushed Beatrice gently in the dark, patting her arm to reassure her he had her safely in his arms. She turned violently, her eyes wide and fearful in the dark.
He simply held xxxan index finger against her lips before pulling her to the edge of the alcove and pointing back the way they'd come, to a veritable army of shadows spilling down the sides of the narrow street toward them.
When she opened her mouth to say something, he quieted her again with xxxa finger against her lips and a fist pressed to his chest to signify the army joining them consisted of his people.
She relaxed and turned back toward the unfolding scene of children being led through the dark toward a cart. Once the cart began rolling down the street, the men at the chimney sweep establishment fell into step behind it.
At Beatrice's sharp intake of breath when they rolled past, he whispered low in her ear.
"We have to follow them and let this play out if we're going to catch your brother-in-law's men at their dark game.
" He went silent as the cart and the men passed directly by their alcove.
After they turned at the end of the street and headed in the general direction of the docks, Warrick let out a low whistle, and at least fifty men popped out of various doorways to follow along with them, keeping well behind the cart full of tiny sweeps.
When Beatrice whipped her head around, obviously surprised at how many of The Horsemen's men had been hidden along the short alley way, Warrick gave her a broad grin.
His right-hand man Gordy caught up with them and nodded down toward the shop behind them from which the children had been taken.
"We'll send some of our men as well as Fam's to double back and take the remaining young ones to a safe place. "
"They can stay at our warehouse with us for the night until we sort them out in the morning and find safer homes for them." Warrick squeezed Beatrice's hand in the dark, knowing she'd been anxious about the children's safety.
"How will you do that? There are so many of them." There was a tearful hitch in her voice in the dark.
"We have a whole community of families in Seven Dials who make it their business to care for the most vulnerable orphaned children."
"Who are they? I've never heard of them."
"You wouldn't have." He gave out a long sigh. "They're the Jewish families that are part of the Hambro' Synagogue on Fennchurch Street. And I can guess what your next question is going to be."
"What?"
"Why are The Horsemen in league with a Jewish synagogue?"
Beatrice refused to admit to her own doubts, but Warrick was right. She had trouble connecting the rough leader of thieves with any sort of religious endeavor. Yet there he was, explaining his connection to the community of Jewish families in the docklands.
"When we were still boys at the mercy of a rookeries gang leader, Mr. Kamish, the rag man, took us under his wing and helped us save Fam from certain starvation at the hands of our keepers.
We've owed him, his family, and his community a debt ever since.
When he died earlier this year, we transferred the debt to his widow and his son Judah. "
"So...you and your brothers are actually charitable thieves?"
She nearly shrank from his angry gaze at that question.