Chapter Fourteen
I should have instead worried about how long it would take for us to get home. Foxcourt had paid the hackney’s jarvey to wait
for us, and as it pulled into the porte cochere, it blocked the police’s view of our satchels stuffed with documents and ledgers,
as well as the cumbersome tome.
But rather than return to Foxcourt House the exact way we’d come, the coach was taking a rather torturous route through Linden’s
darkening streets.
“This is the second time we’ve passed down Prince Street.” I sat back from the window, exasperated. “This is a scrap—the jarvey’s
pulling one over on you.”
Foxcourt’s gaze never strayed from the other window, his expression dark. “I asked him to if he thought we were being followed.”
“Followed?” I echoed. “By whom?”
“The police,” Foxcourt said, rubbing his thumbnail over his top lip. “The jarvey is—he worked for my great-uncle for a time
and can be trusted. He’ll take us back when it’s safe.”
It was another hour before we turned back toward the house, and the knot in my gut finally released. I was so amazed at my
relief to see the mews and the gate to the house’s back garden, I let Foxcourt hand me down.
“Where’ve ye brought me?” came a small, peevish voice.
Right. Him.
We had a third passenger for our journey back to Foxcourt House, one who seemed distinctly unimpressed with his surroundings
for a boy who spent most of his days negotiating suffocatingly narrow chimney flues.
“Off with you,” the jarvey said, gesturing toward Foxcourt. The boy had sat up front with him, and it had done little to air
out his desperate scent.
“My liege,” Foxcourt said sardonically, offering his hands to help the boy down from the stand.
The urchin was little more than a rumpled ball of wool and soot as he stared at the earl. The whites of his eyes narrowed. “Are ye dicked in the nob?”
I bit my lip at Foxcourt’s expression, trying not to laugh. Another winsome child spat out by the Brickbats.
“I’m beginning to feel that way, yes,” Foxcourt said, clearly intuiting the meaning. “I cannot begin to imagine why I thought
it was a good idea to bring you home for a bath and warm meal.”
In truth, I couldn’t, either, but I could—begrudgingly—think ever so slightly better of him for having tried, even if he was
only doing this for self-aggrandizement. Frankly, Foxcourt would have an easier time trying to domesticate a feral cat.
So many of the children who managed to escape orphanages and workhouses spent years running wild through the rookery’s streets,
until they were swept into Greystone’s Stone Sloggers or forced into unsavory and dangerous work. Many became accomplished
thieves, like the notorious Tremont Terrors, whose legend still echoed through the Brickbats nearly ten years after they’d
disbanded. Most children were simply left to their fates like all the rubbish tossed from windows. Forgotten or ignored by
the men in power—there was little difference in the end, when so few survived to adulthood.
The boy gripped his seat. “Are ye one of them ‘mercy me’ spoil puddin’ types who’ll blather about God and pray over me while
I eat stew?”
“No chance of that,” Foxcourt said.
Still, the little urchin resisted. “Are ye a snatcher then? I’ll warn ye, I’ll fight.”
Foxcourt looked mystified by this. I almost envied him for that ignorance.
“He’s not a snatcher,” I promised the boy. “Just a scrub and a hot plate. This is an earl’s house, you know.”
The boy avoided Foxcourt’s hands entirely as he leapt down from the perch. He gave the back of the house an assessing look,
wiping at his dripping nose. “Seen nicer.”
I couldn’t resist. Even if the boy told others of this, very few would believe it. “This is, in fact, the earl in question
you’ve just insulted.”
The child balked, peering up at Foxcourt. “Then why’re ye dressed like a piss prophet?”
“A physician,” I helpfully translated.
Foxcourt’s expression turned withering. “What a delightful turn of phrase.”
Behind him, the jarvey muffled his laugh with a cough. I took another look at him then. He was small in stature and, save
for a bushy beard, utterly unremarkable—the sort of man your eyes would pass right over and who’d slip from your mind with
your next thought.
“I’ll be off then,” the jarvey said. “Until later, Fox.”
“Just a moment,” Foxcourt said. As he turned to discuss something with the coachman, a telltale glint entered the boy’s eyes.
I caught his wrist just as his hand subtly darted toward Foxcourt’s nearest pocket. My brows rose in warning. The boy pouted.
“Do you have a name?” I asked, releasing him.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is an unusual name.”
He heaved out a sigh, mumbling something that sounded, horrifyingly, like Theophilus.
The boy stared at me, bracing for my reaction.
Oh, God, his name truly was Theophilus.
“Ye can call me Theo,” he offered.
“Come along then, young Theo,” Foxcourt said smoothly, waving him toward the tall gate leading into Foxcourt House’s back
garden. As he scurried forward, Foxcourt touched my arm, slowing me.
“Snatcher?” he asked, his voice a hair above a whisper.
“The scourge of the Brickbats,” I said. “Men said to steal children off the street. The assumption is that they’re sold to
factories or brothels, but none are ever seen again. It’s been happening for years.”
His hand fell away. I’d truly shocked him. Good. The whole of Albion needed to be.
“Why haven’t I heard of this?” he demanded, as if I could answer that question for him.
“I don’t know,” I said coldly. “Why haven’t you?”
You couldn’t uncover problems when you didn’t seek them out. As always, it had been left to the Brickbats to mete out its
own justice. Anyone suspected of snatching children floated belly down in the Temese by sunrise.
Foxcourt set his jaw, watching as Theo bounded up through the sprawling flower beds. The boy gaped as though he’d never seen
the likes of daffodils before. Likely, he hadn’t.
“I will take care of it,” Foxcourt said.
I shook my head. “Parliament won’t do anything. The best we can hope for now is one of the new police proving useful and stopping it.”
He looked at me then, his eyes as intent as I’d ever seen them. “I will take care of it.”
“No one man can fix the problem,” I countered.
There was that arrogance again, that haughty defiance of someone who couldn’t abide being told what he could not do. “We’ll
see, won’t we?”
And God, did I want to believe him.
I knew the time had come at last to meet the elusive Mrs. Silver when the savory delight of fish, wine, and mushrooms greeted
us at the door leading in from the garden.
The kitchen had come alive in our absence, thrumming with activity. The oven and stove breathed out hot gusts, carrying the
promise of another delicious meal. A low murmur of laughter eased some of the worry from my shoulders as surely as if someone
had come to take my coat.
Reddy stood beside the statuesque woman commanding the array of copper pots on the black stove, looking perfectly relaxed
in his dishabille, wearing only his shirt and waistcoat. As the cook lifted a wooden spoon, he blew on the offering to cool
it, then dutifully opened his mouth.
Curled in a basket near a door that likely led to the servants’ hall, Brigadier lifted her head in interest at the tantalizing
smell. Foxcourt shut the door behind us, and at once, the spaniel leapt from her nest of blankets, her nails clicking against
the tile as she bounded past Theo and me with a happy whine. She danced around Foxcourt’s feet, her tail wagging so hard she
nearly toppled herself. The moment he reached down to pat her on the head, she flung herself to the ground belly up.
Theo hung back, staying a shy step behind me as the others turned to us. Reddy nearly choked on the spoon at the sight.
“Willie told me, but I thought surely not . . .” Reddy circled us, his eyes sparkling with mirth as he conducted his inspection.
“I must say, the gray hair really brings out the dreadful pallor of your skin, Fox.”
“How I live for your flattery.” Foxcourt plucked the thin frames from his face with a scowl. “Why is it you always seem to
turn up when there’s food to be had? You’re worse than a street cat.”
“Because he knows where to find the best meal on this side of the Narrow Sea,” came the cook’s voice, lilting with the remnants of a distinctly Gallian accent. “And that there will always be a seat for him.”
Foxcourt gave a rare, genuine smile, shocking me nearly senseless as he bowed in greeting. “You look well this evening, Mrs.
Silver. As I don’t believe you’ve had the opportunity to become acquainted, may I introduce—”
As flummoxed as I’d been by the earl’s deferential greeting to his servant, I was left utterly speechless as the cook turned
to me with an exuberant “At last!”
Her white lace-edged cap framed one of the most devastatingly beautiful faces I had ever laid eyes upon. Every feature, from
her doe-like eyes to her straight, pretty nose to her bow-shaped lips, was in perfect balance, and though it was clear she
was well into middle age, her brown skin remained lineless, save for the crinkles of pleasure as she smiled.
“Oh, my dear, what a pleasure it is to meet you—how lovely!”
I was just able to drop my satchel and set the Treasury down on the nearby table before I was swept up into her embrace. Behind
her, Theo’s eyes bulged in alarm as Mrs. Silver grasped my hands and leaned down to kiss the air on either side of my cheeks,
in the Continental style.
Her essence was unlike anything I’d ever encountered before, alluring and terrifying all at once. She smelled of silent midnights,
moon-blooming flowers, and the deep, dark earth from which things were born and others buried. Thyme, mint, parsley, and countless
other herbs flavored it. Nightshade, too.
Nightshade most of all.
Behind her, the open cabinet and its shadowed bottles loomed. How strange it was not to feel in danger, even as every instinct
in me was prickling with awareness that something was not right.