Fortune Favors the Wicked (12 page)

And maybe the writing of it was all the good he needed. It had fastened memory in place as well, making him reflect on what he'd done. After years of war, he'd crossed the Channel and freely strode the streets of Paris. He'd been snow-whipped on Mount Blanc, teetered in a gondola through the murky canals of Venice. He had been pleasured by a French widow who could do amazing things with her tongue, and he had passed along his newfound knowledge to a
signora
of Venice who declared him her finest lover ever.

Some things were too private to be set to paper, but they made part of the past years' arc nonetheless.

He could not publish it as a fiction, as though these things had not truly happened to him. But if it were never to be published at all, and it could not be reread, the manuscript had no value. Why should he bother holding fast to it?

He hefted the parcel in one hand. It took up the space in his trunk of a pair of dancing pumps, or a few satin waistcoats. Men of fashion needed such things more than they needed a bundle of worthless paper.

Why should he bother traveling again, for that matter? Often he disliked it—the discomfort, the rootlessness. The absence of anyone to trust as he attempted to exchange money or learn his way about a new city. Always hearing
There's the blind traveler.

Sometimes it would be nice to walk without smacking his cane at every step to feel his way through the world. To stride, instead, through a town whose streets he knew as well as the angles of his own face. To hear
There is my friend, Benedict.

Or even, since he was dreaming, to hear
There is my husband
.

Sailors didn't have those dreams. Blind men didn't either. Naval Knights weren't permitted to marry. Men who roamed the world never expected to find a home.

But he was all these things, and more. Benedict's dreams, like his travel, were a gesture of defiance to a world that looked at him with seeing eyes and said
You can't
.

He could.

Rising to his knees, he shuffled his possessions about in their tidy stacks and nestled the manuscript into the chest again. Another
he could
: he could afford to let it lie cocooned a while longer.

So. What ought he to do next? It was a much larger question than tonight—though for tonight, he would start by wrapping the mysterious dagger in the discarded cloth Charlotte had wrapped around his wounded arm. Tomorrow they would decide what to do with it. Turn it over to the Bow Street Runner, maybe.

He felt around on the floor until he found it, a trailing pile of fabric.

Of brocaded fabric, with—he felt the edge—yes, with a tasseled edge. It was her shawl. The shawl he had tucked about her arms, the shawl on which they had sat and talked, when he had pried into her life because he couldn't seem not to. She had bound his wound with her shawl.

“Hell,” he muttered, but he might have meant the opposite.

The theft from the Royal Mint had brought death and danger, but Benedict feared neither. Charlotte Perry, though—she was a hazard of an entirely different sort. Around her, he was in danger of forgetting the royal reward, the quest, the need to care for his sister's future.

He was in danger of shutting away the man he had become over laborious years, and of planning a new start.

“She won't get up! She won't get up!”

Charlotte jerked awake to the sound of her child's cry for the first time in more than ten years. The sharp odor of animal urine wrinkled her nose. Blinking bleary eyes, she lifted her head from the pillow. “Maggie? Are you all—”

“It's Captain! Aunt Charlotte, she did a puddle and now she won't get up.” Maggie's voice teetered between fear and despair.

Feet tangled in the bedcovers, Charlotte took a moment to extricate herself before stumbling to the tableau before the hearth. On her favorite rug, Captain lay soiled and prone. The labored rise and fall of her side, the blink of her puzzled dark eyes at Maggie, proclaimed her mute distress.

“She's never done this before.” Maggie petted the brindled head. “She's such a good dog. She knows to go outside.”

“She did it plenty of times when she was a puppy.” Rise, fall, rise, fall. Each breath the dog took was a reprieve. “Let me fetch a cloth, all right? We'll clean her up.”

“All right.” Maggie's voice was thick with worry.

Charlotte tied a wrapper about her shift and opened the bedchamber door—only to walk into her parents and Benedict, all crowded into the corridor. “Good morning . . . everyone in the world. Were you all awoken by Maggie?”

“Nonsense. It's quarter to seven. Past time for the household to be awake,” commented Mrs. Perry. “Church in little more than two hours, and here we are a bunch of slugabeds.” Indeed, she was dressed. The vicar and Frost were unshaven, but they, too, had pulled on trousers and shirts.

“Right,” said Charlotte. “Well, sorry I'm such a slattern. I need some sort of cloth for cleaning up after Captain. She forgot herself a bit during the night.”

“You can use my shirt,” said Benedict. Charlotte's parents stared at him. Somehow, he must have felt their gazes, for he added, “The ruined one, I mean. I'll get it.” He disappeared into his chamber.

“What ruined shirt?” Mrs. Perry looked suspicious, as though certain Charlotte had been ripping the clothes off their guest.

Charlotte coughed. “Ah—that is Mr. Frost's tale to tell.”

Having experienced the attack firsthand, he'd do a better job than she describing the events of the previous night. Minus, of course, the part about how he'd tongued her to ecstasy. Twice. After she had
not
ripped off his clothing, but had removed it with great care and concern.

The stairs creaked as someone climbed them, and Barrett's white-capped head poked into the corridor next. “Does Mr. Frost's tale have anything to do with the furniture piled against the doors? Cook is in a fidget about getting the breakfast ready.”

Benedict reappeared, handing his worn, torn, blood-spattered shirt to Charlotte. “I'm sure it's a sight, but Captain won't mind that.”

“Why is there furniture piled against the doors?” said Charlotte's father, bewildered. “Is that a . . . sailor sort of thing, Mr. Frost?”

“It is a safety sort of thing,” said Charlotte. “Mr. Frost, perhaps you'll tell them what happened while I tend to Captain.”

As Frost, rubbing at his left biceps, agreed, Charlotte left them in the corridor. She returned to the sniffling Maggie, crouching next to her and the dog. “Would you like to clean Captain, or shall I?”

“I'll do it,” said Maggie. “Once she is clean, will she be all right?”

Unwilling to say no, unwilling to lie, Charlotte considered her reply. Finally she said, “She is not young anymore, dearest. She needs more rest than when she was a pup.”

Maggie turned her face away, silently sopping up the mess with what had once been a man's linen shirt.

“I never did plait your hair with ribbons.” Charlotte said, as she tried to change the subject. “Shall I do that for church?”

“No. I don't want to go to church today.”

Charlotte almost laughed. How often had she said the same to her parents as a girl. She never wanted to sit indoors, listening, when she could be wading through the stream at the base of the Kinder Downfall or fashioning a twist of rare wildflowers for her hair to try to impress that Selwyn boy.

That wiped the smile from her face quickly enough.

“—a cutpurse, I presume,” she heard Benedict explaining from outside the bedchamber door. “Your daughter bandaged my arm, and in the interest of security we barricaded the doors.”

“What has this village come to,” bemoaned the vicar. “Ever since that serving girl was given a gold sovereign, it's been strange faces and theft and . . .”

“Reverend!” His wife cut off this recital.

Maggie let out a strangled sob.

“How quickly a place can become unfamiliar, can't it?” Charlotte said, hardly knowing to whom she was speaking.

“Cook is still fair fit to pull out her hair,” reminded Barrett. “Because of the doors being blocked and all.”

“Right, yes,” said Charlotte's father. “Now, now, please. This is all very—I'm sure it was nothing, and Mr. Frost is quite all right—my sermon. I shall speak of charity, and . . . and not lusting for money. Yes, if I could find my notes . . .”

The clamor outside the door faded away, leaving Charlotte and girl and dog in a quiet that was far too heavy.

“Well.” Charlotte broke it inanely. “Let's get dressed, shall we? And then we can go down to breakfast.”

“I won't breakfast today. Captain cannot come down the stairs. Look how tired she is. I'm staying with her.” Maggie set aside the ruined shirt and petted the dog's front paws, gently over the small bones and clawed toes. Captain's tail gave a slow thump as she squeezed closed her eyes.

What would a parent say?
“You need to eat,” Charlotte said. “Then you can come back to her.”

“But I can't leave her alone!”

“Dearest,” Charlotte began in a tone that might as well have said
Stop all this fuss over a dog
.

She drew in a deep breath, halting words that were sure to be sharp. Trying to argue Maggie out of her distress would only add to it.

Did Maggie have any human friends? Such marvelous creatures had been in short supply for Charlotte and her sister. As the daughters of the vicar, they were too respectable to mingle with the servants and too shabby for the fine families of Strawfield. Not in trade but too poor for gentility, they were left alone.

The same must be true for Maggie, who kept company with an ancient dog and the ancient Greeks. She ought to have a half-dozen brothers and sisters and cousins; she ought to be mingling with the children of merchants and soldiers and sailors and . . . and, well, maybe amateur explorers, too.

Charlotte swallowed. “All right. Let's see if we can carry her down with us.”

A rap at the frame about the door made her look up. “Frost.”

Benedict stood a polite distance outside the doorway of the bedchamber. “I have moved all the furniture away from the doors. Will you now allow me to be of service to my Captain?”

“Mr. Frost, you're not dressed,” Maggie chided.

Without the slashed and bloodied lieutenant's coat, he wore only shirtsleeves and a waistcoat on his upper half. His fit form was outlined and displayed, the snug breeches and tall boots completing the picture of capable masculinity.

Shamelessly, Charlotte caressed him with her eyes.

“I am as dressed as I can be,” he said with a comical pull of his features. “My coat met with a misadventure last night. Did you not hear me telling your grandparents about it? Come, let me carry Captain down for you and I shall tell you the scary parts.”

Maggie hopped to her feet, in instant agreement.

“She is before the hearth. On the braided rug.” Which would now need to be cleaned or discarded, like Benedict's shirt.

Benedict murmured something, too softly to overhear, as he stepped closer to the dog and crouched before her. It was a croon of sorts. She leaned closer, hoping to pick out a few words that would help her to identify the song.

“Hmm hmm hmmmmm . . . Don't listen, Miss Perryyyyy . . . .” he half sung, “because it's a sailor's song, and it's not fit for the ears of human women . . . hmm hmmmm.”

The song had Captain thumping her tail again, and Benedict eased the bony bundle into his arms. “Miss Maggie, would you walk ahead of us and open the front door? I think this good sir could do with a little time in the sun.”

They made a queue that slowly creaked down the stairs, and then Maggie opened the front door without another protest about wanting Captain with her at breakfast. They piled out onto the stoop, half-dressed all, and Benedict laid the dog on the dewy ground. With a rustle and
whuff
, she stretched out her legs and rolled onto her belly.

“There, she feels the sun to be as welcome as I do,” he said.

“You're nice to her.” Maggie folded her arms tightly, the thin linen of her nightdress little shield from the morning breeze. “Did you ever have a pet?”

Benedict frowned in thought. “No, I never did. I lived in London until I went to sea at twelve, and there's no room on shipboard for dogs and cats.”

“What about rats? Or parrots?”

“Er . . . a sailor's relationship with rats isn't really a friendly one. And isn't it pirates who are meant to have parrots?”

“Or privateers,” said Charlotte.

He snorted. “Alas, I was neither. But if I ever settle down, I'll have to get a pet.”

“It ought to be a dog,” said Maggie. “They can sniff out anything you like, and a dog can learn your way around and guide you safely if you don't know where you're going.”

“How would the dog know where I was going?”

This gave her pause.

“Shall we allow Captain to rest and play while we ready ourselves?” Charlotte asked.

Miraculously, Maggie agreed, and she marched back into the house.

Charlotte caught Benedict's sleeve before he could follow. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I didn't know what to do.”

“You were with her. That was all she needed.” He grinned. “Besides, I couldn't have carried the dog if you hadn't bandaged my arm so well.”

After he went inside, Charlotte remained outside for a moment alone. Benedict said he could feel the sun, and she wondered if she could, too. It arose early with the late spring, but it was distant and watery. She shut her eyes, extending her hands palms out to catch any fallen drop of warmth. Listening for a bird, or for some movement of the world around her.

She thought she heard a step, far away. A skitter of something hard across the stone wall, like pebbles.

Captain sneezed, then rolled over with a rustle of grass. Charlotte's eyes popped open.

“So much for my attempt to understand the world.” The hound was standing on spindly legs, head cocked. “I can't even understand you. Was this whole dramatic fuss intended to get Benedict Frost to carry you about?”

The tail beat a slow tattoo through the air.

“Well done, then. I can't fault you for that. Roll around in the dew some more and get yourself clean, all right? I'm afraid you'll have to stay outside for a while.” And with a curious glance around—she saw nothing, of course, nothing important at all—she returned to the house.

The capable maid Barrett saw to the tidying of the bedchamber and helped Charlotte lace her stays, diplomatically not asking how they'd got unlaced the day before. Eventually everyone was clean and tidy and ready for breakfast: Papa, Mama, Charlotte. Maggie. Benedict Frost. They collected about the table in the dining room, a simple meal of porridge and tea before them.

It felt oddly like a family gathering such as . . . well, such as they had never had. Margaret had married when Charlotte was seventeen, and she went away. Never had a suitor dined with the family.

Not that Benedict was a suitor. He knew what she was, and what she'd been. They understood each other. That was . . . a comfort.

She did not even mind that he was more at ease with her family than she was.

“I realize,” he said, spooning up a bit of porridge, “that you must be nearly ready to set off in the direction of the church. I don't mean to be shallow or worldly, but I find myself without a coat to wear.”

The reverend dropped his spoon with a clatter. “I should not have permitted you to walk home alone!”

“Indeed you should have, Vicar. It was my decision to remain late in the taproom of the Pig and Blanket. Therefore any risk was mine to accept, too.”

“Passive voice,” commented Mrs. Perry. “Very difficult to translate.”

But Charlotte's heart gave a quick thump of recognition. “Your words are so sensible, Mr. Frost. Someone wise must have said something like that to you not long ago.”

“There is something wise indeed about pleading one's right to do unwise things.” He winked at her, oddly charming over his unfocused gaze.

“My father's things are up in the attic,” said Maggie. “Maybe you could wear one of his coats, Mr. Frost.”

Charlotte was glad, suddenly, that Benedict was not capable of shooting her a sharp glance. “What an excellent idea, Maggie. I'll ask one of the maids to retrieve something later for Mr. Frost.”

The man Maggie called her father was, of course, nothing of the sort. He had been Margaret Perry Catlett's husband; Charlotte had met him only once, at her elder sister's wedding. A respectable tradesman of no family, he had predeceased his wife by several months.

“You can't come to church like that, Mr. Frost,” decided Mrs. Perry. “You'll have to stay back just this once.”