Authors: Kate Moore
To Tempt a Saint (2 page)
Fog as murky as the Thames itself swallowed the huge cart ahead of them. Its rumble faded, and Xander and Kit walked on, only a few stragglers in their wake. “Most fellows don’t look at it that way, do they, Xander?”
“Most fellows don’t have a pair of first-rate brothers.” A man couldn’t choose his connections, but Xander preferred his Jones brothers to his father’s lofty family. He had long ago cut short the one name his father had been willing to give him. Alexander had become Xander at school.
Kit tugged his sleeve. “You know what makes a first-r ate brother?”
“Enlighten me.”
“One that’ll take a fellow to mills and teach him to use his fives.”
“That bad at school, is it, infant?” Xander hadn’t seen any marks on Kit, but he, too, had been good at concealing the evidence of his schoolmates’ assaults.
Kit kicked a loose cobble. “Not so bad. But a miller gets respect, you know.”
“Then we’ll make you a miller.”
Kit gave a leap and shot a fist into the air with a triumphant cry. The sound echoed in the fog. “You taught Will, didn’t you, Xander?”
“Everything he knows.”
About boxing.
About boxing.
They left the thinning crowd behind, turning up a narrow street of cook shops, cheap stationers, and secondhand clothes dealers. Watchful proprietors pulled in goods hanging from doorways and canvas awnings and put up shop shutters, cutting off what light illumined the way. No oil lamps had been lit, and darkness closed off all the adjoining lanes and courts. This was the edge of the London their mother feared—crumbling, stinking, disease ridden, and vermin infested—where gin was the purest substance a body could find and survival meant preying on others.
Elsewhere in London, Xander’s London, the London of the future, the Gas Light and Coke Company was lighting up the night with miles of gas lines and new streetlights. Xander had joined the admiring crowds at each new illumination, caught by the Promethean promise of banishing darkness. He counted himself among the new breed of men who envisioned a city with wide thoroughfares to replace narrow, stinking lanes, and efficient channels of commerce flowing with clean air and water. He had staked his small fortune on that vision of a new London.
Here was a reminder of the work to be done. Decaying buildings sagged against one another, and the dark felt coal-bin close and heavy. They were far from the boxing crowd now, but for a moment Xander thought footsteps trailed them. He steered Kit northward. Rumbling wheels on stones and a confused murmur of sound, distorted in the fog, told them they were nearing one of London’s main east-west thoroughfares.
They turned a corner and stepped into chaos. A mob of men with blackened faces and ragged sailors’ uniforms rained stones and offal on a pale yellow carriage at the center of a milling detachment of Life Guards, their scarlet coats lurid in the light of flaring torches. Giant shadows of the combatants writhed on walls and shuttered shop windows.
Xander needed only one glance to know the carriage with the royal crest on the door panel.
Popularity was never the prince regent’s strong suit.
Popularity was never the prince regent’s strong suit.
A pole wedged in the spokes of the coach’s rear wheel had disabled the vehicle. Its windows were cracked. The liveried driver held his hands up to ward off stones while the horses reared and backed, tangling their traces.
Xander yanked Kit back against the shop fronts. This was not their fight.
The guards, outnumbered three to one by Xander’s count, drove their mounts into the mob, swords drawn, flailing at the circling men while the officer in charge fumbled with his shining helmet. A bloody gash on his cheek showed where the strap had been cut.
Bloody hell! Men were going to be skewered or trampled because the damned idiot couldn’t get his hat on.
Bloody hell! Men were going to be skewered or trampled because the damned idiot couldn’t get his hat on.
Three men reached the prince’s coach. It rocked viciously on its springs as they scrambled aboard. A hatless scarecrow with a beak of a nose drew a pistol from the band of his trousers and waved it in the air, swaying with the violent motion of the coach. Xander decided he had had enough of being a bystander. Riot was a fine London tradition, but regicide was too French for Xander’s taste.
He pressed Kit deep into a shadowed doorway. “Don’t move,” he ordered. He shoved his hat on Kit’s head and flung himself into the mad surge.
The gun had his undivided attention.
Churning knots of men and soldiers blocked his path. He plunged forward, dodging elbows and feet, knocking skulls together, and pulling men off the struggling guardsmen. He reached the carriage just as Scarecrow cocked the gun and tapped the dark barrel against the cracked window. Xander heaved a last man out of his way and leapt, knocking Scarecrow’s pistol arm skyward.
The gun went off next to Xander’s ear, and the crowd roared. Scarecrow howled and struck Xander’s temple a glancing blow with the discharged weapon. Xander seized the man’s pistol arm, twisting it back and up. His ear rang painfully, and the sharp scent of powder burned his throat. Hands pulled at him from behind. He held his writhing victim until the gun fell from the man’s grip.
With a splintering crunch the carriage jolted forward, and Xander grabbed for the top rail. Released, Scarecrow dropped to the street. As if a signal had been given, torches hit the pavement. Men scattered down a half dozen dark streets. The guards at last formed a circle around the prince’s vehicle. Xander leapt down, turning for Kit, slapping the rump of a riderless horse to clear his path.
He could see the doorway.
Empty.
He glanced at doorways to the left and right. Nothing. His gaze swung back to the first doorway. His upended hat lay on the pavement.
Where was Kit? Hell, he had not joined in, had he?
Xander spun, looking for a downed body. Two soldiers had been unhorsed. Not one rioter had fallen. He shouted and couldn’t hear his own voice.
Empty.
He glanced at doorways to the left and right. Nothing. His gaze swung back to the first doorway. His upended hat lay on the pavement.
Where was Kit? Hell, he had not joined in, had he?
Xander spun, looking for a downed body. Two soldiers had been unhorsed. Not one rioter had fallen. He shouted and couldn’t hear his own voice.
From somewhere in the dark came a wavering cry that made his gut twist. He spun toward the sound.
In front of him were fog and shadows and the hiss of expiring torches. His ragged breath roared in his head. Only his left ear seemed to be working properly, filled with shouts and pounding footsteps and jingling harness. Xander wanted to demand light and silence. He edged toward the lane where he thought he’d heard the frightened cry.
“Halt,” a voice shouted. He ignored it, moving toward the vanished cry. Behind him a pistol fired. A bullet grazed his right ear in a fiery streak of pain that made him turn. The helmetless officer covered him, a weapon in each hand.
Warm blood caught on Xander’s collar. He forced himself to speak slowly and clearly. “They’ve taken my brother.”
The idiot officer scowled.
Xander swore. The man’s incomprehension was costing him time. He backed away, hands raised.
He’d made a grave mistake, a wrong turn down the wrong street. This moment should not be happening. He and Kit should be having beef pies and porter.
He’d made a grave mistake, a wrong turn down the wrong street. This moment should not be happening. He and Kit should be having beef pies and porter.
Maddening voices filled his good ear. His senses strained toward the dark while a knot of soldiers surrounded the royal carriage. One opened the crested door. Men came to stiff attention. From inside Xander heard the regent’s voice, “Where’s the fellow who saved my life?”
A soldier broke from the ranks around the coach, hastening toward them, and Xander’s hatless officer glanced away. Xander whirled and sprang toward the dark.
“Kit,” he shouted. He hit his stride when something caught him hard in the back of the head. His knees crumpled, and darkness took him.
Chapter One
LONDON, THREE YEARS LATERA
T four and twenty, Cleo Spencer could measure how far she had fallen in the world by entering Evershot’s Bank on Cornhill Street. No heads turned in the bank’s columned interior, vast as a ballroom. Instead Tobias Meese, Evershot’s clerk, darted out of the hole he inhabited, intent on blocking her way.
T four and twenty, Cleo Spencer could measure how far she had fallen in the world by entering Evershot’s Bank on Cornhill Street. No heads turned in the bank’s columned interior, vast as a ballroom. Instead Tobias Meese, Evershot’s clerk, darted out of the hole he inhabited, intent on blocking her way.
She headed straight for the president’s office, surprised she had not worn a groove in the marble from the regularity of her visits. Once a quarter for nearly four years she had come begging for her own money, and the practice was wearing as thin as her cloak.
At sixteen she had had thick cloaks to burn. With green eyes and chestnut curls, she had entered her first ballroom and turned the heads of all the available gentlemen. Her partner for the second set, a dashing, red-coated lieutenant, had whispered, “You have dancing eyes,” and the compliment had, she supposed, set her on a reckless, giddy path to this moment.
Now she slipped past a group of bewhiskered gentlemen engaged in conversation, putting them between her and Meese and gaining a couple of yards on her adversary. Gold gleamed on the heads of their walking sticks and watch fobs and winked from the rings on their pinky fingers. They were men who could smell money in the air, hear its song in the wind, and see its glint on the horizon, and they shifted to let Cleo pass without so much as a glance.
Meese stopped her at the president’s door by the simple expedient of stepping on her hem. Flounce parted from skirts with a distinct rip.
“Miss Spencer, Mr. E is in a meeting.”
Cleo summoned her haughtiest look. “Impossible, Meese, he has an appointment with me at this hour.”
Meese pinned her in place with his foot, an oily gleam in his eye, three wiry hairs bristling under his lip. “For a consideration, Miss Spencer, I can show you to an antechamber, where you can wait private-like.” He rather emphasized the word
wait
.
wait
.
Cleo lifted her chin. She would step out of her skirts before she gave Meese a penny. Her fragile hem parted another inch, and she considered braining Meese with her reticule, heavy with a half dozen precious potatoes from her neighbor Farmer Davies. Reason prevailed. It would be a shame to sacrifice the potatoes.
Smiling, she held up her bag. “Let me see, Meese. I may have something for you.”
Meese extended an ink-stained hand and stepped back to allow her to reach into the bag.
The instant he removed his foot from her hem, Cleo grabbed the knob and swung the door open on an empty office.
“Miss—” Meese gaped at the unoccupied room, and Cleo flashed him a quick grin as she stepped inside. Evidently, Evershot was elsewhere.
His Axminster carpet was thick underfoot, and a fine fire blazed in his grate with an absolute indifference to the price of coal. Paintings, marble busts, leather-bound books, and rich damask drapery all spoke of expensive tastes indulged. A huge black desk with a vast gleaming surface, on which the little, wheeled inkpot could go skating if it had a mind, dominated the far end of the room. In the near corner a lacquered oriental screen depicted an eastern emperor and his fawning court, concealing those necessities gentlemen could avail themselves of in a way not permitted to ladies.
Directly in Cleo’s path a small tea table had been set with a steaming silver pot, a pile of biscuits, and pale white cups and saucers for two. “My compliments, Meese. You’ve outdone yourself.”
The tea set provoked a worried crease on Meese’s narrow brow. “You can’t wait here, missy.” Meese wrung his hands. “Mr. E won’t like this, won’t like it at all. No unaccompanied women in Mr. E’s bank.”
Cleo stripped off her gloves. “Evershot’s Bank has had the keeping of a substantial sum of my money for nearly four years. I think I am well within my rights to expect Mr. Evershot to keep an appointment with me.” She was early, but she would not let Meese tuck her out of sight in some closet.
Meese shook a finger at her. “You’re a bold baggage, miss, but you’ll not get a farthing more out of Mr. E.” With a parting glare, he scuttled out.
Cleo removed her bonnet. Meese was probably right, but on the whole, she thought the tea was a good sign. Evershot had never provided tea before. He was her best hope. Stingy he might be, and set in his opinion that women and lunatics could not manage money, but of her two trustees he was the honest one. A delicate thread of steam carried the scent of rich black tea her way. The biscuits added a faint buttery note, and her stomach rumbled appreciatively.
She settled herself to wait, draping her cloak over her knees to conceal the torn flounce. Sadly, the arrangement put the tea out of reach, and she felt ridiculous, as if she were poking her head out of a shabby tent. The fine silk frogging on her cloak, all the rage four years earlier, was its last pretension to fashion. She lifted the edge to inspect the torn flounce.
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