Unraveled (38 page)

She nodded. “The Patron took Lord Justice.”

Jeremy scrunched his hair with one hand and screwed up his face. “Damn it.”

“It’s worse than damning. His brother, the Duke of Parford, is threatening to turn Bristol upside down in the search.”

“Of course he is,” Jeremy muttered. “It wanted only that—she’s holding the entire
city
hostage now. I’ll get the message shortly.” He blew out his breath. “Miranda, I wish you weren’t here. But it is so good to have even one person to turn to. I can’t do this.” He began to pace the floor. “But I have to. But I
can’t
. I couldn’t do it even for George.”

“We can stop it,” Miranda said. “While all his men are busy with Lord Justice. Jeremy, I know he’s your grandfather, but the two of us could tie Old Blazer up, take him in right now. We could avert the entire crisis.”

Jeremy stopped mid-pace and cocked his head. “Old Blazer?” he asked. “What does
Old Blazer
have to do with any of this?”

There were no words to describe the feeling of sick, sinking vertigo that assailed Miranda. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

“You think
Old Blazer
is the Patron?” Jeremy asked.

All of Miranda’s certainty came to a tumbling halt. There had been that letter, written in the same hand as those prices. Jeremy had told her the Patron was Old Blazer. Hadn’t he?

Miranda shut her eyes, and an image drifted to her mind: Mrs. Blasseur, seated on a stool, cutting foolscap into strips.

Her heart stopped. “Oh, no,” she moaned. “I thought—”

“No,” Jeremy snapped. “You didn’t. You didn’t think at all. Old Blazer has no sense of discretion. Have you ever known him to keep his mouth shut?”

“Well, no, but—”

“He’s forever talking to people. And he won’t even do his part in the shop if he feels the slightest ache in his little toe. Do you really think he’d be the sort to work long hours on a thankless endeavor?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“More to the point,” Jeremy said softly, “Old Blazer isn’t in dire need of a replacement. My mother—” His voice cracked.

“Your mother can’t be the Patron.” Miranda shook her head. “Why would she want me to replace her? It doesn’t make any…”

She trailed off once more at the dire look in Jeremy’s eyes.

“Oh,” she said stupidly.

“Miranda,” Jeremy said gently, “you haven’t any sense of discretion either. You haven’t any training. You haven’t any claim to the enterprise.” Jeremy reached into his pocket and fished a hank of hair, gleaming dully copper in the moonlight that filtered through the windows.

Miranda shivered, remembering the knife that had removed that.

“That lock of hair,” Jeremy said, “was delivered to me as a warning. My mother thinks I’m in love with you, after all. And she thinks that George is my friend—she had him arrested, too, and when he was about to be released, had him secreted away as a hostage. This isn’t about you.” He gave her a sad smile. “It’s about my refusal to take up the family business.”

A knock sounded at the front door—two blows, a pause, and then three short raps.

“There,” Jeremy said. “That will be my invitation. All I have to do is go with whomever she’s sent, and I can avert this whole crises. There’s an initiation ceremony.” His lip curled in distaste. “If I’m supposed to take up the Patron’s mantle, I have to administer the Patron’s justice. It…it proved to be a sticking point before.”

His tone had grown harder as he spoke.

“What kind of…” Miranda stopped, not willing to go forward. She knew what the Patron’s justice was like. The man who’d threatened her all those years ago had been driven out of town—and that, just for a threat. Men had died for the Patron’s justice—died and disappeared. If Jeremy was supposed to become the Patron…

His skin was the color of cold wax. “I can do it,” Jeremy was saying, more to himself than to her. “If I agree to take her place, I can find out where he’s held. Have him released. The stakes this time…there could be riots. I can kill one man to save the city.”

Miranda wasn’t sure she believed him. Moreover, she wasn’t sure what it would do to him, to commit murder.

“If I knew where my mother kept prisoners,” he was muttering, “perhaps I could… But no. No. There is no other way.”

Miranda caught his arm.

“Actually,” she said. “I have an idea. I know how to find them, without going through the initiation first.”

Jeremy glanced at the front door.

“Quickly,” Miranda said. “If we go out the back way, you won’t have to talk to him at all.”

I
T WAS COLD AND
lightless when Smite awoke. He was slumped against some hard surface. He twitched; even that slight movement sent a scatter of pain through his head. No sun played against the lids of his eyes; no lantern-light danced nearby.

It made no difference when he cautiously opened his eyes. It was still black. The floor under him was hard and cold, and a series of curiously regular bumps jutted into his skin. Even breathing hurt.

It took him a moment to orient himself. Last he’d known, he’d been standing behind Temple Church, pretending to smoke a pipe and watching the church. He’d had his back to the wall.

Someone had hit him from the side. He had a vague, troubled recollection of movement, but no memory of how he came to be
here.
Wherever here was.

There was no movement to the air; it hung about him, close and still. The setting almost felt like one of his nightmares, yet it seemed curiously tactile for a dream. He could make out the odor of metal and grease, and he could never smell in dreams. And in his dreams, he always heard the babble of the passing millrace, growing to a crescendo.

Here, silence engulfed him. Only a faint sound—an almost liquid burble—hovered at the edge of his hearing. It made him uneasy.

He put his hand out. Cold metal met his fingertips, and he found a hard edge in the floor next to him. A moment’s exploration brought the surface to life.

It wasn’t a ridge, and he wasn’t asleep. It was a seam, and those bumps marching alongside the hard metal edge were rivets. He was enclosed in a box made of iron.

Don’t think of it, Turner. If you don’t think of it, it needn’t affect you.

“Turner?” It was a familiar voice. “Is that you?”

“Dalrymple.” Smite felt an unreasonable sense of relief at finding himself not alone. The man’s voice brought back everything—the plan, the church, the Patron… “Tell me Miranda’s not here,” he said.

“If she is, I’ve not encountered her.”

“Ash?”

“Not him, either.”

No point in thinking of them now. He hoped they were safe.

Instead, he ran his hand along the metal beneath him. “Where are we?”

“I’m not certain. I only saw a bit near the end, when the scarf binding my eyes slipped. They took us aboard a ship. I only got a glimpse before they slammed the door shut.”

“Ah,” Smite muttered. A simple word, to hide the unbidden nausea that rose in his gorge. There was only one deserted ship in the Floating Harbour. He was aboard the
Great Britain
. Buried deep in her bowels. That noise he heard—that was the flow of liquid around the hull. His hand trembled against the cold floor.

He pressed it flat.

Stop fussing over yourself.

“Are you well?” Dalrymple asked. “You couldn’t even bring yourself to swim at Eton, not without becoming ill. And now we’re surrounded by water. It’s all around us. I think—are you shaking?”

“Shut up, Winnie.” Smite drew a deep breath. The pain in his side was receding, but it still hurt. “If you don’t mention it, I don’t have to think of it.” If he didn’t think of it, he might be able to keep his old memories from devouring him alive.

“Oh. Sorry.” A pause. “It’s been ages since anyone called me ‘Winnie.’”

“A deplorable lapse on my part,” Smite said.

Dalrymple had been the Marquess of Winchester, back when they’d been boys—back when almost everyone had believed him to be the heir to a dukedom. The title had been shortened to just Winnie amongst his intimates.

“You’re right,” Dalrymple said presently. “I am a coward. They simply pointed a pistol at me and told me not to make a fuss. That was all that was needed. I didn’t fight. I didn’t scream.” He made a disgusted sound. “Even girls can scream. Ash would have punched them.”

“At least they didn’t shoot you,” Smite said. “I count that a positive. As I told you before, I’d rather you didn’t die.”

“Ha.”

Despite himself, Smite smiled. “How long have we been here?”

“An hour? Maybe two.”

“If we’ve been here an hour, you’ve used up the sentimentality quota.” Smite rubbed his forehead. “So stop telling me what you should have done, and start thinking about what we will do instead.”

That comment brought only silence. And with the silence came that sound again, the noise at the edge of hearing that made him think of water rushing in.

He was outright grateful when Dalrymple spoke again. “It’s like Eton all over,” the man muttered. “I whine to you; you tell me to keep quiet and do something instead. Every day I was convinced you’d discover what a little sniveler I was. Every day for two bloody years.”

“Still too much sentiment,” Smite said. But at least Dalrymple’s voice drowned out the sound of water.

“When you finally did discover it, I hated you for it.”

“My head is splitting.” Smite moved, and winced again. “We’re in captivity. I believe I can weather your hatred for a few hours longer.”

Dalrymple gave a shaking laugh in response. “I know what these early friendships mean. There was no reason our friendship should have survived adolescence.” A heavy sigh followed. “But unlike you, I didn’t have a brother who worshipped me. I didn’t have a family that stood behind me no matter what. For me, there was only you. And you were cold and brilliant and fascinating. You could always set the other boys aback with an insult so exact that it cut precisely to the bone and no further.”

There was no way to answer that.

“In return, I was just…me. I could never figure out why you chose me as your friend, other than the fact that we shared a birthday. You were brilliant and perfect, and I was
me.”

“I wasn’t perfect,” Smite said slowly. “I was…harsh.” He blew his breath out. “I still am.”

He heard Dalrymple struggle to his feet, and take a few steps away. “You were indifferent. To you, it was just the kind of friendship that boys have at Eton. It was a passing thing. For me, it was everything.”

Smite looked up into the darkness. His head throbbed. His side twinged. If he thought of where he was for too long—enclosed in darkness, with that quiet sloshing of water all around him—he might lose his mind.

“I need something to do,” he commented. “Soon would be good. Now would be better.”

“It makes it worse, you know,” Dalrymple was saying. “Carrying a grudge when the other man doesn’t even give a damn. When he scarcely even knows you exist.”

“I knew you existed,” Smite said simply. He set his hand gingerly to his head and probed the sore area.

“You scarcely noticed when I stopped talking to you.”

“Mmm. When I fall to pieces, I tend to do so by myself. After you walked away, nobody needed me for anything. It was a bad few years.”

“Really?” Dalrymple snorted. “
How
bad?”

Smite paused. “There was laudanum,” he finally answered. He didn’t like to think of those years much. “The details aren’t relevant. It took me years to find my feet properly.”

There was a longer pause. “Does it make me a bad person that I rejoice in your suffering?” Dalrymple asked.

Smite laughed. It hurt, but he laughed. “No,” he finally managed, “but it leaves us both still in captivity. I need something to do.”

“About that,” Dalrymple said, a touch too casually. “If we do what they say, they won’t kill us. Right?”

The Patron had already committed hanging offenses. At this point, Smite would call in the dragoons rather than allow the man to walk free. The man might sometimes take action that was close kin to justice, but he was too cavalier with assault and imprisonment for Smite to overlook his crimes.

“They haven’t killed us yet,” he said carefully. “Maybe the Patron hasn’t the stomach for outright murder.”

“Oh,” Dalrymple said. “Good.” There was a bit of silence. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Yes,” Smite admitted. “I suspect the only reason we’re alive is that the Patron may be wanted elsewhere. The instant we have his personal attention, he’ll have us murdered, and the bodies hidden. He hasn’t any choice.”

A grim silence fell after that.

No. It was never silent down here. The faint lapping of water came to him once more. “Say something,” Smite said. His voice sounded harsh. “Say anything.”

“I was thinking that it’s a shame that neither of us knows how to pick locks.”

Smite looked up into the darkness. “You need a thin, flexible piece of metal. A hairpin will suffice. This, you slip into the keyhole. You use it to turn the pins to one side, whatever that means.”

There was a long silence. “How did you know that?” Dalrymple asked. “Oh—never mind. I had forgotten how disconcerting your memory could be.”