Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (15 page)

      
"Ah, that is easing. Thank you, Joss," he said at length, taking one of her hands in his and giving it an affectionate pat as he turned on the chair and smiled up at her. Her nails were cut sensibly short and her skin was chapped and red. Scarce the hands of a lady, yet her ancestry was betrayed in their grace and delicacy.

      
"You work too hard, Joss," he chided.

      
She gave her best grin and replied teasingly, "And so shall you—starting this very afternoon." Then a thought struck her and the smile vanished. "You—you wouldn't have to return to America because of business, would you? I mean, anytime soon?" She'd always known sooner or later he must go home.

      
"Not for now. I need to learn the shipping business, but I can do that quite well from this end."

      
Poc rose from his slumber on the floor and trotted over to the sitting room door, then gave a low growl of warning.

      
"Who on earth could it be? He only growls at strangers," Joss said, moving toward the door.

      
Alex's hand stayed her. "Wait. Let me see who it is." He stood up and walked across the wooden floor noiselessly as the slow, clomping footfalls rose higher up the stairs. From below he could hear Aunt Regina calling out, "I never give ye permission to go abovestairs, Lem Smiley!"

      
Lem, a portly, balding man with the florid face of one who imbibes frequently, ignored her, huffing noisily until he reached the top of the stairs. Then he peered up and down the hall with myopic eyes shaded by drooping lids. "I be lookin' fer Mistress Woodbridge, the reverend's daughter," he called out.

      
"You know the fellow?"

      
"He's one of the men my father's aided at his mission." She elbowed her way past Alex as the old man turned toward the sound of her voice.

      
"Oh, Mistress Woodbridge, I..." A great sob wracked his body as he stopped in the hallway with a hat crumpled in two meaty red fists.

      
An icy premonition washed over her as she strode to Lem and took his arm, guiding him into the apartment. "What is it, Mr. Smiley?" she asked gently.

      
Assured that the stranger posed no threat, Poc stood quietly at Alex's side while Joss seated the old man at the table. Alex had inquired about the reverend upon arriving and Joss had informed him that her father was not at home. He often spent the night at the mission when there was a need. Now, seeing the look of desolation on Lem Smiley's face, Alex knew his news was dire. He moved to Joss's side as the old fellow gulped out his story.

      
"When 'e didn't come back to th' mission to preach last night like 'e said 'e would, we all searched. But it were too dark 'n th' charleys made us get off the streets. Ronnie Blevins found 'im, this mornin' mistress, down by th' docks."

      
"Is he injured? I must go to him," Joss said, turning frantically to fetch her cloak, but Alex's hands held her fast.

      
Looking at the woeful expression on Smiley's face, he asked gently, "The reverend is dead, isn't he, Lem?"

      
"Aye, sor, 'e is," the old man replied.

      
Joss saw black and red dots flash behind her eyes. She willed herself not to faint but was grateful for Alex's firm grip as he helped her onto a chair and knelt beside her. Her nails dug into his hand as she held it fiercely while gathering her scattered thoughts. "How did he die?"

      
Her calmness was belied by the death grip she held on his hand. Alex could feel the agony in her question as he tried to imagine his own feelings if Devon Blackthorne were the one found dead on the London docks. Remembering the two thugs who had tried to assassinate the preacher that day they met, he knew Elijah Woodbridge had not died of natural causes.

      
Lem verified his hunch. " 'E were coshed on th' 'ead, mistress, real 'ard. 'Is pockets picked clean, even thet fine old timepiece 'e loved so well."

      
"A gift from his grandmother, the only token he ever kept from his old life," Joss said quietly by way of explanation to Alex. "Papa loved her well. She was the only one who did not disown him."

      
"You shall have it back, Joss. I know 'tis not much in return for your loss, but all I can offer... that and my deepest sympathy. I'll find the men who did this and they shall pay."

      
Joss felt her eyes sting with tears but she blinked them back. There would be time enough for tears later, an ocean of them. "No, Alex, Papa would not have wanted you to seek revenge for his death."

      
"Not revenge, Joss, justice. Simple justice."

      
"You must not stain your hands with blood," she replied firmly.

      
"Do not distress yourself any further now. I want you to

lie down. I'll go with Lem and fetch your father's body for burial."

      
She shook her head. "No, no. I can't just sit here and do nothing. I'd go mad. I shall go with you. He would want to be taken to the mission. So many of the people he helped will come there."

      
"That they will, mistress, that they will," Lem echoed.

      
"Then it is settled," Joss replied firmly. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and smiled weakly at Alex. "I am so grateful for your help. Oh! But what about Mr. Therlow? Your appointment?"

      
"Bertie Therlow can wait for a few days more. You need me now, Joss."

* * * *

      
You need me now, Joss.
Joss sat staring into the dying fire in their rooms—her rooms, she corrected herself. Papa was gone. They had buried him that morning. She had indeed needed Alex to get through the ordeal. Hundreds of people from all across London's teeming slums had come to the mission to pay their last respects to the Reverend Elijah Woodbridge. She had received condolences until her hands ached from being clutched by so many anguished souls.

      
Throughout it all, Alex had stood by her side, a bulwark of strength and calm. Finally late that evening he had left when he received her promise that she would get some much-needed rest after the long and grueling ordeal of the wake and funeral. But sleep would not come. She huddled beneath the covers, shivering not from cold but from utter desolation. She was alone.

      
Now that her father was gone she had no one but Alex, and she could not further impose upon his friendship. He had a busy life and new responsibilities that called him. Of course, so did she—the hospital, the shelter, the school. But without the reverend's presence behind her work, she had already learned that much of her support was evaporating.

      
Yesterday the Society for Moral Rectitude had dolefully informed her that a lone female could not possibly be placed in charge of the shelter. The same message had come from the mission board this very morning regarding the school. They both explained their decision in terms of utmost Christian charity, being ever so considerate of her frailty and grief. She must have time for a proper mourning. She must fall upon the bosom of her family for refuge and solace.

      
Her family. The noble Earl of Suthington and his brood of vipers who shared the Woodbridge name with her. Would that she had never heard of them! The earl did not deign to set his ermine-clad foot inside her father's humble mission. Instead he had sent his younger son Ernest to express the family's sympathies. Never was a man so misnamed. The mealymouthed, hypocritical fop had done little to conceal his distaste for the reverend's mission and the people he had served.

      
Ernest had explained in the most patronizing terms that his father, out of familial duty, would take her in. As if she were a child or an imbecile! Drawing on every ounce of patience she could muster, Joss had declined his offer. But that was before she learned that the various boards and societies who were willing to fund her father's work would not do the same for a lone female. The final blow had come only an hour ago when Aunt Regina, tearful and embarrassed, had informed her that she had a new tenant for the rooms.

      
Elijah Woodbridge had usually been behind in his rent, often giving away his meager stipend to feed or clothe someone less fortunate. The old landlady had been fairly patient while he lived. But now, hearing of his death, the tinner down the way made an inquiry regarding letting the apartment. He would pay half again as much as the reverend had.

      
Joss would have to go begging to the earl unless she found new quarters and some means of earning a livelihood. Her educational credentials were as impeccable as her moral character. She could become a governess, but the thought of tutoring the spoiled and horrid offspring of the nobility appalled her while so many bright and eager young minds among the poor starved for knowledge.

      
She could ask Alex for help and knew he would freely give it, but pride forbade her. She could not live off him like one of his Cyprians. At least he received services from them—services he would not want from a plain, gawky tabby like her.

      
You need me, Joss
. How true it was and how utterly impossible, for the way in which she needed him had nothing to do with food and shelter or even friendship. She needed his love, the one thing her wonderful, wicked angel could never give her.

      
The flames in the fireplace had long since died to dimly glowing embers. Joss stared into them, trying to divine the future. Useless. Tomorrow she would figure out some way to continue her father's noble work. Perhaps a renewed appeal to the Society of Moral Rectitude would change their position. Failing that, she would simply have to swallow her pride and move to the Suthington city house. At least under the earl's protection, she might be able to persuade the board to renew support for the school. With that thought she drifted into a restless slumber punctuated by dreams of Alex.

* * * *

      
Alex walked carefully, every sense alert as he made his way to the small shanty at the far end of the alley. Hidden in shadows, the dilapidated wooden shelter looked like little more than a lean-to or one of the insubstantial brush arbors the Muskogee built as temporary sleeping quarters for warm summer evenings.

      
"I say, old chap, do you think this John Slocum fellow will be lying about, unawares, ripe for the plucking?" Drum asked Alex as they neared their destination.

      
"According to that charley Harry Wrexham, he's been holed up in there since the day after Reverend Woodbridge's murder."

      
The little dandy muttered a low oath as one faultlessly shined black Hessian sank into an oily black puddle of water. "Drinking up his pay, what?"

      
Alex nodded grimly. Acting on information he had wrung from Wrexham, he had already found Jem Barker, the rabble-rousing sailor from whom he had first rescued the Woodbridges last year. Having abandoned the seafaring life, Jem owned a half share in a brothel near the docks. He picked up additional pocket change kidnapping small boys for the sweep masters of the city. The reverend and his daughter had been bad for business.

      
Jem employed John Slocum, the red coated assassin who had made last year's unsuccessful attempt on the clergyman's life. Or Jem
had
employed Slocum. Since Alex had dealt him justice that morning, Jem would not be employing anyone. Before he died, Barker had given Alex and Drum the name of the man who'd actually done the foul deed.

      
Motioning for Drum to guard his back, Alex shoved open the door to the dark, smoky interior. The fetid sweetness of opium mingled with the raw, bitter tang of cheap gin and the musky odor of sex. "Celebrating, Mr. Slocum?" Alex inquired in a low, deadly voice as his eyes swept the filthy shanty's meager chairs and table and the bed upon which the killer sprawled with a fat slattern draped over his body.

      
Still wearing the same filthy red velvet coat he had sported the first time Alex had encountered him, Slocum stared at the intruder with glazed eyes. His slack mouth closed in an ugly sneer as he rolled up from the filthy rags covering the mattress. " 'Oo th' 'ell do ye think ye are, breakin' in on a man's pleasure?" he croaked in a smoke-roughened voice.

      
"I'd advise you to gather your clothes and get out of here before the trouble begins," Alex said conversationally to the whore, whose pockmarked face paled at the toff's cold eyes. Her body was covered with open sores from syphilis. Consorting with her would kill Red Coat in time, but Alex did not plan to grant John Slocum that time. She scooted hastily past him and out the door as the assassin shook his head to clear it of drink and drugs.

      
"Whot do ye think ye'r doin'?" Slocum asked with an oath as Alex began pulling open the drawers of a rickety chest and dumping the contents onto the splintery floorboards. Slocum slipped a knife from beneath a pile of rags by the side of his bed and lurched to his feet just as Alex finished perusing the contents of the bottom drawer. Before the tough could strike his back, Alex turned with lightning speed. His hand smashed Slocum's wrist against the wall with a sharp crack and the knife clattered to the floor.

      
Alex's own blade materialized in his other hand and now pressed uncomfortably against his foe's throat. "I want the timepiece."

      
"Whot timepiece?" Slocum croaked, stretching up on tiptoe against the wall to avoid the pressure from the gleaming steel.

      
"The gold one you took off the Reverend Woodbridge's body. 'Tis a family heirloom and his daughter wants it back. With your penchant for finery," Alex said with a disdainful glare at the louse-infested velvet jacket, "I assume you kept the timepiece to complement your sartorial splendor. Pray God you did not sell it... did you?" A single drop of bright red blood oozed beneath the blade and dribbled onto Slocum's greasy throat.