Loretta Chase – Scandal Wears Satin (страница 13)

He was primed for tackling her and he couldn’t, and the horses sensed the agitation.

It was so ridiculous he laughed.

“What is it?” she said.

He glanced at her. “You,” he said. “And me, up at this hour to drive to a dressmaker’s shop.”

“I know you rise before noon on occasion,” she said.

“Not to shop,” he said.

“No. For a race. A boxing match. A wrestling match. A horse auction. I’m not sure I can offer equal excitement.”

“I expect it’ll be exciting enough when they find you out,” he said. “Which they’re bound to do. You’ll need to get undressed to get measured. What if the mole falls off while you’re taking off your clothes? What if your spectacles get tangled in your wig?”

“I’ve put on several extra layers of clothing,” she said. “I don’t plan to allow them to get beyond the first one or two. And it isn’t a wig, by the way. I put an egg mixture in my hair. People say it leaves a shine after you wash it out, but it does the opposite.”

It would be quite a job, washing her hair. It was thick and curly, and unless she added false pieces to it, as some women did, it must be long. To her waist? He saw long, golden hair streaming down a bare, silken back.

There was something to look forward to.

“You promised me bullies,” he said. “I was looking forward to the fight. It’s the only thing that got me out of bed. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since anybody did me the courtesy of hitting back?”

“If I were a gentleman, and I saw you coming at me with fists up, I’d run in the other direction,” she said.

“Bullies aren’t gentlemen,” he said. “They won’t run.”

“If you get desperately bored, you can always pick a fight,” she said.

“If they exist,” he said. “I’ve never heard of hired ruffians in a dressmaking shop.”

“You’ve never noticed because you never think about how a shop is run,” she said. “You only notice whether the service is good or bad. But they can be useful in an all-woman shop. One has to deal with drunken men knocking over things or pawing the seamstresses. But the worst for us is a pack of thieves. They’ll come in small groups of twos and threes, all dressed respectably and seeming not to be together. One or two will keep the shopkeepers busy while the others fill their pockets. They’ve special pockets sewn into their clothes. They’re very quick. You’d be amazed at how much they can make off with if you look away, even for a second.”

“Where do you hide the muscled fellows who work for you, then?” he said.

“We don’t need ruffians,” she said. “We started in Paris, you know, and it was a family business, so we started young. Let me see. I think Marcelline was nine, so I was about seven or eight, and Leonie was six. When you’re absorbed in a trade from childhood, every aspect of it becomes instinctive. Drunks, thieves, men who think milliners’ shops are brothels—we’re perfectly capable of dealing with such matters ourselves.”

He remembered the hard look that had flashed across her face so briefly, when she’d told him she’d dealt with messy situations. He hadn’t time to pursue that train of thought, though. As they were turning into Oxford Street, two boys ran out in front of the curricle. Swearing violently, Longmore turned his pair aside an instant before they could trample the children.

His heart pounded. A moment’s delay or distraction, and the brats could have been killed. “Look where you’re going, you confounded idiots!” he roared above the neighing horses and the other drivers’ shouted comments.

“Ow, you ugly bitch!” a voice shrieked close to his ear. “Let go of me, you sodding sow!”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Sophy said.

Longmore glanced that way.

A ragged boy half hung over the back of the seat. Sophy had him by the arm, and she was regarding him with amusement.

Longmore could spare them only a glance. His team and the traffic wanted all his attention. “What the devil?” he said. “Where did he come from?”

“Nowhere!” the boy snarled. He wriggled furiously, to no avail. “I wasn’t doing nothing, only getting a free ride in back here, and the goggle-eyed mort tried to take my arm off.”

This, at least, was what Longmore presumed he said. The Cockney accent was almost impenetrable. Nothing was “nuffin,” and aitches were dropped from and attached to the wrong words, and some of the vowels seemed to have arrived from another planet.

“And you were trying to keep your hand warm in the gentleman’s pocket?” she said.

Longmore choked back laughter.

“I never went near his pocket! Do I look like I’m dicked in the nob?”

“Far from it,” Sophy said. “You’re a clever one, and quick, too.”

“Not quick enough,” the boy muttered.

“I wish you could have seen it, Cousin,” she said. “The two who ran in front were meant to distract you while this one jumped on and did his job. The little devil almost got by me. It took him two seconds to leap onto the groom’s place. Probably he would have wanted only another two to get your pocket watch—perhaps your seals and handkerchief as well—while you had both hands busy with the horses. I daresay he thought I was a gently bred female who’d only stare or scream helplessly while he collected his booty and got away.”

She reverted to the boy. “Next time, my lad, I advise you to make sure there’s only one person in the vehicle.”

Next time?

Longmore nearly ran down a pie seller.

“What next time?” he said. “We’re making a detour to the nearest police office, and leaving him to them.”

The boy let loose a stream of stunning oaths and struggled wildly. But Sophy must have tightened her hold or done something painful, because he stopped abruptly, and started whimpering that his arm was broken.

“As soon as I get out of this infernal tangle, I’ll give you a cuff you won’t soon forget,” Longmore said. “Cousin, will you give him a firm thump or something to stifle him in the meantime?”

“I don’t think we should take him to the police,” she said. “I think we should take him with us.”

Longmore and the boy reacted simultaneously.

The boy: “Nooooo!”

Longmore: “Are you drunk?”

“No, you don’t,” the boy said. “I ain’t going nowhere with you. I got friends, and they’ll come any minute now. Then you’ll be sorry. And I think my chest’s got a rib broke from being bent like this.”

“Stifle it,” Longmore told the boy. He needed a clear head to find his way through Sophy’s rabbit warren of a mind. He couldn’t do that and translate the boy’s deranged version of English at the same time.

To Sophy he said, “What exactly do you propose to do with him?”

“He’s wonderfully quick,” she said. “He could be useful. For our mission.”

Occupied with horses and traffic, Longmore could give the urchin no more than a swift survey. He looked to be about ten or eleven years old, though it was hard to tell with children of the lowest classes. Some of them looked eons older than they were, while others, small from malnourishment, seemed younger. This boy was fair-haired under his shabby cap, and while his neck was none too clean, he wasn’t an inch thick with filth as so many of them were. His clothes were worn and ill-fitting but mended and only moderately grimy.

“I don’t see what use he’d be to anybody, unless someone was wanted to pick pockets,” he said.

“He could hold the horses,” she said.

“Could he, indeed?” he said. “You suggest I put my cattle in charge of a sneaking little thief?”

The boy went very still.

“Who better to keep a sharp eye out, to watch who comes and goes, to give the alarm if trouble comes?” she said.

The mad thing was, she had a point.

“You don’t know the brat from Adam,” he said. “For all we know, he’s a desperado wanted by the police, and due to be transported on Monday. He tried to steal my watch. And climbed up behind the carriage to do it! That wants brass, that does—or something gravely amiss in the attic—and if you think I’m leaving a prime pair of horseflesh in the grubby hands of Mad Dick Turpin here, I suggest you think again. And take something for that brain injury while you’re about it.”

“Oy!” the boy said indignantly. “I ain’t no horse thief.”

“Merely a pickpocket,” Longmore said, egging him on.

“What’s your name?” Sophy said.

“Ain’t got one,” the boy said. “Saves trouble, don’t it?”

“Then I shall call you Fenwick,” she said.

“What?”

“Fenwick,” she said. “If you don’t have a name, I’ll give you one, gratis.”

“Not that,” the boy said. “That’s a ‘orrible name.”

“Better than nothing,” she said.