tune, a cart clattered past, stirring up dust that smelled like sweat and fish, and the most glowering, harrumphing sailor Viola had ever known winked.
Her heart pattered fast. She thrust out her hand, palm down. “I’m in.”
A skinny freckled hand slapped atop hers. “I’m in, Cap’n ma’am.”
Fingers like pitch-coated sausages covered Billy’s. “Me too, miss.”
Mattie’s came last, big and brown and as comforting as a whole ham on Easter Sunday. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 29
In the deep gray of London midnight Jin stared at the ceiling, his heart racing as he sat perfectly still in a chair in his flat. Though his body ached with need, no female companion awaited him in the bedchamber. Not with Viola Carlyle two hundred miles away. Never again, no matter how many miles distant she was. Thus his life of celibacy commenced.
But it was not a time that would linger long. She had taken his heart and after all he had done, all his voluntary damnation, he was quite certain he could not live without it. He could not live without her. So he may as well throw himself into certain danger. If unrest stirred in Malta, it would be as good a place as any to die. There he might finally be killed, after all, and end the torture of not having her, and of knowing another man would.
She deserved more than Aidan Castle. She deserved everything.
Unprofitable thoughts. She would have what she needed, whether it was Castle or some other man lucky enough to win her. And, as he had been for twenty years, he would be alone, as it should be. Or dead.
But it was all a lie. A blasted lie. Not to Viola this time. To himself.
He had come back to London and remained here, delaying his departure for the East on the Club’s mission, because he wanted that damned box. He’d made a second and third attempt to purchase it, anonymously through his own man of business days ago, then through Blackwood’s agent again today. The bishop was immovable, and suspicious now of the interest others were taking in the antiquity. He would not sell. He was adamant.
But Jin had to have it. He could think of nothing else-except Viola. He would never be a good man; his past would remain with him always. But he was damned if he would let her go forever without first knowing if he was a man with a real last name. He owed at least that to himself. And to her.
He stared into the darkness, night sounds coming to him through the open window, and waited for the Watch to call the hour. Then he waited longer. He had no master ordering him to his nightly prowl, no purpose to prowl in the first place. He would not steal the box from the bishop’s house and he would not harm anyone to get it otherwise. He was through with that. Seamus Castle’s bloody face and Viola’s impassioned defense of the punishment had seen to that. He never wished to hear her excuse him again, for in doing so she sullied herself. If he were ever going to deserve her-if he had a chance of deserving her-he would do it by cleaning his soul first.
Finally, he rose from the chair and dressed in clothing suitable for such work. He had not yet spoken with the bishop’s junior footman. He had studied him, though, every night for nearly a fortnight. Within the hour the man would be leaving his employer’s house. As he did each night he would walk three blocks to his favorite gin house where he would drink two drams of Blue Ruin, then spend fifteen minutes in the back room with the red-haired whore before heading home. If the redhead was not working, he would go with the blonde rather than the brunette. Some men were misguided that way, Jin supposed.
He walked to the bishop’s house. It was not far from his rooms in Piccadilly, and the muted rumbling activity of London at night kept him alert, his mind focused and off a beautiful little sailor with violet eyes.
The moment he arrived he felt the change in the night air. The windows of the house, usually black at this hour, were not all dark now. From a window on the ground floor, a sliver of gold light peeked out between drawn drapes. It flickered. Then receded.
Someone was moving through the house with a lamp; but it was not Pecker. From where he stood hidden in a shadow across the street, Jin watched the footman stroll up the narrow alley between the bishop’s house and the house beside it. Pecker whistled cheerfully, tossing an object into the air as he went, up and down. It caught a glimmer of moonlight and Jin stilled.
Gold coin. Payment for allowing a stranger’s entrance?
His anger simmered. That morning again they had tried to convince him to allow them to break into the house and steal the box. Matouba had been quiet but firm, and Billy typically enthusiastic. But Mattie had only stared at him above his cauliflower nose and said, “S’about damned time.”
Now they had gone in, despite his forbidding them to. But they were sailors, trained to thieve in open waters on ship decks, not to skulk about a gentleman’s drawing room. They would get themselves caught on his behalf, and he could not allow that.
It looked like his appointment with death might come sooner than anticipated.
Swiftly on silent boots he crossed the street and stole into the alley. The tradesman’s door stood propped open. Cautiously, he entered the narrow basement corridor and ascended to the first floor, no servants in sight. Peculiar. But the hour was late and the elderly man kept an early schedule. Two doors let off the short corridor that ran to the foyer-a parlor and a dining room, most likely. Bishop Baldwin’s house was stacked in every corner with objects- statuettes, compasses, clocks, books, jewels on pedestals, musical instruments, and a thousand other trinkets, but it was nevertheless a modest establishment for a retired man of the cloth.
Light flickered at the base of a door. Then from within-all in rapid succession-furniture scraping across floor, shattering glass, a muffled curse, and a thud.
There was nothing to be done for it; he opened the door. In the near perfect darkness, a lamp lay in pieces on the floor at the edge of a thick carpet. A slight figure stood over it, a small casket clutched in her arms.
Emotion rocked him like a gale force wind slamming him down and under. He remembered the gold and enamel mosaic box as if he’d seen it only yesterday sitting on his mother’s dressing table in her chambers strewn with silks and cushions. And he would recognize Viola Carlyle no matter how dark it was or what she wore-even if he were blind, deaf, and bereft of all other senses-until the day he died.
Her gaze shot to him, then swiftly up at the ceiling. Footsteps sounded above.
“
He widened the door and stepped back from it, gesturing her through. They would not escape; pursuers, three men at least, were already on the landing above. But he must make the attempt, if he could force his thoughts to function properly. But his head swam and all he wanted in the world was moving toward him now.
She barely glanced at him as she darted into the corridor. He followed. Lamplight scorched the stairs above, bouncing closer, the footsteps quick, feet and legs appearing.
“You there! Halt!”
She shot down the narrow steps to the basement, he behind. Billy leaped from a doorway, tugged his cap, and ran for the rear entrance where Matouba stood in silhouette framed by two uniformed men.
They were caught. But he could assure she would not suffer for it. He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder.
Billy skidded to a halt at the other end of the corridor as Jin slammed her back against his chest.
“Do not speak unless I tell you to,” he whispered harshly into her ear as the sheer relief and joy of being touched by him again flooded her. Then he released her and there was a great deal of commotion-men crowding into the basement corridor from either end with lamps and candles and at least one fireplace poker-in livery and uniform. An old man with a long hooked nose and nightcap askew atop his scraggly yellowish-gray hair stepped forward.
“Ha ha! I anticipated subterfuge.” He shoved his candle in her face, wax spitting onto her coat. “Set a trap for you! I let that fool Pecker take your money, you thieving whelp. Ha! I have you now, by George.” He thrust his candle into a servant’s hand and gripped the box. “You won’t have my casket now, but ten years in Newgate.”
Viola held on tight. “Oh, just let me have it, you mean old man. I will pay you for it.”
Gasps all around, except from Billy in the hands of two servants, and except from the silent man at her side.
