And then he reached out, turned her around so her back was pressed against him, one arm holding her tight up against him and the other pointing the pistol straight out. She almost choked from the pressure.
She looked straight at the mistress. The woman had a most interested expression, as if she were enjoying the spectacle and wondering about it.
“Here now,” said the bold man, still putting up the good fight. “You got what you came for. Let the girl go.”
The bandit said nothing, just stepped backward toward the window, pulling Tesara with him.
“Good God! Don’t let him go! Call the watch!”
“Quick! Rush him!”
The pistol went off next to Tesara’s ear and she screamed involuntarily. So did most of the women and more than a few of the men. The plaster on the far wall cracked, and a bit of gilding came rattling down onto the parquet floor. Any plans to rush the bandit were immediately put on hold, but the music stopped now and she could hear rising voices from outside the room. The bandit didn’t wait. He shoved her into the crowd and she stumbled into the men just as they made a rush for him, all arms and legs a-tangle. By the time they regained their feet, the bandit was gone.
Men rushed into the gambling salon from the other gallery. There was another loud bang as the bandit discharged the second pistol through the open window. The screaming was almost as deafening.
“Where did he go, Miss Mederos?” someone asked her, shaking her so violently her teeth rattled. The man’s eyes were wild. “Quick – we can still catch him. Which way did he go?”
She pointed where the walk followed the garden wall, quickly disappearing into the hedges and the rose arbor. That way led to the back alleys of Port Saint Frey, with its many byways and nooks and crannies and crooked little mews and the secret pathways down to the docks. It was the perfect place to get lost. Her questioner cursed and thrust her at the crowd of fashionable men and women who poured through the door with cries and questions.
Some of the servants and grooms brought lamps and pistols of their own. The head coachman had the Iderci hunting dogs on long leashes, and they bayed an eerie call to the night. Someone had been sent for the police, and still others said they would stay to keep guard over the house and make sure the man didn’t return with accomplices.
Tesara let the commotion wash over her. The women forgot all about her status and chafed her wrists and patted her face with scraps of handkerchiefs bathed in cucumber water, and murmured over her. Elenor Sansieri brought her own warm wrap and covered her with it and then hugged her for good measure.
Her heart was humming with excitement as they all talked and wondered and said how awful it was that such a terrible thing could have happened in one of the best parts of the city, and was no place safe any longer? Couldn’t the police do something about this dreadful bandit? He had just robbed the Kerrills, for Frey’s sake.
“Come on,” Elenor said in her ear. “I’ll have our carriage take you home.”
Tesara let herself be led away, only looking back once, not at the walk where it went along the garden wall, but the other way, where it led to the front of the house, where a young man, once he drew off his red silk handkerchief and uncovered his face, might go quite unremarked upon as he made his way home.
Chapter Fifty-Five
It was nearing three in the morning when Yvienne fumbled the key into the kitchen door and came in, easing the door open as quietly as she could. She sighed in the fading warmth of the kitchen. It had taken her most of the night to elude her pursuers, and she had to use all of her wiles to evade the dogs. Twice they came so close to her where she hid in plain sight among the crowds of revelers on the Lower Mile that it took all her courage not to run. Finally, she was able to make her way to her sea cave, ditch her boy’s clothes, and hurry into her dress and shawl. The money she wrapped up in oilskin and tucked behind a loose rock far above the tideline, and then headed back up the trail toward home. There was no longer any sign of pursuit by the time she made her way to Kerwater Street.
She locked the door and hung up the key, and rubbed her aching eyes. She wanted nothing more than to go upstairs, take off her clothes, and go to bed, where she would sleep the day away if she could.
“Did you make sure you weren’t followed?”
Yvienne turned and jumped at the same moment. She hadn’t noticed her sister sitting at the work table, a dark shape in the near darkness. Tesara scraped a match against the table and lit a small candle in the dish. The light flared and the darkness receded somewhat. Her sister’s face remained mostly in shadow, with only the side of her face and one eye illuminated. There were dark pools around her eyes and Yvienne knew her eyes were shadowed the same.
“I think so,” she said. Her voice was raspy and she was very thirsty. She went to the stove and hefted the kettle. To her relief there was water in it, and she found a cup by feel and filled it. The water was smooth and cool and it felt like heaven going down her throat and into her core, a cold, glistening treasure inside her. She sighed in deep relief and slid onto
