The cold steel of the pistol’s barrel pressed into the side of her neck. She should have taken it.
FIFTY-FOUR
COLIN HAD checked the eight inns closest to St. Trinity, but there was no sign of Amy.
His disappointment was a physical pain, a heaviness in his chest that was weighted with a creeping sense of foreboding. To have come all this way, crisscrossing the City, one clue to another, and then…
Nothing.
And somewhere out there, Amy was…what? Sleeping, suffering, frightened, abused? Well, it was still Sunday, so even if she’d left London, he was fairly certain she wasn’t married.
Yet.
Perhaps he was on the wrong track. Perhaps he should go back to Robert’s father, or the King’s Arms, and ask if anyone had heard from Robert in the past few hours.
Intending to make the depressing rounds again, he’d no sooner untied Ebony when a yellow glow caught his eye, penetrating the fog from down the street. At this hour, in this neighborhood, where citizens couldn’t afford the luxury of candles at midnight, where decent folk went to bed with the dusk and rose with the dawn, that light could mean only one thing: a tavern.
He leaped onto Ebony and clip-clopped down the dark, empty street toward the glow. Bereft and desolate, Colin could only muster a faint hope that he might have reached the end of his search. As he drew nearer, the light from the grimy window illuminated a cracked wooden sign proclaiming it the Cat & Canary, and a swift glance up at the overhanging story assured him that it did, indeed, boast a few rooms for rent.
Colin tethered Ebony in a rough shed across the street, then took the time to thank him for his service and companionship with a bucketful of brackish water and a forkful of hay. After all, of all the multitudes of places in London, he had no real reason to think Amy was here.
ROBERT SHOVED Amy back into the room and threw her on the bed. He pointed the pistol in her direction with one shaking hand while he attempted to lock the door with the other.
“Please, Robert—”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear one word from you.” He frantically worked the lock, his hand fumbling. “You’ll pay for this, Amy. Mark my words.”
At last the lock clicked into place, and he whirled around, wild-eyed, searching the room. A sinister laugh echoed forth as, with a flick of his wrist, the key landed in the flames of the fireplace.
“There,” he said. “I’ll take it back in the morning, when the ashes grow cold. Until then, we won’t be needing it, will we?”
Cringing, Amy scooted back until her spine pressed against the dirty headboard. She pulled her knees up and hugged them tight.
Robert raised his arm and aimed the pistol at her again. “Lie down!” he barked, waving the gun wildly.
She dropped to the mattress, curled up in a ball, and let out a whimper as panic welled up in her throat. She whimpered again as she watched Robert switch the pistol to his left hand so he could work the buckle on his belt with his right.
She shut her eyes tight, as though by doing so she could banish Robert and his pistol and his belt from the earth. Any second now, she expected to feel the belt on her, the leather striping her flesh in Robert’s fury.
Instead, she felt Robert throw himself on top of her, flattening her to the mattress. The gun fell to the wooden floor with a meaty thud, and she twisted under him, intending to lunge for it. But Robert pressed her shoulders against the bed with his two fleshy hands, and his head descended on hers, blocking her vision and her access to the weapon.
He ground his lips against hers in a cruel approximation of a kiss, until she tasted coppery-tinged blood. She gagged. Her hands came up and pushed at his head, but to no avail: he was quite simply stronger and heavier than she.
She wished he had lashed her instead.
A lifetime later, after pinning Amy beneath the weight of his body, Robert came up on his elbows. Her mouth finally free, she screamed.
Robert laughed wildly. “No one will come,” he taunted. “They all think you’re delirious. And they’ve been well paid. You’ll be mine after tonight,” he growled. “No other man will want to touch you for the rest of your life.”
FIFTY-FIVE
COLIN PUSHED on the Cat & Canary’s door, and it swung open with a prolonged creak, revealing a plain wooden interior encrusted with years of accumulated dirt. He stepped inside and glanced around the tavern. It was a shame the blaze had missed this street, he thought with a grimace. This was the kind of firetrap London needed to rid itself of.
A nauseating reek of rancid food choked the air. A few scruffy men sat conversing morosely at one table. No proprietor was in sight. All was quiet.
Colin couldn’t imagine Amy in a place like this, even as Robert’s hostage. He turned to leave, but caught himself glancing uneasily over his shoulder. After a pause, he addressed the motley group at the table. “Pardon me, but is anyone staying above?”
The answer was a mix of shrugs and grunts that he took to be a negative. One man looked up at him, his bloated face showing surprise at finding someone of Colin’s class in this tavern.
Colin focused on him. “I’m looking for someone…”
“Anyone you’d be lookin’ fer’d be on Leadenhall Street,” the man offered, inclining his head toward a street across the way, behind the shed where Colin had stashed Ebony. “Try the Rose ’n’ Crown.”
“Thank you kindly,” Colin replied, moving to the entry. He couldn’t wait to get out of this depressing establishment.
Halfway through the door, he heard a thud from above. His blood chilled. He swung back around. “Are you certain no one’s up there?”
He
