When I finally feel clean – bearing a striking resemblance to a prune – I go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, luxuriating in the sensation of crisp cotton sheets, a proper mattress and pillows that aren’t my rolled-up coat. I sleep until the sun is gone and then a different girl – friendly and round – arrives with more food (baked ham, mashed parsnips, and a custard tart). I shouldn’t want to eat more but I do – anything that’s not bread, dried meat and pilfered apples. Thoroughly stuffed, I put on the clean clothes from my duffel bag (although part of me yearns for a dress, if only for a little while, and by my own choice), and I braid my still-damp hair and let it hang down my back, then I go out into the streets.
There are night markets, people hawking everything from pots and pans to food, alcohol to knives, hats and shoes and dolls and perfumes. Nothing like Breakwater, though. I shake my head to clear the thought. I walk past a fountain that has leaping wolves around its edge, and I take in every sight I can. There are jugglers and fire-eaters in the main square, singers and musicians to accompany them. I throw silver bits into the hats they’ve placed on the ground. I feel a smile on my face and a lightness inside that is quite foreign and I know won’t last, but I resolve to enjoy it while I can.
It takes a while but eventually I begin to feel uncomfortable. I realise it’s the creep of another’s eyes over me; I’m being watched. It’s all I can do not to swing around, looking for the culprit and letting them know they’re sensed. Making my way back through the crowds that still bustle in the square and nearby streets despite the late hour, I duck into alleyways, sprint from one desperately discovered hiding place to the next, wait in shadows, but no one seems to follow me. By the time I make it back to the inn I still haven’t shaken the sensation of being observed, and I can’t help recall that I last felt this way in those cold dark hours in Breakwater.
The nervous girl is folding washing in a side room off the reception and I enquire if anyone’s been asking about me. She looks surprised but isn’t rude enough to say ‘Who’d ask about you?’ She simply says ‘No, Miss’ and hands me my newly cleaned shirt and trousers. I thank her then go up to my room, unlock the door and slip in, quickly latching the thing behind me. I lean, forehead first, against the wood and breathe deeply for a few moments.
The voice comes and almost stops my heart.
‘Good evening, Miss O’Malley.’
I spin about, searching. The leadlight window is ajar, its colours dead against the night sky. On the bed is my duffel, open and emptied. And there’s a dark form in the shadows beside the lit hearth. It steps forward, into the light, and I see the face of the footman, the green-eyed man whose acquaintance I made so briefly and who, if I’m not badly mistaken, murdered Aoife.
21
As I turn back to the door, scrabbling with the lock, he laughs. ‘Oh, Miss O’Malley. I’ll be on you before you know it.’
I force myself to stand still, lips tightly pressed together, to avoid the indignity of having him hold me captive. I’m as afraid as I am annoyed; I thought I’d gone far enough, been clever enough. Deep breath, pivot, face him.
He’s wearing black, all black, trousers, shirt, weapons belt, vest, cloak. There’s just the eyes, a light green, to stand out in his swarthy face. He’d pass through shadows unnoticed. He holds up the silver knife from my bag, wiggles it to grab my attention. ‘Now, be so kind as to toss those lovely new weapons at my feet. The one I can see at your belt and t’other from wherever you’ve secreted it.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘I’m very good at my job, Miss O’Malley.’ When I hesitate, he sighs. ‘I would hate to bruise you, Miss O’Malley, as I’m under strict orders to return you intact to your betrothed.’ He examines the nails of his right hand, nonchalant. ‘Damaged goods would affect my payment. Now, come: your daggers.’
‘As my betrothed is your employer, I’d say you have already damaged the goods,’ I say, hoping my tone doesn’t betray my nerves. I take out my blades and toss them at his feet; no point trying to throw them, I’ve no skill at that.
He grins. ‘And a pleasure it was too, but I think for both our sakes it’s best if your cousin never hears of that. It would hardly reflect well on either of us.’
‘You really don’t understand anything about me if you think I’m worried about what Aidan Fitzpatrick thinks.’ I tilt my head. ‘In fact, I’m more likely to tell him if it will make him angry.’
He tilts his head the other way, gazes at me with all the intensity of a hawk looking at a mouse. ‘But surely you’d like to remain alive a while yet? Your intended doesn’t strike me as a... tolerant man.’
‘No, but you can’t, at least as far as I’m aware, get children on a dead woman.’ This man doesn’t need to know why Aidan needs my children. I ask a question I probably already know the answer to: ‘How long have you been working for him?’
He gestures with both hands, indicating a sort of indefinite period of time. ‘Not so long, a few months. Jobs here and there, other cities, places where his business interests could be progressed by the removal of a rival or three. I’m new to Breakwater, you see—’
‘I don’t care. We are not acquaintances meeting at a
