Chapter Forty-One
Cat waited at the end of the alley for Jones. He didn’t come. Not in one minute, nor two. She peeked around the corner, saw nothing but shadows and far beyond, the light of the street. She waited longer, back pressed against the rough brick—until she heard the footsteps. Fast and hard, with such purpose it drove terror straight through her.
She ran, as quickly as she could hampered by her nightshift and cloak. Gathering them up so the froth of fabric was bundled in her arms, she set her head down and turned into an alley, then another and another. Without hesitation. The footsteps faded, but fear did not. Perhaps, just perhaps, she was safe. Desperation clawed at her lungs as she skittered down an alleyway and into the nearest shadowed corner. It was a doorway, inset slightly into a brick building.
Dismay dawned as she recognized the front door of the opium den across the street. She had returned almost to where she had started.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Fear had a sound—running footsteps in the dark. It had a scent as well—urine and body sweat and the stench of the opium.
She couldn’t stay here. She shouldn’t be here. Her nightshift fell once more around her ankles, dirty but still a beacon in the dark. Cat pressed herself against the door, flattening her fingers against the wood. She didn’t know where to go. What to do. Gasping slightly, she grabbed the door handle behind her back and turned.
The panel fell open with a swift whoosh of air. She stumbled backward and into yet more terror.
“Oy!” The shout was harsh and full of anger. Cat spun around to discover the tallest, baldest man she’d ever seen. “Get out! This is my room!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sir.” She nearly sobbed it, which was horrifyingly embarrassing. “I’ll go.” She should have been imperiously angry. Any woman of her class would have done so and demanded some type of respect.
Pathetically, she couldn’t summon enough anger or pride to demand respect.
She shut the door and simply stood there, looking into the shadows of the alley and at the den not twenty feet away. Was Jones still in there? Squares of light formed a patchwork over the cobblestone pathway. A few people passed through them, intent on their business and taking no notice of her. Yet. Sounds assaulted her from all directions, rooms above, the street nearby, the homes and shops and pubs a stone’s throw away beyond the alley.
“Missus.”
When had the door opened behind her? She spun around to face the large bald man who had chased her away.
“Missus, come in.” A heavy hand fell onto her shoulder and held her in place. “Dressed like that, you’ll be taken for sure.”
“What?” Her voice was appallingly high-pitched.
“You’ll be dead by morning, or worse. Come in.” He gave her no choice, pulling her through the doorway with more strength than she could fight. The door closed behind her, shutting out the sky and stars and—as he leaned against the unremarkable wooden panel—freedom.
“What’s a fancy lady like you doing in these parts?” He was huge. Taller than Jones by a foot or more. Wider.
When she opened her mouth to protest, he simply cocked his head and spoke before she could.
“Don’t go tellin’ me you ain’t a fancy lady. Quality ain’t stamped into the clothes as much as the blood, missus. You has quality.” He strode across the room to the banked fire, stirred it to life with a makeshift poker resembling a bar from an iron fence found in every street of the West End.
“What do you want?” Cat set her hands behind her back and clutched her skirt, hoping her fear would transmit to the skirt and not to her captor. “I have no money with me.”
The great beast of a man set the iron bar aside and simply watched her, dark eyes shadowed in the dim light. Without speaking, he settled himself on a short stool between the fire and a pile of blankets. She noticed then that there was no table in the room. Only a fireplace, the stool and blankets, a trunk that had seen much better days, and cooking utensils. All of it was clean and organized.
He was likely better off than most in the rookeries.
The man remained silent, though he was now winding something in his hands, pulling, braiding, stretching. It looked like rope.
Rope.
Terror could grab a woman with two fists and squeeze the life from her. It could send the edges of her vision into the black and weaken her legs.
“Don’t go off like that.” The man’s hands paused their movements, the long fingers gentle on the threads despite their size. “Might want to take a breath, now, afore you keel over.”
Cat drew in one shaking inhalation and found her vision clearing. She knew it wasn’t this huge man and his rope that caused her fear. It was everything. Every moment of the last few days culminated with this one moment, this one man.
But she’d managed before, hadn’t she?
“There now. That’s better. Color in your cheeks again.” He nodded once, acknowledging the change in her. “Can’t see why you’d be in these parts, milady. Might be you need to be shown where to go?” He cocked his head and watched her with those dark currant eyes.
“Yes.” Only she couldn’t go home, so being shown out of the rookeries was nonsense.
“Good.”
“No.” Yet she couldn’t stay in the rookeries where she was an easy mark, and where Wycomb might find her. “I don’t know.”
Oh God, her vision was going black again. She gulped in air and hoped the door at her back would steady her.
“Ah. It’s that way, is it? Can’t go back, can’t go forward?” The man seated before her began to wind the rope around one hand, gathering it between fingers and thumb so it became layer upon layer of material. The light from the newly stirred fire shown over a smooth skull.
“No, I can’t go back.” Saying the words sent her stomach plummeting. “I can’t go anywhere.”
Slow and steady the man worked, though his gaze did not leave her face. “What do you know of the opium dens?”
“What?” Perhaps it was not the most eloquent response, but, “What? What?” She jerked forward in a movement that was part step, part stumble.
“You reek of opium, and as there’s only two dens in this area, you must have been at one of them, though you don’t seem to be the worse for wear.”
“And you don’t speak like a miscreant of the rookeries.”
“Sometimes a man isn’t born here, he ends up here by choice.”
Cat wanted to ask why anyone would be here by choice, in a room with the drapes drawn and surrounded by urine-soaked streets. She didn’t ask, because sometimes it was better not to know.
“May I stay here, just for a few minutes?”
“Not if you’re dealing in opium.” He dropped the coiled rope into his lap. “To each his own, but I don’t want any of those sorts stumbling into my back room.”
“I’m not dealing in opium.” She was vaguely amused he thought so, and even more amused he would cast her out for it. “I was held against my will.”
He pushed up from the stool and she noticed his coat was patched and frayed. “How long is this bit you’d like to stay?”
“I don’t know. A few hours. Perhaps until the morning?”
“It won’t be any safer out there in the morning, milady.” He moved to the corner of the room and bent over the blankets. Cat couldn’t make out what he was doing and unease began to spread.
“I better go now.” What had she been thinking, asking this giant if she could stay? She reached for the door handle.
“Stop.” The man gestured to the pile at his feet. Without his shadow blocking it, she could see the cloth, smoothed out now to create a makeshift bed. “You can sleep here. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Sir—”
“Sir?” He laughed lightly. “My lady, my name is Bill, as I’m bald as billiard ball. I’ll see you out of the rookeries in the morning.”