A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (39 page)

“Not one of your ribbons, this time,” he said, and she felt his
belly heaving with breathlessness against her flank and she hoped the bastard
would die of an apoplexy from it, “pity, for I thought it was a nice touch.”

She would have screamed, then, when she was able to free her face
from the cloying press of his thigh, she threw her head back and ignored the
stab of pain in her bruised neck and she opened her mouth and dragged in a
breath –

And he stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth, a dry, stinking,
dirty handkerchief that sucked all the spit from her mouth and left her choking
and fighting to breathe through her bloody nose.

And then he threw her on the floor of the carriage, and she saw
his teeth flash in a cheerful smile above her before he threw a cloak over her
body.

And then he set his boot heel on her belly.

“We approach the dockyard, Mistress Russell. Make a sound, dear,
and I will crush the life out of that rebel’s whelp you have in there.”

71

“Sir.”

The watchman knew him, then. Greeted him as if he were a regular
visitor. Possibly, by the tone of his voice, not a popular one. “There a
problem, my lord?”

“There might be, Bennett. There might be.” And there was an
avidity in Fairmantle’s voice that she had never heard, a horrible slavering
greed that made her think of the people who gather around overturned carts and
burning houses with their eyes on stalks, feeding on misfortune. “Who else is
here?”

One of the horses snorted, the carriage swaying and backing a
little, and she imagined them standing in the chill spring air – had the
coachman got down? She didn’t think so – steaming, the sweat drying on their
well-bred coats. She tried to ease her position, she was too tall for this, her
legs too long to be bent under her –

His foot pressed down on the curve of her belly again, so that she
felt the crescent of his heel bite into the unprotected swell of her flesh.

“What’s amiss, my lord?”

“Expecting guests, Bennett. Unwanted guests. A gentleman of my
acquaintance – a tall man, fair haired, with a great scar to his face, an ugly
customer – I have received intelligence that he plans to set a fire here this
night.”

Thomazine could not help but squawk in protest, and the boot heel
came down with such a force that she thought she felt something break, and all
the breath came out of her.

“D’you hear a noise?” Fairmantle demanded, “have they come
already?”

“No one passed this gate but you, my lord, not since the ropers
finished work and that’ll be, what, a good three hours past?”

“He is a spy,” Fairmantle breathed, “he is in the pay of the Dutch
and he means to destroy the ships laid up here so that his masters may walk in
uninterrupted. You have seen no one?”

“Not a soul, my lord, are you sure of this?”

“We have talked of nothing in the House for weeks but the imminent
coming of the Dutch, Master Bennett. Believe me. War is coming. Traitors like
him –“

“Won’t get past this gate, my lord.”

She felt the boot press down again, as Fairmantle leaned forward
in ponderous eagerness. “On the contrary, Master Bennett.
Let him pass
.
Let him and any that he might bring with him pass. I will be waiting for them,
and believe me, they will feel England’s wrath.”

She could hear him breathing. She thought, by the creak of wood
and leather, and the sudden lurch of the carriage as one of the team shifted
its position, that Bennett might have moved closer to the carriage. “Let them
in, Bennett, but
be vigilant.
Alert your fellows. For if we fail, our
country fails with us. But if we thwart them, Master Bennett, we are England’s
heroes. Mark them well, but do not raise the alarm, for he is a slippery
fellow, this Russell. He will spin you tales. Don’t believe a word of it. We’ll
catch the rogue red-handed, see if we don’t.”

She could not move, even if she was not frozen with witless
horror. They chatted for a while, and the man Bennett’s cool disinterest thawed
by the heartbeat with tales of rewards, of recognition, of what horrible fates
awaited a traitor.

And that was what it was, wasn’t it? That was all it was, to
Fairmantle. A masque, a way to be noticed: a childish, pettish desire to be the
centre of attention. To finally be acknowledged as a man of wit and daring, by
the men whose approval he craved and could never have. Thomazine gagged,
choking on her handkerchief, and was determined not to be sick for she knew she
would die if she choked and he would not lift a finger to help her, not if she
lay strangling on her own vomit under his feet.

And all those things he had said of Russell – that he had learned
to dissemble, but that he could not love: that he was cold, and had no thought
of any other but himself, that he craved approval, and belonging, but that they
would not let him in – he had not been speaking of her husband at all. He had
spoken of himself.

That was not a thing you could argue with. He was not mad. (She
would have liked him better had he been mad. She might have pitied him.) He was
absolutely, icily, selfishly sane.

She was afraid, in the dark, under that cloak.

And then it was a funny thing. Ever after she swore to it, she
felt it. A strange rippling feeling – no more uncomfortable or strange than a
fart – but a rather wonderful one, as if the child in her belly had quickened
with joy.

She wept, silently, with tears running out of her eyes and soaking
into her hair on the dusty floor of the carriage.

All would be well, and all manner of things would be well. For he
was her rebel angel, and he would come for her.

She might wish he’d get
on
with it, though.

72

“It’s
not the most romantic place I’d choose,” Wilmot said, and sounded quite
reasonable, for a change. “For an assignation, I mean.”

It
was unchancy, in Russell’s opinion, and it scared the hell out of him. All the
black hulks of dismasted ships, looming up out of the darkness like great
monsters of the deep. The creak and splash of the ships in the water, and the
smell of the river, the smell of tar, and hemp, and cut wood.

It
was a place that was like, and yet unlike, Wapping dock, and that scared him,
too. For the docks thrummed with life, always, at Wapping: with noise and with
laughter from the disreputable taverns, with sailors coming and going, with all
sorts of maritime hangers-on and minor celebrity and cheerful, and not
infrequently violent, chaos. This was dark. This was eerily still, for work on
the great ships ceased at dusk, when the light went. You could not work here by
lantern, or by candle; the combination of wood and hemp and tar made it like
sitting on a great tinderbox.

And
these were engines of war. Not cheerful fat matrons like his
Perse
, or
sleek and beautiful like the
Go And Ask Her
, but huge, purposeful
weapons of destruction, that were not meant to be beautiful, but were made for
the purpose of crushing out life. “What the hell has he brought her
here
for?”

“Perhaps
he was hoping she will be so impressed by the size of the weapons that she’ll
overlook the paucity of his,” Wilmot said cheerfully, and Russell shot him a
look of loathing.

It
was too quiet. It was not a place that should be quiet, for he was sure that
during the day it was a place of industry and noise, and the only sounds were
those of wind and water, and of creaking wood. Which could be a man about some
fell purpose, and might simply be a scuttling rat, shifting in a woodpile.

And
no one had stopped them, either. And if they thought he was so entirely
shattered by the disappearance of his wife that he did not think the dockyard
where the pride of the English navy was being constructed, would be crawling
with watchmen, someone thought he was dafter than he was.

Or
someone was waiting for them. And that was not a thing he was choosing to dwell
on, because that someone was a man he had known for thirty years, and cordially
despised as possessing less sense than a feather pillow for most of that time.
He suspected he might have underestimated Charles Fairmantle.

Which
was fine, because Charles Fairmantle clearly underestimated him. He cocked his
pistol unobtrusively, though Wilmot glanced over his shoulder.

He
looked odd, without the great lustrous tumbling curls. Looked less like a
mincing ninny, and more like a young man who knew exactly what he was doing
with a sword in his hand. “You mean business, then, major?”

“If
he’s touched Thomazine I’ll cut his balls off,” Russell said curtly.

“Temper,
temper. Leave some for me, sir. I am very displeased with Master Fairmantle, I
can assure you.” Stopped, sword in one hand, poised on the balls of his feet.
“We have been quite deceived in that gentleman, I think. Not at all a fit and
proper person to know. Now, where shall we start to look, do you suppose?”

Too
many hiding places, here. Too many hulks he could have stowed in her in – oh,
sweet Christ, he would not have killed her, he would have no reason to have
done such a thing, but he had had no reason to
take
her, either –

If
he had to look under every coil of rope, on every deck of every ship, in every
barrel, he would do it.

Wilmot
had wandered off, whistling. Far off, in the sleeping houses at Grange, a dog
barked, just once.

-
too still –

Russell
stopped, flinging his head up, snuffing the air like a dog. Ridiculous. He
could not scent her out, that would be absurd –

-he
could smell tar. Tar, and new-cut wood, and the bitter green smell of new hemp
from the ropery –

Listening.
Footsteps, and he whirled, pistol ready –

-
and he could smell smoke, faint, thready, distant. Not woodsmoke. Bitter smoke,
bitter like new wood, or hemp –

It
was nothing. It was a tiny amber gleam, out of the corner of his eye. He
wondered what would happen if he went and presented himself at the
Commissioner’s House, knocked on his door and demanded that they turn out a
search for a missing girl.

He
thought it would take more time than he had to explain. Even if they believed
him.

Like
sitting on a tinderbox.

He
started to walk towards the Ropery.

73

She
was sitting in the middle of the long, straight covered lane where they made
the ropes, and she was alive.

In
the warm amber glow of a lantern set on the walkway, there were great black
bruises about her throat, and the gleam of tears and snot on her white face,
but she was alive, and he had never seen anything lovelier. Her hair was
hanging from its pins, her skirts and her bodice were crumpled and splotched
with dark stains. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her cheeks bulged
over a dirty rag that had been thrust into her mouth.

But
she was whole, and alive, and her eyes widened when she saw him, and then
another great fat tear glinted down her cheek and she blinked at him, slowly.
Which was an expression he knew, and he blinked back at her –
love you,
tibber
– and stepped out onto the ropewalk.

“Let
her go, Fairmantle,” he said.

The
man he had always considered – no, not a friend. A man he had always thought he
knew. An annoyance, a vexation, a witless lackey, a hanger-on – gave him a
polite smile. “See, dear? I told you he’d come, didn’t I?” he said, and twisted
his hand into Thomazine’s hair so that she reared back, choking.

And
with his free hand, pressed a duelling-pistol against her temple.

“I
don’t think so, Thankful.”

“
What
do you want from me
?” – for he could have had it, for her, any of it –

“
You
?
Nothing. Nothing at all. What on earth do you think I might want from you?”

“Then
why –“

“Because
you’re a spy, Major, a nasty little traitorous spy, and I’m going to catch you
in the act of burning the King’s ships laid up here. All the watchmen know
you’re here. They’re just waiting for me to give the signal, and then we will
catch you red-handed.”

She
was shaking her head, no, and he wondered if Fairmantle actually believed what
he was saying. “I am a – what?” Russell said warily.

“Oh,
come now! A spy! You know it, I know it, all the world knows it. You are a spy
and a filthy deceiver and
I
am the man to give you your just deserts.”

“Since
when have
you
been a patriot, Chas?” he said, without thinking, and
Fairmantle’s face twitched –

“Since
I – I – since –“

“Since
I ceased to be so obliging a target for your gossip?” he guessed, and knew by
the way the man’s head jerked that Russell had touched him on the quick. Which
was a frightening thought, for he did not understand it. “Why? Why do you hate
me so much? How have I harmed you, that -”