Dance of Seduction (17 page)

Awareness dawned. “Is that why you’ve been stealing? To get enough money so you can coax her not to marry him?”

He shrugged. “I’m good at picking pockets, that’s all.”

That wasn’t all, and they both knew it. Morgan swallowed past the lump in his throat, remembering his own hopes that he could steal enough to keep his mother in comfort. Perhaps then she wouldn’t need to rely on lovers for her and her son’s survival.

Despite all his attempts, however, he’d failed her in the end. He’d never been able to make her see what a snake her last lover was, not until that horrible night…

He cursed as the images rose in his head, a waking nightmare. They were only this vivid and powerful in Spitalfields. God, he had to finish this soon so he could leave this cursed place.

In the meantime, he had Johnny to deal with. “You may be good at picking pockets,” he told the boy, “but I think you can do better things.”

For the first time since they’d come upstairs, the sullen look left Johnny’s face. “You do?”

“Yes. I can teach you—”

“About being a receiver?” Johnny’s eyes lit up. “That
would be bloody good, because it’s the receivers that make the real money.”

“No,” Morgan bit out, “not about being a receiver. About the sea. About the navy.”

“You mean, being a sailor? That’s as hard a life as stealing or worse.”

“But it won’t get you hanged,” Morgan pointed out. “It’s good honest work. Exciting, too. I might even get you a berth as a midshipman someday.”

Johnny looked skeptical. “They don’t take the likes of me as midshipmen. Even I know that. That’s for gentry and gentlemen and people what have connections, and now that the war is over…”

“You let me worry about that. You concentrate on paying attention and working hard for me, and I’ll see that you end up with a post you can stomach, one that doesn’t require your looking over your shoulder for police officers every second.” He paused. “But I can’t help you unless you’re willing to follow my rules. Can you do that?”

Johnny hesitated, glancing around him. Morgan could guess his thoughts. The place was warm and dry, heated by the stovepipe from the stove downstairs. With the room only half full of goods stacked on shelves, there was plenty of room. No doubt Johnny was weighing the possibility of hard work against the appeal of having a comfortable room to himself for probably the first time in his life. And the hope of a future.

Then he straightened to look Morgan squarely in the eye. “Yes, sir, I can.”

Morgan smiled. “Good.” Now he had himself an assistant, errand boy, and general lackey. The question was, what the hell was he to do with him?

Chapter 10

It is too often the case, I fear, that others, for certain
considerations, wink at those crimes which at last
terminate in very disagreeable consequences.
Juvenile Trials for Robbing Orchards,
R. Johnson

C
lara had come to the busy Lambeth Street Office before, but never on such important business. After two days of futilely hoping that Johnny would come to his senses or that Morgan would tire of having the boy about, she’d resolved upon this last resort: reporting Morgan to the magistrate.

As she sat in the office waiting to be shown in, she tried not to think of Morgan before the court, Morgan dragged off in chains, Morgan hating her. She tried not to remember all the bits and pieces Samuel had related to her about how Morgan was working with Johnny.

So what if Morgan had taught Johnny some practical skills? It was probably only to make the boy more useful to him as a pickpocket. And did it matter if Johnny claimed that
Morgan had forbade him to steal? Of course not. What else would he tell Samuel, knowing that the footman would tell her? No, any kindness Morgan showed Johnny was merely meant to soften her objections to his business practices.

What she must remember was Lucy’s face, ravaged with her own guilt. Apparently, when the poor girl had found out where her brother was, she’d gone to the shop and begged him to go live with her at the tavern. Johnny had thrown the offer back in her face. He liked living at Morgan’s, he’d told his sister. He didn’t want to leave.

Full of remorse, Lucy had appealed next to Clara, but what could Clara do when Johnny refused to listen to reason?

No, there was only one alternative, and now she was determined to pursue it to the fullest extent. No matter what it did to Morgan.

After all, Morgan had never denied that he was a fence. He knew the consequences of his illegal actions. She’d given him plenty of chances to change his ways, and he’d scoffed at her every time. So now she would bring him down.

If the magistrate would take her complaints seriously. Which was by no means certain.

“His Worship will see you now,” a clerk said and led her down a tiny passage to a cramped office.

His “Worship,” Elijah Hornbuckle, sat behind a desk buried in papers. His broad, flaccid cheeks, protruding lips, and spotty complexion gave him the look of a bespectacled and bewigged frog. Fortunately, his fashionable attire added a certain gentlemanly air to his appearance, which somewhat compensated for his odd face.

But the tall man who stood with him, while being somewhat handsome, apparently lacked the inclination to dress well. His stock was crookedly tied, his shirt cuffs soiled, and his coat woefully ill-fitting. She would guess his age as forty-odd years, judging from his lined features and his bald spot,
which shone like a polished apple where it peeped through the straggled hair combed over it. Mr. Hornbuckle introduced him as Rodney Fitch, police officer.

This fellow was Lucy’s Mr. Fitch? Good Lord, the girl must be half-blind to choose him over Samuel, no matter how respectable or financially comfortable the police officer might be.

“Mr. Fitch will be investigating your complaint,” Mr. Hornbuckle said, waving her to a chair.

The officer bowed more deeply than was proper. “At your service, miss…I mean, Your Grace…I-I mean, m’lady. It is ‘m’lady,’ ain’t it?”

“Yes,” she muttered, stifling a groan. Matters had just gone from bad to worse.

Under the best of circumstances, she would question the slovenly Mr. Fitch’s competence, but his relationship to Lucy roused even greater concerns. If Lucy had any influence over the officer, the girl would make sure he found no fault with Morgan, since Morgan presently sheltered her brother. And Morgan would slip free again.

Yet Clara could hardly tell the magistrate her objections to Mr. Fitch without involving Johnny, which she was determined not to do. Wondering if this was a futile visit after all, she took a seat in the wooden chair before the desk.

The magistrate leaned back and folded his hands over his belly, which only made his chin double over his cravat, giving him an even more froglike appearance. “The clerk tells me you’ve come to report a Suspicious Character.”

“Yes.” Quickly she explained about Morgan and his shop.

Mr. Hornbuckle effected a most magisterial air, but other than that he showed little interest in her complaint. Fitch, however, whipped out a notebook and scribbled in it with a stubby pencil.

When she finished, Mr. Hornbuckle mused a moment. “Evidence?”

“I-I beg your pardon?”

“Do you have evidence?” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “Come on, come on, what is it? Give me your evidence.”

“I already told you. A known pickpocket sold Captain Pryce a watch that I overheard the boy saying he stole.”

“And the name of this pickpocket? We’ll bring him in for questioning.”

Mr. Fitch regarded her with great interest. She swallowed. “I-I can’t say.”

“You mean you don’t know it?”

Unwilling to lie, she shrugged and hoped Mr. Hornbuckle would leave it at that.

“All right then, you have a suspected pickpocket—”

“A
known
pickpocket,” she corrected.

He scowled at her over the top of his spectacles. “He cannot be
known
if we do not know his name, can he? Now then, what else?”

She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Come, come,” he said, snapping those cursed fingers of his again, “what other evidence have you? What other stolen goods have you witnessed being bought? Or sold?”

She stuck out her chin. “It’s not as if I stood in his shop and watched what went on. That’s what your police officer is supposed to do during his investigation, isn’t he?”

Mr. Fitch’s tiny shake of his head warned her that she’d strayed into a sticky area, but by then it was too late.

Mr. Hornbuckle puffed himself up like a frog preparing to belch. “Lady Clara, with all due respect, a great many individuals enter this office bearing evidence—
hard
evidence, mind you—of intrigues and thievery and general skullduggery. We scarcely have the time or officers to investigate all of those. We certainly can’t run after every rumor that blows this way and that. When you have hard evidence, come back
and we’ll speak again.” He rose officiously and gestured to the door. “Good day, my lady.”

She rose, too, outraged by the curt dismissal. “But…but…this man works for the Specter!”

Mr. Fitch blinked. Mr. Hornbuckle scowled. Then they both exchanged glances. Apparently, she didn’t need to clarify who the Specter was.

“Are you sure?” the magistrate snapped. “How do you know?”

“Well, he said—” She broke off, realizing that to explain herself she’d have to explain her own connection to Morgan, which would hardly help Johnny. “I-I heard it from several individuals. They said Captain Pryce worked for the Specter. Or at least was thinking of doing so.”

“That’s two separate things entirely,” Mr. Hornbuckle said. “And rumor is hardly proof of anything.”

“All the same, guv’nor,” Mr. Fitch put in, “I don’t mind looking into it. Might be sumpthing to it, y’know.” When Mr. Hornbuckle frowned at him, Fitch added, “If he’s with the Specter, sir, shouldn’t we investigate?”

“I’ll be the one to say what we investigate, Fitch, and I’m not about to waste a police officer on rumor and speculation.”

“You mean, you refuse to do anything?” she said incredulously.

“I didn’t say that, madam,” the magistrate retorted. “In light of your information—such as it is—I’ll consult with my superior and perhaps, if he agrees, we will—”

“Who is your superior, sir?” she demanded, not ready to leave the matter with a man so unwilling to give it weight.

He pursed his lips in a decidedly toadlike manner. “I am under the auspices of the Home Office.”

“And to whom do you report?”

He looked as if he might not answer, but even Mr. Horn
buckle wasn’t so brazen as to refuse to answer a lady of rank. “Lord Ravenswood, madam.”

“Thank you. Then I shall speak to Lord Ravenswood myself.” Turning on her heel, she started out of the room.

“He will only tell you the same thing!” Mr. Hornbuckle called after her. “You must have evidence, my lady, evidence!”

“I should like to hear it from him myself,” she called back, not even bothering to take her leave as she stalked through the outer offices. All she wanted was an investigation, for heaven’s sake. And the magistrate acted as if it were a great imposition, instead of his civic duty as an officer of the law.

Very well, she would go to his superior. She knew Lord Ravenswood from social occasions, and he seemed an honorable sort. Surely he would make the magistrate listen and send out an officer to investigate. She’d even take Lucy’s Mr. Fitch if that was all she could get.

She was half a block away from the Lambeth Street Office when a voice called out, “Wait, m’lady!”

Halting, she turned around to find the spindly-legged Mr. Fitch galloping after her. He pulled up short, breathing much harder than ought to be necessary for a man of his age. “I want…to speak…to you,” he gasped out.

“About what?”

He breathed heavily a moment longer, then straightened, tugging at his cravat nervously. “I’m wondering if…that is…I suspect that the pickpocket your ladyship spoke of is related to a certain female acquaintance of mine.”

“Perhaps,” she hedged, curious to see how much he would reveal.

“I hear that this particular pickpocket is in residence at the alleged fence’s shop.”

Her lips tightened. Word certainly got around fast. “If
we’re speaking of the same individual, then yes, I believe that is the case.”

“Well, then, m’lady…” He paused, hunching his shoulders. “I was wondering if your ladyship might know why the boy has associated himself with Cap’n Pryce.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And I’m wondering why you’re so interested in your acquaintance’s relative, sir.”

Mr. Fitch shrugged. “I’m speaking of his sister, as I s’pose you know. I look out for her from time to time. But I can’t have nobody, especially Mr. Hornbuckle, thinking that I associate with criminals. Especially if you’re right about this Pryce fellow.”

Oh, dear, what should she tell him? She didn’t want to ruin Lucy’s chances for a better life, but Mr. Fitch certainly didn’t seem the right sort of man for Lucy. “It’s my understanding that the pickpocket resides there as a legitimate employee of Captain Pryce. And not to…er…steal for him.” Or so Morgan said. She still didn’t know whether to believe him.

A spark of speculation flickered in the man’s gaze, but it was gone so fast that she might have imagined it. “Well, then, if you’re right, that’s not so bad, is it?”

“No, not so bad at all.”

He bobbed his head. “Thank you, m’lady.” Then he turned and trundled back to the police office.

She watched him go. How on earth had that fellow ever become a police officer? Except for a moment there, he hadn’t struck her as being particularly bright and certainly not very brave. He’d barely questioned the magistrate’s decision. He’d been more concerned about protecting his reputation than his “female acquaintance’s” brother.

“You could do much better, Lucy,” she said to the air.

But that wasn’t her problem, she told herself as she headed up the street. Right now, her main concern was how
to stop Morgan. Which meant she’d be paying a visit to the Home Office this afternoon.