Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress (3 page)

“Run!” he ordered. “Run, or by God I’ll break your neck before they catch us.”

J
ames kept a tight grip on the red-haired wench’s hand as they ran. Her firm jutting breasts, narrow waist, and womanly hips were deceiving; under that luscious exterior, she was all muscle. With her free hand, she’d hiked her petticoat up above her knees and fled like a startled deer. He was setting their pace, true enough, but damned if she wasn’t keeping the pressure on him not to slow down.

They dashed into the first alley they came to, then took another. Angry shouts and the sound of musket fire assured him that the soldiers were still in hot pursuit. The trick was to get far enough ahead of the prison guards to hide somewhere until night—no easy thing when a man was yoked to a woman by four feet of iron chain. They couldn’t just blend into the populace; anyone who saw them would know they were escaping felons.

A rough-looking fellow on horseback reined in just ahead of them. For an instant, James thought of trying to pull the man out of the saddle and stealing the horse as he had before, but when the man drew a sword, James ducked wide around him and turned down a narrow back street.

“Do you know this part of London?” he demanded of Lacy as they tore down the dirt path.

She shook her head. “Nay, I’m Cornwall born and bred, but we can’t be too far from the Thames. I can smell the mud banks from here.”

An old crone opened her door a crack, saw the chain and neck collars, and slammed the door tight. James heard her muttered curses and the sound of a wooden bar falling in place as they hurried past. The walls on either side of the passage grew closer together, and houses leaned toward each other overhead until they nearly blocked out the sun.

“Damn ye for a clod-headed fool,” Lacy exclaimed. “After I go and free ye from the gallows, you lead us down a dead end.”

“Not yet, I haven’t,” he shouted back. Cheeky jade, he thought. When she’d kissed him in the cart, a hank of her red-gold hair had fallen back from her face and he’d noticed a raw brand high up on the left side of her forehead. The glimpse had been too quick for him to see what she’d been marked with. T most likely, T for thief. It had struck him as unnaturally cruel, that even the crown would demand that such a beautiful woman be disfigured before she was hanged.

No such nonsense for a common pirate.

“... shall be taken henceforth to Execution Dock at Wapping and there hanged by the neck until you are dead,” the stern-faced judge had pronounced. “And may God have mercy on your black soul.”

But it hadn’t been henceforth. Riley had died, and Long Will. Styles and Ned and Smitty had gone to the gallows, been cut down, and been dumped in a common grave. All those bold English sailors food for worms while he’d lain in Condemned Hold for weeks and then months until he’d thought the king’s justice had forgotten him.

And when they did remember, they’d taken him not to Wapping, but to Tyburn. He hadn’t the faintest notion why his sentence had been changed. A clerk’s mistake? It didn’t matter. Tyburn had given him another chance at escape, one he hoped would be more successful than his earlier tries.

“There!” Lacy gasped. “In there.”

A door on the right hung open. James slowed to a stop and peered inside. The crumbling brick house looked deserted. Not a stick of furniture remained.

“Let’s ... let’s go ... in,” Lacy said. She was breathing hard. “I can’t run much farther without ... without resting.”

James led the way inside and shut the door behind her. The hinge was broken, so he twisted off a piece of rotten floorboard and wedged it in the doorjamb. Then he braced one arm against the crumbling wall and took deep, ragged breaths.

He glanced around the room. In one corner the remains of a stairway hung crazily from a corner beam. Nothing without wings could have gotten up the steps to the second floor. A fireplace took up one wall, but the bricks had fallen in and mice had built a nest on the hearth. Fire had swept through the house several years ago, during the big fire, or perhaps an earlier one. Wooden London had always been in danger of burning.

“We can’t stay here,” he said. “There’s no place to hide. Come on.” He brushed away spiderwebs and ducked through a low doorway into a lean-to room. The back door was missing entirely. Through the opening was an tiny enclosed yard overgrown with weeds.

James tested the strength of a supporting wall. The bricks were fire-charred but sound. He moved outside, dragging the woman behind him, and looked up at the main structure. There was an open window above on the second floor. “If we can get up there, we’ll be safe until dark,” he said. “Even if the soldiers search every house on the street, they won’t suspect that we’re upstairs.” He looked at her. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

“How far in front of ye can I go?” she asked. She stood with one hand on her hip, her bare right foot tapping the ground. That glorious mane of auburn hair gleamed like Spanish gold in the bright sunlight and her cinnamon-brown eyes snapped at him impatiently. “Surely ye don’t expect me to boost you up?”

“Damn me, woman, but you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he murmured. “I’ve not seen anything as pretty as you since Panama City.”

“Charm me later. We’ve no time for such talk,” she answered. “Are we going up or nay?”

He made a stirrup with his hands and she thrust a dirty bare foot into it. He heaved her up and she lay on her stomach on the roof while he shinnied up the swaying end post. When he reached the roof, he crawled on hands and knees to the window. She climbed in first and he followed.

The single room was as filthy as the room below. One corner gaped open where the staircase had fallen away. There was no window in the front of the house. James looked around him and sat down. “We’ll bide here until dark,” he said.

“Aye, so I thought ye’d say,” she retorted. She settled herself as far from him as was possible with the chain between them.

“You’ve no need to fear me,” he said. “I’ll not harm you.”

“So the spider said to the fly.” She pulled her feet up under her petticoat and hugged her knees. “If my memory serves me right, ye threatened to wring my neck back at the gallows.”

He shrugged. “We were two steps ahead of the soldiers. I had no time to argue with a hysterical woman.”

She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “Hist, ye niding swashbuckler! You’ll see the devil in heaven the day I’m hysterical. Ye were a heartbeat away from hanging until I saved your sorry arse. So don’t be clamoring to me about having no time.”

The sexy rasp of her low voice made him remember how long he’d been without a woman.

“I’m no happier about being linked to you than ye be to me,” she continued. “At least I don’t stink like a whale carcass.”

James threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Peace, darlin’, I meant you no insult. I was only trying to assure you that I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I’m not your darlin’. The name is Lacy Bennett. Call me Lacy, or call me not at all. I’ve no taste for your honeyed words.”

“You’re a hard case, certain,” he teased, laying a hand on her knee.

She knocked it away. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

“Sassy, aren’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Touch me again without my say-so, and you’ll see how dangerous I can be. I’ll scream loud enough to wake the dead, and bring the soldiers down on you.”

“And you.”

“Aye, there’s truth, but I’ll do it just the same. I swear I will. I’ll not be manhandled by a bully with lice in his beard.”

James flushed and touched the black mat at his chin. “No fault of my own. I couldn’t persuade the warder to loan me a soap and a razor.”

She sniffed. “Or water. Pirates usually hang before they smell as sweet as you do.”

He was fast losing his patience with this brassy wench. “You would hardly be received at Whitehall in your present condition.” He stared at her with disdain. “You seem to have lost your jeweled slippers somewhere,
m’lady.”

“I traded my gown for a better cell.” She glanced down at her dirty bare toes peeking out from beneath her single tattered petticoat. “A trustee stole my shoes when they gave me this.” She raised the heavy lock of hair that hung over her left eye, revealing the W branded into her fair skin. The wound was somewhat larger than a brass farthing and not completely healed; the edges were red and raised.

“Well?” Her full lips firmed to a thin line. “Ugly, isn’t it?” Her voice was light, but her eyes dared him to tell the truth.

“I’ve seen worse.”

She let the lock of hair fall back into place. “One of the women in the general cell had consumption, and I’d no wish to cough my lifeblood away.” She shrugged. “Gowns are easy to come by, and shoes too, for that matter. My neck, on the other hand ...” She flashed a faint smile. “My neck is the only one I have.”

“I’m partial to the one I own too. Where is this boat you spoke of? I hope those brothers of yours are better at sailing than they are at staging a riot. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have been trampled by the mob.”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d not have this necklace.” She tapped her iron collar with a fingernail. “I’d have gone to Tyburn unencumbered. When the shouting started, I’d have slipped in amongst the crowd and gotten clean away.”

“So say you.”

She looked smug. “So say I. ’Twas you caused all the trouble, corsair.”

“My name is James, James Black.”

“’Tis what ye call yourself, mayhap, but not the name ye were christened with, I’ll wager.”

He stiffened. “Are you naming me a liar?”

“Call yourself Robin Hood for all I care. But you’ve the look of a lord’s son, under all that dirt and hair.”

James clenched his teeth. Fair-faced or not, the wench had the disposition of a harpy. “My past or my future is none of your affair,” he snapped.

“Nay?” She sniffed. “Just keep your hands to yourself and do as I say until we’re free of these cursed collars.”

“Do as
you
say? Not likely.” He liked spirit in a woman as much as any man, but this one went too far. His temper flared. “Enough of your sass, woman.”

She reached behind her and picked up a two-foot length of window molding. “Keep a decent tongue in your head,” she threatened softly, “or I’ll add a few more bumps to your thick skull.”

He swore a sailor’s oath.

She topped it.

“By God, I’ll—”

“Shhh,” she hissed.

The door to the alley banged open and they heard heavy footsteps below. James froze, and then motioned Lacy down as one set of footfalls went out the back. A coarse voice drifted up from the yard. “Nothing back here. If they went over that wall with those chains on, I’ll buy tonight’s ale.”

“Keep looking. Try the next house,” an authoritative voice ordered from the room below.

“They can’t be far. The old woman said . . .” The rest was lost as the soldier rejoined his companion.

James sighed with relief. “I think we’re safe enough for now,” he whispered. “When it gets dark, we’ll try to find those brothers of yours. Heaven help you if you’re lying.”

“They’ll be there,” she whispered back. “I’ve no need to lie. I’m too smart to get myself in a fix like this without planning a way out.”

The afternoon faded into twilight. James and Lacy heard horses in the alley and occasionally the tramp of what they thought must be soldiers, but no one else came into the house. Then, after a long stretch of quiet, they heard snatches of a tune.

The voice was male, loud, and very off-key. Immediately, Lacy cupped her hands over her mouth and gave an imitation of a cat meowing.

“What the hell—” James demanded.

“Shhh, I think it’s Ben.” She meowed again.

“... Sink them in the lowlands, lowlands ...” There was a thud, as though a heavy weight had fallen against the front wall of the house. “Just a pint, sir ... all’s I had was a pint or two.”

A different male voice rose in disgust. James couldn’t make out what the newcomer in the street was saying, but he was obviously arguing with the songster.

“Drunken sot.” The last word was faint, as though the speaker was walking away.

The door to the house opened and James heard hiccupping, then loud gagging. The choking stopped and footsteps echoed through the main room below. James tensed.

Lacy bent close to the floor. “Ben?”

“Aye, ‘tis me. Listen up. The streets are thick wi’ soldiers. A hue and cry is raised for two condemned prisoners. As soon as ’tis dark, come down and go out the back.”

“There’s a wall,” she said.

“Get over or under. I care not. Turn right, go to the first alley, and turn right again. Alfred and I will be waiting there with an undertaker’s wagon. We can’t get any closer. The futterin’ streets are too narrow.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Is the pirate still with ye?”

“I’m here,” James answered.

“How in hell did ye think I’d get loose of him?” Lacy asked.

“No matter. You’ll have to squeeze in together.”

“What?” Lacy asked.

“Be there.” He crossed the room and went out into the alley, once again playing the sot. “... Sink ’m in the lowlands, low ... Sink ’m in the lowlands ... looo.”

James rose up and peered suspiciously at Lacy through the gathering gloom. “Can we trust him?”

“He’s my half-brother.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“Ben’s a Bennett. Whatever he is, he’s loyal to his kin. If Ben says they’ll be there with a wagon, they’ll be there.”

 

Lacy swore under her breath and curled up, trying to minimize physical contact with James. Since they were both on their backs sharing a coffin and she was on top of him, there wasn’t far she could go.