My Favorite Thief (2 page)

“The first person I see upon leaving this room will be shot dead, Lord Chadwick,” Harrison vowed darkly, “and that includes you. Now
move
before I—”

A deafening blast suddenly tore through the house, cutting short Harrison's threat.

“Run for your lives!”
His bulging eyes nearly bursting from their sockets, Lord Chadwick knocked his startled servants aside as he fought to beat them down the stairs.
“Run before he murders all of us!!”

The entire household instantly exploded into a maelstrom of fleeing bodies, the distinctions of sex and class obliterated as servants and aristocrats crashed into one another in their desperate bid for safety.

“I told them to go into the kitchen,” muttered Harrison, exasperated. “Now I've got an even bigger crowd to contend with once I get outside.”

“If you keep me in front of you, they won't shoot,” the girl suggested.

“I'm not taking you with me—that idiot groom is liable to kill you in his attempt to save you.”

“I think he dropped his rifle.” She glanced around the door and saw the clumsy firearm lying abandoned on the carpet. “There, you see? He must have thrown it down after it went off.”

“It's Miss Kent, is it?” Harrison's tone was bland.

“It's Charlotte, actually. Miss Kent always sounds so terribly formal—”

“It may surprise you to learn, Miss Kent, that I'm not in the habit of abducting helpless women and using them as a shield. I don't intend to start now.” A dull throbbing had started to pound at the base of Harrison's skull. He was beginning to wish he had stayed home that night.

“You're not actually abducting me—I'm offering to help you,” Charlotte pointed out. “Unless you are prepared to be arrested and spend the rest of your days in a prison cell, you have to let me help you get out of here.”

Her eyes were large and earnest. It was impossible to determine their color in the soft veil of light spilling into the room, but it struck Harrison that they were unlike any he had ever seen. There was a singular strength emanating from the strange young woman standing before him, a unique resolve that was as bewildering as it was captivating.

“Are you carrying a pistol?” she demanded.

“No.”

She frowned. “What about a dirk?”

Reluctantly, he nodded. “I have a dagger in my boot.”

“A dagger is fine for threatening to cut my throat,” she allowed matter-of-factly, “but if someone decides to try to wrestle it from your hand, we're going to have a problem.”

He didn't know what to make of her. Any normal gentle-born woman would have been drowning in tears by now, begging him to release her unharmed. Instead this strange girl was scanning the room, apparently trying to come up with another weapon for him. He went to the window and glanced at the crowd still gathered on the street below. The hammering in his head was spreading now, sending deep tentacles of pain streaking across his forehead and into his temples.

“I know!” she exclaimed suddenly. “You can hold Lady Chadwick's hairbrush in your pocket and press it against my ribs as we go out, giving everyone the impression that you have a firearm.”

She grabbed a heavy silver brush from the bureau and held it out to him. As if she actually believed he was a man of great daring, who was easily capable of outwitting an irate mob on the strength of a mere hairbrush. For some strange reason, he was loath to disillusion her. When was the last time a woman had looked at him with such pure, untainted trust in her eyes? he wondered bleakly. The pain in his head was getting worse now. He knew in a few minutes it would be excruciating, and then he would be unable to think at all. If there was any chance of escape, however small, this was his only moment to grasp it.

“And what do we do when we get outside?” he asked.

“Don't you have a carriage waiting for you?”

“No.”

She frowned again, as if she found it incomprehensible that a thief could attempt a robbery so poorly prepared. “Then we'll have to take mine,” she decided, moving toward the doorway.

“Are you hurt?”

She regarded him in confusion. “No—why?”

“Your leg—you seem to be having trouble walking.”

“It's nothing,” she assured him shortly. “I'm fine.”

Shoving Lady Chadwick's hairbrush into his coat, he wrapped his arm around her.

“I don't need your help to walk,” she protested, trying to push him away. “I'm quite capable of—”

“I'm only doing as you suggested and pretending that I am using you as a shield.”

“Oh.” She stopped fighting him, but her body was rigid beneath his arm. It was obvious he had touched a raw nerve when he mentioned her leg.

“Once we are outside, if anyone decides to overtake me, I want you to get the hell away from me so you are out of harm's way.” Harrison regarded her seriously. “Is that clear?”

She shook her head. “No one is going to attack you as long as I stay in front—”

“Is that clear?”

“If I move away from you, someone might shoot you.”

“We're not leaving, Miss Kent, until you say yes.”

She sighed, reluctant. “Yes.”

“Fine, then. Let's go.”

They moved awkwardly down the staircase together. By the time they had reached the main floor, his accomplice was breathing heavily, and despite her assurances that she was fine, Harrison knew her gait was painfully stiff. He had little time to reflect upon this, however, as they stepped up to the front door and into the view of the crowd awaiting them outside.

“Everyone move back,” Harrison commanded, holding fast to his partner, “and send Miss Kent's carriage over.”

The terrified horde obediently took a few steps backward. The carriage, however, was not forthcoming.

“Send Miss Kent's carriage over,” repeated Harrison heatedly.
“Now!”

“I heard ye the first time, ye soddin' piece o' scum,” barked a furious voice. “An' if ye so much as bend a wee hair on the lass's head while I'm bringin' it to ye, I'll be scrapin' yer cowardly flesh from yer thievin' bones and choppin' it fine afore I grind ye into haggis!”

Harrison watched in astonishment as an ancient little man scuttled as fast as his skinny legs would carry him toward the line of carriages on the street. Displaying a remarkable agility for his advanced years, he hauled himself up into the driver's seat of one vehicle, snapped his reins against the horse's hindquarters, and sent the carriage lurching forward.

“That's Oliver,” Charlotte whispered to Harrison as the carriage barreled toward them. “He is very protective of me.”

“Wonderful,” drawled Harrison.

The carriage clattered to a stop directly in front of the entrance. Oliver cast Harrison a murderous look before regarding Charlotte with concern. “Are ye hurt, lass?”

“No, Oliver,” Charlotte assured him gently. “I'm fine.”

“Ye'd best make sure she stays that way, ye spineless cur,” he warned Harrison, “if ye're thinkin' ye'd like to keep yerself in one fine piece.”

The idea of the wiry little Scotsman fighting him was preposterous. But Harrison recognized the old man's overwhelming fear for the girl pinned against him, and he knew better than to trifle with the elder's emotions.

He had learned that strength born of fear and frustration could be far more dangerous than that of mere youth and muscle.

“I give you my word that Miss Kent will not come to any harm as long as you do exactly as I say,” he told him.

Oliver snorted in disgust. “Canna trust the word of a rogue who'd snatch a helpless young lass an' push a pistol to her ribs,” he spat contemptuously. “Ye thieves today have nae honor, an' that's the sad truth o' the matter. Now in my day, ye'd nae see me wavin' a gun about—”

“Please, Oliver,” interrupted Charlotte. “We have to go
now
.”

Oliver glowered at Harrison. “All right then, ye wicked rascal, see if ye've enough manners in ye to help Miss Charlotte into the carriage, an' we'll be off.”

Relaxing his hold upon her slightly, Harrison reached up to open the carriage door.

“No!”
cried Charlotte suddenly.

Harrison turned just in time to see a nattily attired gentleman clutching a pistol in front of the doorway from which he and Miss Kent had just emerged. One of Lord Chadwick's guests had not abandoned the house after all, he realized numbly. Instead he had hidden inside, waiting for the perfect moment to race out and shoot the infamous Dark Shadow in the back. The man's beefy hands were trembling visibly, his brow jeweled with perspiration as he leveled the pistol at Harrison.

Harrison wrapped himself around Charlotte, enveloping her in the hard shield of his body just as the weapon exploded. Pain ripped into him, burning a path through flesh and bone. Holding Charlotte fast, he jerked open the carriage door.

“Stop, thief!” roared his assailant. “Or I'll shoot again!”

His shoulder on fire, Harrison whipped around, shoving Charlotte behind his back. He brandished Lady Chadwick's hairbrush menacingly through the fabric of his coat. “Throw down your weapon or I'll shoot your bloody—”

Another shot exploded through the darkness.

Harrison froze, knowing if he flinched the bullet would strike his protective young charge instead.

For a moment no one moved, anxiously waiting to see if the infamous Dark Shadow had been killed.

“Thomas!” screamed a woman suddenly. “Oh, dear God—Thomas!”

Confused, Harrison raised his gaze to the front doorway.

The fashionably attired guest lay sprawled upon the stairs, his arms and legs spread out upon the polished stone steps. At first it looked as if he had merely slipped and fallen. But something was leaking across the pale surface of the step beneath him and weeping onto the next in a grotesque river of crimson.

“Saint Columba—ye've killed him, ye filthy swine!” blazed Oliver, appalled.

Harrison stared in bewilderment at the limp, bleeding form of the man on the stairs, his hand still gripping Lady Chadwick's hairbrush.

“Get in the carriage!” urged Charlotte. “Now!”

“I'm nae takin' him anywhere,” Oliver raged, “the bastartin' devil! He can bloody well hang—”

“He didn't do it!” Charlotte was trying desperately to get Harrison to move. “He couldn't have, Oliver—he doesn't have a pistol!”

Oliver scowled, confused. “He doesna?”

“Please, you can't stay here!” Charlotte pulled hard on Harrison's arm, trying to get him into the carriage.

The night was filled with screams now. Men and women were running away, disappearing down laneways and into neighboring mansions, wildly trying to escape the murdering Dark Shadow. There was nothing he could do for the poor bastard bleeding on Lord Chadwick's steps, Harrison realized bleakly. Surrendering to Miss Kent's pleas, he helped her into the carriage. Then he hauled himself up and banged the door shut as the vehicle flew forward.

Pain was everywhere now—blinding in ferocity. Its talons had sunk deep into his brain and eyes and ears, while the fire streaking through his shoulder was radiating to the tips of his fingers. His coat sleeve was sodden with blood, and his mouth was nauseatingly dry. He was alive, and so was the strange young woman who had interrupted his disastrous escapade.

Everything else was lost.

Chapter Two

I
KNOW YE'RE THERE,
A
NNIE, SO YE NEEDN'T BE SNEAK
-in' up the back stairs like a ghost, hopin' I willna notice.” Eunice banged her rolling pin against a crumbly ball of dough, throwing her considerable weight against the recalcitrant mound as she flattened it into submission.

“I didn't want to disturb ye.” Annie adjusted the damp, thin hood of her cloak and stared guiltily down at her boots. “I didn't think anyone would still be in the kitchen.”

“Miss Charlotte hasn't returned from her dinner at Lord and Lady Chadwick's, so we're makin' oatcakes while we wait for her, Oliver, and Flynn to come in,” Doreen explained, slapping several rounds of dough onto a hot griddle. “Why don't ye come have one with a nice cup of tea?”

Annie shook her head. “I'm dead tired.” She hunched further into the depths of her cape. “I'll just be off to bed.”

Doreen narrowed her eyes. Her aging vision had weakened in the past few years, but she was still canny enough to recognize when someone was trying to hide something from her.

“Why don't ye let me take yer cloak and hang it up for ye by the stove?” she offered kindly. “ 'Tis wet from the rain that's started—nae point in draggin' it all the way up to yer room.”

“No.” Annie's pale hand clutched the garment closed at her throat. “I'd rather keep it with me—I'm cold.”

Doreen dropped the last oat circle onto the griddle and sighed. “All right, lass, keep it with ye. But if ye've a problem, ye needn't be afraid to tell me and Eunice, or Miss Charlotte, if ye'd prefer. That's what we're here for—to help ye.”

Eunice looked up from her dough, baffled. “What problem?”

“There ain't no problem,” Annie quickly assured her. “I'm fine.”

Doreen fisted her blue-veined hands on her narrow hips, unconvinced. “Then why are ye tryin' so hard to hide yer face?”

“I ain't.” The girl's voice was small and tight.

“Did someone hurt you?” Eunice demanded.

Annie vehemently shook her head. “It's just a little bruise.” Her voice began to break. “It'll be all but gone come mornin'—”

“All right then, my duck, let's have a look,” soothed Eunice, wiping the flour from her strong, plump fingers as she moved toward the cowering girl. “There's nae to fear, lass—I'm just goin' to take a wee look and see what can be done for it.” She gently slipped Annie's hood off her head. “Sweet Saint Columba—who did this to ye?”

“He didn't mean to hit me,” Annie insisted, raising her hand to the ugly plum-colored stain blooming around her left eye. “I made Jimmy mad, is all, an' he swung his fist before I had a chance to dodge it. He'll be awful sorry about it the next time he sees me—I know he will.”

“If I catch the filthy devil, I'll make him more than sorry!” raged Doreen, her little walnut-colored eyes blazing with fury. “I'll crown him with a pot and put a boot to his arse afore I throw him in the street!”

“Oh, please, Doreen, you mustn't hurt Jimmy.” Annie regarded her imploringly. “He's just havin' a hard time bein' without me, is all.” Her voice was soft with regret. “He misses me.”

“He misses the brass ye used to make for him by sellin' yerself on the street to any piece of scum who fancied ye, more like,” fumed Doreen. “He misses feelin' like he owns ye.”

“Here now, lass, sit down and let's get a cool cloth on that eye and see if we canna keep the swellin' down.” Eunice poured cold water from a chipped jug onto a cloth and pressed it gently against Annie's bruised face. “Does it hurt much?”

Annie winced. “I've had worse.”

“I wish I had a leech to put on it,” Eunice lamented, shaking her head. “That takes the swellin' down nice and quick. After this I'll put a little of my rose-and-rotten-apple conserve on it, and by tomorrow morn' ye'll be good as new.”

“Thank ye.” Annie was silent a moment before hesitantly asking, “Ye ain't goin' to tell Miss Kent, will ye? She'll be dreadful disappointed in me if she knows I went and saw my Jimmy. When she asked me to come stay here, she said she believed I could make somethin' fine of myself, as long as I was willin' to give up whorin'. I didn't know that meant givin' up Jimmy, too.” She bit her lip. “He thinks whorin' is all I'm good for.”

“We'll leave ye to tell Miss Charlotte about yer eye yerself. But if she asks us if we know how it happened, we'll nae lie to her,” Doreen warned sternly, “and neither should you.”

“ 'Tis always best to tell the truth and shame the devil.” Eunice folded her cloth over so a cooler part lay against Annie's bruised eye. “Even though the truth may sting a wee bit.”

“I don't want Miss Kent to think I've disobeyed her.” Panic tightened Annie's thin, sharp features. “Then she'll make me leave.”

“Miss Charlotte would nae make ye leave as long as she thought ye was willin' to honestly try for another life,” Doreen assured her. “She lived on the streets herself, once, when she was just a lass. She's even spent time in prison.”

Annie's eyes widened. “Really? For what?”

“For stealin', when she was nae much younger than you.”

“She doesna judge people for havin' a bad start,” continued Eunice, “as she knows most bairns with a hard start have nae hope of makin' a decent life for themselves. That's why she opened up this refuge house—because she wanted to help.”

“Sounds like they're home already,” remarked Doreen as the clatter of horses' hooves came to a stop in front of the house.

Alarm spread across Annie's face. “I'm off, then,” she said, leaping up from her chair. “I'll tell her about Jimmy in the mornin'—when my eye don't look so bad.”

“It canna be Miss Charlotte—it's too early,” Doreen argued, patting her shoulder. “Ye just let Eunice take care of ye, lass, an' I'll go see—”

“Eunice! Doreen!” Charlotte's voice was anxious as she called to them from the main floor above the kitchen. “Come quick!”

“Somethin's amiss,” hissed Doreen, snatching up a heavy iron skillet.

“Aye.” Eunice grabbed her rolling pin. “Ye stay here, Annie, and dinna move till we tell ye 'tis safe.”

“And pull those oatcakes off the griddle afore they burn,” added Doreen, heading up the stairs. “They're all but done.”

 

C
HARLOTTE STOOD IN THE ENTRANCE HALL, DESPERATELY
struggling to hold up her half of the Dark Shadow. Her small friend, Flynn, who claimed to be twelve but struck Charlotte as more the size of a ten-year-old, was valiantly trying to support the enormous thief's other half.

“Let's toss him on the supper table,” Flynn suggested, fighting to keep from dropping his heavy, rain-soaked burden.

“I think he should be put to bed,” Charlotte countered. “He's very weak.”

“Stand back or I'll smash yer scurvy skull in!”
Doreen exploded through the doors from the kitchen, waving a heavy black skillet before her.

Eunice burst into the hallway behind her, a floury rolling pin poised above her like a truncheon. “Sweet Saint Columba!” she gasped, taking in the sight of Charlotte and Flynn holding up the bleeding Dark Shadow between them.

“Flynn and I need your help.” Charlotte felt a little better at the sight of the two white-haired women flailing their makeshift weapons about. No matter how desperate the circumstances, she could always count on Eunice and Doreen to be ready to fight. “This man is injured and cannot walk.”

“I can manage,” grunted Flynn, his little freckled face twisted with exertion. “He ain't that heavy.”

“Ye may find him light, lad,” agreed Doreen, taking hold of Harrison's arm, “but Miss Charlotte's nae so young and swack as you.”

“Shall we take him to the kitchen?” asked Eunice, grabbing Harrison's other arm.

“No, let's take him to the empty chamber upstairs.” Charlotte clenched her jaw, trying to ignore the painful throbbing in her leg. She was not accustomed to bearing any weight on the injured limb other than her own. Most days even that was difficult for her. “He has been shot and needs to be attended to.”

Eunice regarded her with concern. “I'm hopin' that's his blood on yer dress, lass, and not yours.”

“I'm fine, Eunice.”

“Oh, dear Lord in Heaven, Miss Kent!” squealed Annie, emerging from the doorway to the kitchen. “I'm awful sorry—I told him to keep away!”

Charlotte regarded her in confusion, taking in her bruised eye. “Do you know him?”

“Of course I know that stinkin' piece of dung—how dare he think he can go about frightenin' a fine lady like yerself!” Trembling with fury, Annie marched over to Harrison. “Bastin' me is one thing, Jimmy, but scarin' Miss Kent here makes ye lower than scum—do ye hear? An' don't try to hide from me behind some pissin' mask!” She reached up to jerk his disguise off.

Harrison's hand snaked around her wrist with bruising strength.

“Don't touch me,” he ground out softly, twisting her hand away from his face. “Or my mask.”

“You ain't Jimmy!” Annie gasped, stunned.

“No,” he agreed. “I ain't.” He released her.

“He's the Dark Shadow.” Flynn regarded her with great superiority, pleased to know something she didn't. “Miss Kent found him tryin' to nick some jewels from Lord Chadwick's house, but instead of turnin' him over she decided to help him. Then some gotch-gutted nob tried to shoot him an' got shot instead, only the Shadow here didn't do it, 'cause he only had a hairbrush in his pocket. I was in the carriage an' I seen the whole thing.”

Doreen blinked, confounded. “A hairbrush?”

“Aye—he's schooled in the old ways.” Oliver nodded with approval as he shuffled in through the front door. “Although I must say, laddie, speakin' strictly from one professional to another, next time ye might consider a dirk instead.”

“Thank you,” Harrison managed, his teeth clenched with pain. “I'll bear that in mind.”

“We have to get him upstairs, quickly tend his wound, and try to get him safely out of here.” Despite Charlotte's concern for the Dark Shadow, she knew she could not possibly hide him in her refuge house for any length of time. “Everyone believes he has taken me hostage. Even though Oliver drove fast and we got away swiftly, the authorities are looking for us.”

“It willna be long afore they decide to come here, either hopin' to find the Shadow, or at least find that Miss Charlotte was released safe an' just went home,” finished Oliver.

“Right then—let's set a stout heart to a steep hillside.” Eunice tightened her grip on Harrison's arm. “Ye push him up from behind, Ollie.”

Breathing heavily, Charlotte did her best to support some of the Dark Shadow's substantial weight as the little group awkwardly climbed to the top floor of the modest house.

“Someone new movin' in?”

Harrison turned his head to see a pretty, sleepy-eyed girl of twenty-three or so peering around a chamber door, the brilliant red of her hair pouring over her simple white nightgown like flames.

“Who's this, then?” she wondered, staring at him with interest.

“We got the Dark Shadow, Ruby!” exclaimed Flynn, excited. “Come see!”

Ruby's eyes grew round. “Really?”

“Has he decided to stop thievin'?” demanded a younger girl, appearing behind Ruby. With her flat little nose and her sharp chin she was not quite pretty, but there was a sweetly youthful quality to her that made her somewhat attractive nonetheless. Harrison didn't think she could have been more than fifteen.

“I'm thinkin' he will, Violet,” Oliver interjected, before Harrison could answer. “If tonight counts for anythin', the lad's losin' his touch.”

“I'm not losing a damn thing.” The pain in Harrison's head was nearly blinding now, and his shoulder felt as if it was being slowly ground into pulp. If he didn't lie down soon, he was certain he would just collapse where he stood.

“If ye ain't givin' up yer criminal ways, then what are ye doin' here?” demanded Violet testily. “Only them that's willin' to make somethin' better of themselves can stay at Miss Kent's house. That's the rule.”

“Right now I'm not overly concerned about his future plans, Violet,” Charlotte explained. “I'm more concerned that he not bleed to death before we can do something to help him. Perhaps you and Ruby would run downstairs and fetch us some warm water and clean rags for binding.”

“And go into the medicine chest in the kitchen cupboard and bring me extract of lead, a lancet, a needle, a probe, and some thread,” added Eunice, huffing as they awkwardly eased their injured guest onto a narrow iron bedstead.