Unraveled (34 page)

But no. Jeremy sat in his usual spot on a stool, mending a seam on a pair of trousers with infinite patience. He didn’t look sullen or scuffed to her eye. He still looked utterly dear.

“Jeremy,” she breathed.

“Miranda!” He stood up, smiling. “Oh, you look fabulous. What are you doing here?”

She crossed over to him and put her arms around him. He stiffened slightly, but hugged her back. “I’ve come to say farewell,” she whispered. “I’ll be leaving soon—leaving Bristol. Possibly forever.”

He nodded sagely. “Going with your protector?”

“No.” She took a deep breath, and dropped her voice. “It’s not safe for me here. I have to leave. The Patron threatened Robbie—set him up for a hanging offense. I don’t want to be next.”

Jeremy turned utterly white. “Robbie? The Patron threatened
Robbie?
Who—no—why—” He took a breath. “How do you know?”

“He sent a note, mentioning me. The Patron wants something. I can’t fathom it, either, but I don’t intend to wait around to find out what it is.” When the danger had passed, of course…

“Ah,” Jeremy muttered. “God. Not again. This isn’t happening again.” He set his needle down and looked across the room, his eyes shadowed.

“I don’t know what he wants,” Miranda said, “but the Patron has proven that he’ll pursue the ones I care about. Jeremy, I’m worried about what he might do to you.”

Jeremy didn’t look at her. “I’m not in any danger from the Patron.”

“I don’t care if you’ve paid for protection. Something different is going on. The normal rules are suspended.” Miranda looked away. “Assume the Patron knows everything. He knows we’re friends. He knows I’d want you to stay safe. Maybe you should…”

But of course Jeremy wouldn’t come with her, not with his mother in such straits.

Her eyes fell on a display of top hats—rat-eaten, battered, and coming apart at the seams. So limp, they’d scarcely stay on a head. They were in a bin next to some shabby coats. Someone had pinned a label to one of them: “
Old hatts for the Guy. 2
d.”

It was close to the Fifth of November. But the possibility of buying a hat wasn’t what caught her attention. She reached and picked up the foolscap label. That handwriting… That spelling. It couldn’t be.

Her world swirled around her.

“Trust me,” Jeremy said behind her. “I’m not in any danger from the Patron. I’m certain of it.”

She
knew
that hand.

“I see,” she heard herself say. Someone from the shop must be working with the Patron. Closely. She’d received letters from him.

Could it be Jeremy himself? No; she knew how he spent his days. She knew his writing, too.

But that left…

The smell of tobacco smoke wafted into the room. Up front, Old Blazer had lit his pipe. She’d smelled that scent before—that exact same smell, that same dreadful blend. It had come drifting to her through a rosewood screen once. And…and on the two days when she’d visited the Patron, Old Blazer hadn’t been in the shop. He’d been out—sick, Jeremy had said, but how was he to know? Jeremy had been left alone. Old Blazer hadn’t been in.

The writing, the tobacco smoke…none of those things added up to proof. But she knew Old Blazer. He was canny: he saw too much, bargained too well. He was reasonable—until he was crossed, and then his temper could not be controlled. The man had little love for the law. She’d heard his diatribe about the magistrates. He blamed them for the death of his only son.

She spoke very softly. “So. One of the Patron’s trusted workers is in this room.”

Jeremy grimaced. “Not quite. The Patron wants…damn, there’s no good way to say this.”

Miranda sucked her breath in on a sudden, cold certainty. How would Jeremy know what the Patron wanted, if he wasn’t working with him? How would Jeremy be so certain of his own safety?

There was only one way. Old Blazer wasn’t
working
with the Patron. He
was
the Patron.

Miranda unpinned the note from the hat and slipped it into her skirt pocket.

“Tell me, Jeremy. What is it that the Patron wants with me?”

He looked around and then leaned in. “The Patron,” he whispered in low tones, “is planning to step down. The Patron will do whatever it takes to win the compliance of the heir apparent.” There was a bitter hint to his words. “Why do you think George disappeared? Of course the Patron wants to talk to you. He needs a replacement. George is just leverage. As was Robbie.”

It would have made just as much sense if Jeremy had told her that the Rat-King of Andor had chosen her as his successor. She could think of absolutely no reason that the Patron would have picked her to take her place. “I don’t understand. That doesn’t make any sense.” But then, it didn’t make any sense to threaten Robbie. And senseless as it seemed, it fit the evidence. The Patron was desperate to talk to her.

Jeremy gave her a grim smile. “The only thing you need to understand is that I’m the one person the Patron won’t endanger. How do you think I’ve felt, all these weeks?”

She knew how Old Blazer looked at his only grandson. The old man adored him.

Across the room, Old Blazer puffed on his pipe. He watched her so idly, she never would have guessed his interest. He saw her looking at him, and slowly he raised his hand. The greeting seemed all the more sinister for its nonchalant friendliness.

“Get out of here, Miranda,” Jeremy said softly. “Don’t worry about me. Just get out.”

She nodded. “Farewell.”

“Maybe, in a few years…” He trailed off.

She didn’t know what to say. It was too much, to lose Jeremy and Smite and Robbie, all within the space of twenty-four hours. She felt as if she might be losing herself.
All
of her friends…

But she hadn’t lost Smite. Not if she knew who the Patron was. It was her
duty
to tell him, no matter how that recounting might affect Jeremy and his family. She simply had to walk out of here as if this were one last good-bye. She embraced Jeremy again and slipped out the door.

But outside posed a greater problem. The cart had disappeared. Dryfuss had vanished. Her maid was nowhere to be seen. Miranda was utterly alone in Temple Parish—a wealthy-looking woman without luggage. Without protection. For the first time, as she looked around streets that had once been familiar to her, she felt truly unsafe.

She swallowed and started up the street toward the bridge. Even though the insistent beat of fear in her throat suggested otherwise, she had to hope they’d gone to the station to load her luggage. Once she found Smite, all would be well once more.

But the passersby brushed against her. The shoves grew more aggressive the farther she walked. Her heeled boots hadn’t been made for long journeys. She’d never been so glad to turn the final corner, to see the gray stones of the Bristol Bridge in front of her. Even without her driver, she’d made it.

The blue uniforms of several constables, waiting at the gate, seemed even more welcome. She raised her head and strode forward.

One of the constables stepped in her way. “Your pardon,” he said. “But we’re looking for a woman answering to your description.”

The first thought that went through her was that Smite had changed his mind. A bolt of hope shot through her. He’d not given up on her—on
them
. But then the constable put his hand about her wrist and held her tightly.

“We’re told you’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you,” he said. Behind him, his companion reached out and put his hands into her skirt pocket. He rummaged about, and then pulled out a watch. It was tarnished and battered, but it ticked complicitly in the man’s hands.

She stared at it blankly. “That’s not mine,” she protested.

“We know.” The grip on her wrist tightened. “Make a note of it. She admits it.”

“No! I mean I don’t know how it got there.”

“They never know, do they, James?”

“Oh, no. It’s always planted there. You’re all innocent—the lot of you.”

“I
am
innocent!” she protested.

“Tell that to the judge,” James said sarcastically.

But it was the officer who held her who truly made her shiver. Because he leaned in and whispered in her ear what she had just begun to fear: “Tell that to the Patron.”

Chapter Twenty-one

A
FTER MIDNIGHT,
M
IRANDA GAVE
up trying to sleep. Her cell was cold; the cot impossibly hard.

When she lay down, her corset cut into her waist. She couldn’t reach behind her to loosen the laces of her gown. Instead, she listened to the guards that patrolled the area.

They hadn’t brought her to the gaol; that was for convicted criminals. She was in a small holding cell at the police station. The only window was a small square hole cut in the door. Closed, only a faint trickle of gray seeped around the edges. She could see nothing. Her other senses brought her little information, too. There was the regular sound of booted feet as the guard crossed the hall and stood, not ten feet away, as part of his rounds. When he stood close by, the dimmest hint of light shafted into her cell from his lantern. He stayed for a few minutes. Then his footsteps started once more, and he disappeared down the hall. She counted past two thousand in impenetrable blackness before he appeared again.

Over and over, the patrol repeated, until her head began to spin.

The pattern altered sometime after a clock somewhere struck three. The rhythm of the footfalls that drew near seemed more complicated—the sound of two people walking, not just one. Miranda sat up, clutching her blanket. The patrol stopped in front of her cell. This time, metal jingled and a key scraped in the lock. The door opened.

Two lanterns shed light, turning the people outside into black silhouettes.

Miranda shrank back against the wall. One dark, cloaked figure strode in, and set a lantern by the door.

“Who are you?” Miranda’s voice shook.

No answer came. The wooden door thudded shut, but the figure did not move. Miranda’s breathing grew shallow. She held still, as if somehow, if she didn’t move, he wouldn’t see her. Outside, the footfalls moved onward. The officer had left her alone with…with whomever this was.

Still, the figure didn’t speak. Instead, he advanced toward Miranda.

“I’ll scream,” she choked out. She looked around wildly for a weapon, but the only thing within reach was a tattered blanket.

“Go ahead.” The answering voice was raspy, and not at all what she’d expected. It was a woman. An older woman.

“You’re with the Patron.”

The woman didn’t bother denying the charge. She reached out and grabbed hold of Miranda’s shoulder. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her arm muscular. She brought her other hand up, and a glint of light caught a metal blade.

Miranda did scream then, and she kicked out hard. But the woman simply grunted, absorbing the blow, and pressed Miranda against the wall.

“Shut up,” she said, holding the knife up near Miranda’s throat. “This is what your life is worth—five seconds and a scream in the dark that nobody hears.”

Her assailant grabbed a hank of Miranda’s hair and jerked her forward. Her scalp stung; the knife flashed. Miranda bit back another scream.

But the woman had done no more than cut off a lock of her hair. She stepped back, putting her knife away. Miranda became aware of the rapid beat of her heart, the shallow rasp of her breathing.

“I thought the Patron wanted a replacement,” Miranda gasped. “How could this convince me to support his cause?”

A snort came in the dark. “The Patron decides matters of justice. If
someone
doesn’t like the Patron’s version of justice, well… you can just tell that
someone
to construct his own version in its place. This is a warning, dearie. Count yourself lucky. You could have ended up like George.” Another chuckle. “You still might. This—” the figure held up the hank of hair “—is just a token of the Patron’s good will.”

“An arrest and a cold cell is a token of good will?” Miranda muttered. “I’d hate to see him angry.”

“Your name will be on the list distributed to the magistrates tomorrow morning. Lord Justice will free you before seven of the clock. You won’t even have to wait for the hearing.” The woman turned, and then threw over her shoulder. “Tell him that, when next you see him. Tell him that you’re here on sufferance. Next time…”

Miranda shivered. None of it made sense. Why would the Patron want
her,
of all people, as a replacement? A reluctant replacement would hardly do any good. And Miranda had shown little talent for running criminal enterprises. She could drive a hard bargain; that was it. All those days in Old Blazer’s shop—had he been watching her then?

She curled into a ball. Her hands were trembling. “If the Patron doesn’t want to harm me, why threaten me? Why threaten
Robbie?”

There was a long pause. “The Patron wants what every man wants,” the woman finally said. “He wants to leave a legacy.”

Miranda rubbed her forehead. Her head was beginning to ache with the dull throb of sleeplessness. She could hear the sound of boots tramping down the corridor once again—hard slaps against the stone floors.