Vanity (2 page)

“Like as not, we’ll ’ave to fight the surgeons’ messengers for ’em, guv,” one of the four said with a leering wink.

“When they’re safely at the Royal Oak, there’ll be another guinea each,” the man in brown said coldly. Turning on his heel, he made to push his way back through the crowd. He’d done what he’d come to do, ensured that his friends’ bodies would not end up on the dissecting table under the surgeons’ knives, but he had no stomach to see their deaths.

He made fair progress until he reached the middle of the crowd; then the noise swelled from the Tyburn Road, heralding the imminent arrival of the prisoners from Newgate, and he found he couldn’t take another step as the excitement rose to fever pitch around him and the throng pressed ever closer to the gallows. Resigned, he stood still, bracing himself against the buffeting as the crowd jumped on tiptoe, pushed and pulled, cursed and shouted, jostling for a better view.

“Take yer ’at off, woman!” The raucous yell was accompanied by a none too gentle shove at the monstrous confection of straw and scarlet-dyed feathers.

The irate owner, a florid-faced carter’s wife reeking of gin, swung round and launched a stream of Billingsgate obscenity that was answered in like form. The man in brown sighed and tried to close his nostrils to the stench of alcohol and unwashed humanity as the atmosphere heated up despite the still-falling snow and the vicious wind. Something brushed against him; he felt a fluttering against
his waistcoat, and he was instantly alert. He clapped his hand to his waistcoat, knowing what he would find. His watch was gone.

Furious, he stared round at the sea of eager, panting faces, eyes glowing with excitement, mouths ajar. His livid gaze fell on an upturned face beside him, standing so close to him a wisp of cinnamon-colored hair brushed against his shoulder. It was the face of a madonna. A perfect, pale oval, with tawny gold eyes set wide apart beneath a smooth, broad brow; luxuriant dark-brown eyelashes fluttered, and her beautiful mouth quivered in distress.

Suddenly a loud voice bellowed, “Take care of your pockets! There’s a bleedin’ pickpocket around!” and a chorus of indignation rose in the close air as people patted their clothing, felt through pockets, and discovered that they too were missing sundry items.

Almost instantaneously, the girl standing beside him swayed, moaned, and sank downward. Instinctively, he caught her up before she could be lost in the sea of legs and heavily booted feet stamping on the cobbles. She hung limply against him, her face even paler than before, perspiration pearling her forehead.

Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured, “Your pardon, sir,” before she collapsed again and began to slip through his hold.

He hauled her upright, maneuvering her into his arms, and turned to push his way out of the crowd. “Let me pass. The lady is swooning,” he declared repeatedly, the harshness of his voice having some effect so that at last he managed to make his way to the rear of the throng, who were now taken up with the spectacle at the scaffold. He’d reached a relatively empty space when the great roar from the crowd told him that the cart had been driven from beneath Gerald and Derek, leaving them swinging from the gibbet. His expression grew grimmer, and his eyelids dropped for a second over eyes that were gray and cold as arctic ice.

“My thanks, sir,” the bundle in his arms murmured in a faint voice as the girl stirred. “I have lost my friends in the
crush, and I was so afraid I would be trampled. But I’ll manage very well now.”

Her voice was surprisingly deep and rich. Her velvet cloak had fallen open as he’d pushed through the throng, revealing a simple gown of fine muslin, a discreet white fichu at the neck as befitted a modest young lady of good family. Her hands were buried in a velvet muff. She gazed up at him and offered a tremulous smile when he seemed disinclined to set her down.

“How do you intend finding your friends?” he asked, looking around pointedly at the seething press of humanity. “They could be anywhere. This is no place for a gently bred young woman to wander alone.”

“Pray don’t let me trouble you further, sir,” she said. “I’m certain I shall find them … they’ll be looking for me.” She moved in his hold, and he detected more than a touch of determination in her efforts to free herself.

Suspicion flickered in his brain as he thought of the sequence of events. It had all been very convenient … but surely he was wrong. This sweet-faced, honey-voiced innocent couldn’t possibly have been light-fingering her way through the crowd.

Philip’s face sprang unbidden to memory. Philip as he had been as a child. Angelic, gentle, coaxing, innocent little Philip. Neither of his parents would hear a word against their darling—not his parents, or his nurse, or his tutor, or any member of the household where young Philip ruled supreme.

“Put me down, sir!” The girl’s now indignant demand brought him back to the present with a jolt.

“In a minute,” he said thoughtfully. “But let us first devote some attention to finding your friends. Where exactly did you lose them?”

“If I knew that exactly, sir, I would have little difficulty finding them again,” she responded tartly. “You have been very kind, and I know my uncle will be very grateful to you for rescuing me. If you give me your name and direction, I’ll ensure that a reward is sent on to you.” She wriggled again with serious purpose.

He tightened his hold, hitching her higher up against his chest. His voice was suave as he protested, “My dear ma’am, you insult me. It would be the act of a dastard to leave such an innocent girl to fend for herself in these circumstances.” He looked around him with an air of anxious interest. “No, I really must restore you personally to your family.”

He glanced down at her again. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, and snow was gathering on the glowing brown hair coiled smoothly around her head. Her expression was one of acute exasperation, banishing all trace of the helpless swooning maiden in distress. “Perhaps if you told me your name, we might make some inquiries,” he suggested gently.

“Octavia,” she said through gritted teeth, praying that he’d be satisfied and set her on her feet. Once on the ground, she’d be free and clear in a second. “Octavia Morgan. And I do assure you, there is not the slightest need for you to remain with me any longer.”

He smiled, convinced now that he was right. “Oh, but I believe there is, Miss Morgan. Octavia … what an unusual name.”

“My father is a classical scholar,” she responded automatically, her mind now working swiftly as she finally understood that he was playing with her. But why? Was he intending to take advantage of her present vulnerability? On the whole, he didn’t strike her as a man likely to ravish a young lady in distress. He looked and spoke like a gentleman, although his plain garments and unpowdered hair indicated someone who didn’t inhabit the Fashionable World.

But if not that, why wouldn’t he let her go? The fruits of her morning’s work were concealed in a pouch tied around her waist and lying snugly against her thigh beneath her top petticoat. She could reach for it through the slit in her dress that enabled her to adjust the position of her whalebone panniers when moving through a narrow doorway. He couldn’t possibly feel the pouch, even holding her
as he was, but it was time to bring this dismayingly intimate encounter to a close.

Her hand came out of her muff, and she drove the heel of her palm into his chin, jolting his head back. At the same time, she twisted her head and bit his upper arm hard.

He dropped her like a hot brick, and she was up and running, weaving through the crowd with a desperate agility; but she knew he was on her heels, a silent, deadly pursuit. She ducked into an alley, gasping for breath, hoping she’d given him the slip, but then she saw him advancing on the mouth of the alley, a look of set purpose on his face.

She plunged out of the alley and back into the rowdy crowd that was beginning to disperse. The mood was now quarrelsome and voices were raised in streams of abuse, fights erupting as knots of people struggled to get out of the square. A rank of chairmen touted for custom as the throng eddied past them and Octavia headed for the line. She glanced over her shoulder, praying that her pursuer had followed her into the alley, but he was still behind her, keeping pace with her, pushing through the crowd, seeming not to hurry and yet somehow gaining. There was a relentlessness to this dogged pursuit, and her heart began to thump, the first tremors of panic fluttering over her skin. She had his watch. If he’d guessed and was intending to capture her and bring her before the magistrates with the evidence still about her, then she’d be facing the hangman as surely as the two unfortunates whose deaths had just provided the crowd with such an amusing morning.

Her hand slipped through the slit in her skirt, feeling the laden pouch. The tapes beneath her petticoat fastened at her back and were impossible to reach one-handedly through the slit, so she couldn’t untie the pouch and throw it from her at this point even if she wished. And she didn’t wish. It would be a cowardly waste of a morning’s work. There was enough to pay the rent, redeem Papa’s precious books and buy his medicine, and put good food on the table for a month to come. And if she gave it up, those heart-stopping, nauseating moments of terror that had accompanied
every artful brush of her fingertips would have been for nothing.

Resolutely, she withdrew her hand and slithered sideways through a noisy family group bewailing the disappearance of a child. They closed up behind her, arguing violently. The rank of chairmen was almost ahead of her now … three more steps …

“Shoreditch!” she gasped to the leading chair, and moved to step inside as one of the two chairmen held open the door.

“No, I don’t think so, Miss Morgan.” A hand closed over her shoulder as the quiet voice spoke, gently mocking, behind her. “You see, I really do feel I have a duty to see you safely restored to the bosom of your family.”

She was caught. But he couldn’t know for sure that she had his watch. She was hardly dressed like a common thief, and the only evidence he had was that she’d been standing beside him when the cry of “pickpocket” had gone up. She turned to him with a haughty toss of her head. “Sir, I find your attentions unwelcome. I trust you won’t oblige me to summon the constable.”

Amusement glittered in the gray eyes bent with such mocking solicitude upon her. “On the contrary, ma’am. Perhaps I should summon him for you.”

“You goin’ to Shoreditch, lady, or not?” the chairman demanded truculently before she could gather her wits to deal with this very deliberate calling of her bluff.

“Most certainly I am.” With relief she turned again to enter the sedan chair.

“No,” her infuriating companion said in the same affable tone as before. “No, I really don’t think so.” Taking her arm now in a grip that meant business, he drew her away from the line of chairs. “You and I are going to have a little talk, Miss Morgan.”

“About what, sir?” she snapped.

“Oh, I think you know,” he said equably. “A little matter of private property and public assaults. But let us get out of this crush.”

She seemed to have no choice, but at least there was no
more talk of constables. Maybe he’d be satisfied with the return of his property and that would be an end to it. She said nothing, offering no further resistance as he swept her long before him through the gradually decreasing crowd.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed. The mob began to push and shove with greater force, and a panicked murmur ran through their ranks. Voices were raised in warning, and the murmur of panic became a full-throated roar.

“Odd’s blood,” Octavia’s companion swore as he identified the roar. He tightened his grip on her arm. “Trust the press gang to know where to find good pickings. We have to get out of here before they run amok.”

Octavia lost all desire to free herself from her companion, who was suddenly her only anchor. Her feet were swept from beneath her, and if he hadn’t dragged her against his body, she would have gone down to the cobbles. The whole mass of humanity surged forward, men, women, and children screaming as they fought to get out of the square and into the surrounding streets where they could run freely. An army of cudgel-wielding sailors headed by a group of naval lieutenants poured into the square from the Edgeware Road, rounding up men and boys indiscriminately as they swept down upon them, inexorable as a tidal wave. Women’s sobs and cries of protest as their husbands and sons were torn from their sides rose above the angry, frightened roar of the frantic crowd.

The press gang wouldn’t take up a gentleman, and Octavia’s captor was undoubtedly a gentleman, but their danger lay in being swamped by the crowd. The screams of the trampled rose high-pitched with anguish, then faded into long drawn-out groans of pain and despair as the heedless feet kept coming, kicking and stamping on fallen bodies.

Octavia lost all sense of direction; she was aware only of the strong comforting grip on her arm as they were tumbled along on the tide. She could see nothing except chests and arms until something flashed across her sideways vision.

“Over there!” she yelled, trying to make herself heard above the tumult. She darted sideways, lowering her head and pushing like an enraged bullock toward the deep doorway
that had caught her eye. Her companion added his own bulk to the process, carving a path sideways through the throng until they were huddled in the doorway and the tide was sweeping past them.

“Thank God!” Octavia leaned against the door at her back trying to catch her breath. Her hair had come loose from its pins, and her fichu was torn, exposing the creamy swell of her bosom. Her companion’s gaze slowly drifted over her disordered appearance, and abruptly she pulled her cloak tighter around her, covering her dishevelment, aware of the weight of the pouch lying heavily against her thigh.

“You have sharp eyes, Miss Morgan,” her companion observed calmly, leaning beside her, watching the passing stampede. “We’ll stay here until it’s over.”

“I presume you too have a name, sir,” she said in an attempt to recapture her earlier assurance.