Wasp (44 page)

Around the park, hawkers are packing up their wares. Wasp’s eyes water. Every rogue gust catching the underside of her bonnet drags on her wig. If it flies off there’s nothing to be done about it. Cole leads her up a path between flowerbeds and around a fountain. Another gust catches the spray and gives them a soaking. People are abandoning the park in droves.

‘Marvellous,’ he declares, flinging his hands in the air. ‘I spend a ransom on a Masque and there is no one to witness it. What use is that? Some of the best members of society are meant to walk and ride here. I don’t see so much as a gig.’

While his back is turned, Wasp dumps half the roses behind a shrub and rearranges the others. When he faces her, all pretence at a smile is gone.

‘Come, we shall try around the cooing seats and then think about supper.’

‘How am I to get home?’

He scowls. ‘What?’

‘How am I meant to get home, sir? The sedan bearers say they have no arrangement to return for me.’

‘Half an hour in my company and already you are talking of going back? One thing at a time, my doxy. I aim to have my money’s worth out of you before the evening is done.’

He starts off again, Wasp tripping in his wake. Above, the clouds finally burst, spattering the gravel path with fat black raindrops. The wind drives water across the park in howling sheets. The roses wilt into sodden lumps in Wasp’s arms.

‘Very well,’ Cole says, realising that, despite the cost, he isn’t going to defeat nature. ‘We shall not trifle with a chair. It is a short walk to my lodgings.’

‘I am not permitted into private residences except by prior arrangement, sir.’

‘So what do you propose to do? Stand here and drown? You admitted yourself you have no transport. I cannot leave you out in such vile conditions. We can take warmth and hot coffee in my rooms then arrange to go to supper. Don’t make me insist.’

Wasp, who’s shivering by now, doesn’t have the heart to argue. She follows him out of the nearest gate. Her gown has turned into a wet mass that drags on her legs. Cole turns a corner, and then another. He encourages, distracts, and within five minutes has her completely lost.

The season is spiralling to an end and evening tumbles fast onto the city.

Cole’s lodgings are on the ground floor of a narrow, gable-ended building that must have suffered the hard part of a hundred winters. He fumbles in the gloom for a key and waves her inside. A small room, blessedly warm and simply furnished. A fire chuckles behind a grate and candles have been left burning on the mantel. Cole removes his coat, throws it over the back of a chair and pours himself a drink from a bottle on the dresser. Then he locks the door.

‘What are you doing?’ Wasp demands.

‘Cutpurses are at large in this part of town. They’d think nothing of coming into a man’s room and stealing the gold from his teeth.’

‘Aren’t you going to fetch coffee?’

‘The fire will warm you well enough.’

‘A carriage, then? To take us to supper?’

He eyes her gown. ‘You need to dry yourself first. Take the dress off and I’ll hang it in front of the grate for you.’

Wasp’s voice cranks up a notch. ‘No, I can’t—’

‘Don’t be coy. I brought up three daughters after their mama died. You mustn’t risk catching a fever.’

‘It’s not appropriate. I’m a lady. ’

Cole puts down his glass. ‘Is that right? And what lady can be bought for a purse of coin, I ask you?’

Wasp’s hands tighten on the flowers. ‘What is it you want? Why have you really brought me here? If you want a harlot there are places where your money will be welcome.’

‘Do you know a woman named Anna Torrance?’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know what name your House has given her. She’s a tall girl, fair as sunshine, with a picture of a bird etched on one cheek and a pattern of red and white diamonds on the other.’

‘What would you want with her?’

‘I might as well be honest. She’s got a child out there, and that could cause a great deal of trouble for some well-connected people. Trouble is, the whereabouts of that child is a mystery. The one man who knows has given us the slip. So I’ve a proposition for you of sorts.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Now that’s a shame. Could put a fat purse in your hand. Your mistress don’t need to know. It’ll all be quiet and discreet.’

‘You want me to lead her to you, is that it? Why don’t you hire her yourself?’

‘Easy to say, Miss, but hard to do. Can’t just walk in there and pluck a body out. The Abbess likes the glint of sovereigns as much as the rest of us, but she’s got a nose for a rat and no amount of money will stop her sniffing us out. You lot don’t matter so much, but her Harlequins are a different tale, and while young Torrance is in that gilded cage I can’t touch her. She got away from me and my kin once already. Her quack friend was cleverer than we gave him credence for. But you don’t know who she is or where she came from, do you?’

‘What makes you think I could persuade her to go anywhere?’

‘Because you’ve done it before, at that bawdy house, the one called the Cellar. Word gets around, especially in our circles. Help us out, and afterwards you can go wherever you want, especially with a purse to smooth things along.’

‘How do you know so much about me?’

Cole grins and taps his broken nose with a forefinger. ‘Wasn’t supposed to come to this, but that doctor of yours — oh, he’s a slippery fish. Maybe if we have his prize girl he’ll prove more willing to settle our business with him.’

‘So you’re after the Fixer too?’

‘The Fixer? If you’re talking about Dr John Cannon then he’s the man with the answers, though fixing ain’t something he’s always good at from what I’ve heard. It’s no use looking outraged. ’Twas Anna Torrance herself who put us onto his tail. She paid my master to do a little persuading, but her own father, a man not to let things lie, got word of the matter and paid more. So if we catch two little rabbits in the same snare we earn a fee twice over. That’s good business to my mind.’

He puts down his glass. ‘I’d hoped we could settle this in the park. But it seems the weather had other notions.’

She slaps him across the face. He stumbles backwards with a mulish bellow of surprise. A red palm print burns on his left cheek. Both eyes go as wide as sovereigns and his breath pumps out in long, heavy gasps.

‘I shall not be your Judas,’ she says.

‘Well, I’m truly sorry to hear that. Hiring you cost good money. I daresay I’d like it back.’

‘Masques don’t carry money. ’

He shrugs. ‘I reckon I’ll have to make you change your mind then.’

He moves towards her. She waits, fingers now hooked into claws.
Come on. I took it in the Comfort Home and I can take it from you.

But Steven Cole, gentleman merchant, does something unexpected.

He dies.

A Dangerous Errand

The bag is gone.

The Fixer doesn’t know exactly when he lost it, only that it’s no longer slung over his shoulder. It has likely burst on the cobbles, the contents strewn across the road. Vital medicines, yet worthless to any thief. He has no time to curse their loss.

The men were waiting for him outside the apothecary. Three of the buggers. ‘Where is the child?’ he was asked, and with that one question knew immediately that his days at the House were over. From their faces he also knew these men would not be put off by appeals of ignorance. Two carried staves and made no effort to hide them.

He’d fought like an animal. A broken nose for one, a few missing teeth for another. In the end he’d put all three down long enough to buy a few seconds to run. Losing his pursuers will depend on how well they know the curving back alleys and lanes of this city quarter. Pounding feet warn the Fixer they’re close. He clutches his side. A stave had caught him on the ribs, possibly cracking one.

It can’t be a coincidence. They knew he frequented that apothecary, and when to expect him. Was the storekeeper behind it, for a fat bribe perhaps? If so, what had led them to that particular shop in the first place?

He cuts a corner, stumbles and barrels into a wall. Pain rips up his side. The lane runs between two warehouses and he hauls himself behind a stack of empty crates. A fierce gale is kicking up with rain not far behind. He sits in the gloom and tries to quieten his breathing.
Where is the child?
The question knocks about inside his head.

Voices at the mouth of the lane. ‘Should we split up?’ someone asks.

‘Naw, look at the beating he gave us. You think you’ll fare better on your own? Frankly it’s no loss to me if we don’t find him. Let someone else get their teeth knocked out.’

They move off down the main thoroughfare. The Fixer counts off five minutes before leaving the sanctuary of the crates. He knows a good back route to the House from here. It’s unlikely those brutes will find him now.

You knew this day would come, John. You’ve been ready for it ever since you arrived
. Yet here he is, beaten and bleeding again. Who could have betrayed him?
Who?

‘Babies,’ the Fixer whispers. ‘It’s always about babies.’

Whatever people think of him now, it was true he’d been a doctor once. Clara Hawley finished that, but was it her fault or his? Dr John Cannon, as he was called then, was in no doubt she would die. Most of her blood had spilled over the front of his silk shirt. Two guineas and countless fittings had been the cost of that extravagance, and now it wasn’t even fit to burn. The baby was in the wrong position; any quack could’ve surmised that. It was likely dead too. Cannon suspected the umbilical cord was wound around its neck. Not having to worry about the child sometimes made saving the mother easier, but Clara was already halfway to God and wouldn’t be turning back from that journey. Her skin had taken on a terrible pallor. Both hands were claws on her prayerbook. He’d tried slipping it from her grasp but suspected nothing would persuade her to let go. She had scant other comfort.

Music seeped through the walls. The party was at its peak. Five minutes after arriving, Clara’s waters had broken, much to the irritation of their host. ‘You’re a doctor, Cannon,’ he’d said. ‘Be a fellow and see to this, will you? And, for pity’s sake, be discreet.’

Clara’s young husband, already drunk, was puking his gizzards into the privy. Oh, the lad had tried, Cannon conceded that much. He’d stood beside her, full of endearments and noble, hand-holding intentions. Maybe the child was his, maybe it wasn’t. In any case at the first spattering of blood he had to be carried from the room.

Now it’s just me and you, like it was before.

‘My baby—’ A heat-drenched whisper.

‘Don’t you do this to me, Clara Hawley,’ Cannon muttered. ‘Have you any notion how long it took me to rise in society? My place is balanced on a sword edge and because of you I could lose the lot. I need you to live.’

He should’ve opened the windows. The room stank. He kept blinking to clear the sweat from his eyes. How much had he drunk? The punch had been concocted to deceive. Two glasses of that and perhaps a brandy on top. Then there had been the generous swig from Crabbe’s hip flask on the way here. ‘A warmer for the journey’ he’d called it.

Pain speared Cannon’s jaw. He was grinding his teeth again. A habit from childhood. ‘A wonder you don’t wear them to the bone,’ his mother had declared.

He tried to get another hold on the child. A shudder coursed through Clara’s body.

‘Damn it.’

He stood listening as the last breath rattled from her lungs. The Bible slid from her fingers and thumped onto the floor. The baby wasn’t coming, not ever. Her eyes were closed, her muscles already relaxing.

Cannon searched the cramped dressing room he’d been obliged to use. The wardrobe offered nothing. Likewise the drawers. He tore a curtain from its rings and draped it over the body.

A noise from the door. Crabbe stepped into the room, glass in hand. He glanced at the covered figure. ‘So you lost her? The child too?’

‘She was damned from the moment she conceived. I couldn’t get the baby out. The mother hadn’t a whimper of strength left.’

‘You mean it’s inside her yet?’

‘Even in death she clung onto it. And it’s sapped the soul right out of her.’

‘Was it your child, John? I know you were tupping her. That could prove a damned expensive distraction.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘They’ll want someone’s hide for this. You’re not of their blood, no matter how many parties you attend or fine clothes you buy. You can smoke their cigars, sup their port and play as many hands of hazard as you like. I’ve no doubt they find you entertaining but they’ve drawn borders around themselves. It’s a matter of breeding. At the very least you’ll be ruined. At worst, dead.’

‘Clara should never have been let out of confinement. I had no help. Not so much as a scullery maid.’

‘I’ve no hand for this sort of thing.’

‘You’re not to blame. At sea I was nicknamed “the fixer”. I led people to believe I could fix anything. This is the price of my vanity. I was fonder of parties than practising my craft. I’ve turned rusty as an old door hinge.’ He held up blood-drenched fingers. ‘I couldn’t get my rings off. They cut her inside. God forgive me. I should never have come off the ships.’