C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

He said, “Who would Napoleon task to secure the diamond? Would he send in someone new? Or would he use a contact already in place?”

“It’s difficult to say. He’s taken both approaches in the past.”

“Would it be possible to find out?”

He half expected her to tell him no. Instead, she twitched the heavy drape in place and smoothed it down, although it already hung straight. “I can try.”

He let his gaze drift over the familiar planes of her face: the thickly lashed, slightly tilted eyes; the small, childlike nose; the wide, sensual mouth. His love for her still coursed deep and strong, as he knew it always would. He had loved her since he was so very young, untested by battle and as yet untouched by the bitterest of disillusionments. Even when he’d believed she’d betrayed him-even when he had tried to forget her-he had loved her still. Their souls had touched in a way granted to few, and he knew that even if he never saw her again, his life would forever be entwined with hers.

But he also knew that with every passing day, the distance between them yawned subtly deeper and wider.

And it disturbed him to realize the extent to which he neither trusted nor believed her.

After Devlin left, Kat sat down and composed a carefully worded note she dispatched to a certain Irish gentleman of her acquaintance. Then she ordered her carriage and set off for Newgate Prison.

She found Yates standing beside his cell’s small, barred window overlooking the Press Yard. There was an uncharacteristic tension in the way he held himself, and she went to slide her arms around his waist and press her cheek against his taut back in a quiet gesture of friendship and comfort. They were two outcasts who’d made common cause together against both their enemies and the disapproving world. In many ways, he was like the brother she had never had. And she found she had to squeeze her eyes shut against a sudden upsurge of unexpected emotion at the thought of losing him.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, closing his hands over hers and tilting back his head until it rested against hers. “I didn’t expect to see you again today. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the theater?”

“I’ve time yet.”

Beneath her encircling arms, she felt his torso expand with his breath. He said, “Your dashing viscount came to see me this morning.”

“Devlin isn’t my viscount anymore.”

“True. But then, he’s not exactly your brother either, is he?” When she remained silent, he said, “I’m sorry. That was totally uncalled for.”

“It’s all right,” she said softly.

He nodded toward the window, where the ancient masonry that formed the prison’s gatehouse was just visible. “Do you know what that chamber is over there, right above the entrance gate? They call it ‘Jack Ketch’s kitchen.’ I’m told that’s where they used to preserve the quartered bodies of those executed for treason, before putting them on display around the metropolis. They’d boil them in vast cauldrons full of pitch, tar, and oil. Must have smelled. . ghastly. The heads were treated to a different process, of course; those were parboiled with bay, salt, and cumin. I suppose I should be thankful that in our own more enlightened era, I can look forward to merely dancing the hempen jig for the amusement of the populace, before being given over to the surgeons for the edification of their students.”

“You’re not going to hang.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “The verdict of the coroner’s inquest is in. My trial has been scheduled for Saturday; did you know?”

“Oh, God. So soon?” She was aware of a pressing sense of urgency that came close to panic. And she understood, then, why he had been standing here watching the last of the light fade from his prison’s walls.

She said, “Is there anything you know about Eisler that you haven’t told Devlin?”

“I don’t think so.” He turned to face her. “Do you think I want to hang?”

She studied his dark, handsome face, the gold pirate’s hoop in his ear winking in the fading light. She said, “To be honest, I don’t understand why you’re still in prison. Jarvis could have had all charges against you dropped days ago, only he hasn’t done it. He knows you have the power to destroy him; all you need do is release the evidence you have against him. Yet he’s not afraid. Why not?”

He remained silent. But she read the answer in his face.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” she whispered. “That’s what he told you when he came to see you the night of your arrest. He warned you that the documents you hold can protect you, or they can protect me, but they can’t protect us both.”

Yates held himself very still.

She said, “I’m right, aren’t I? He told you that if you made any move against him, he’d have me killed.”

Yates turned to where a bottle of his best brandy stood beside a glass. “Unfortunately, I’ve only the one glass. May I offer you something to drink?”

She shook her head.

“You don’t mind if I do?” He poured himself a large measure. “So you see,” he said, setting the bottle aside, “I have even more incentive to cooperate with your viscount than you previously thought.”

He took a long, slow swallow of his brandy and looked over at her. “You came for a reason; what was it?”

“Devlin wanted me to ask you about Matt Tyson.”

Yates frowned. “I already told him I know the man only slightly. What more is there?”

“Where did you meet him?”

“In a molly house on Pall Mall. Why?”

Kat sucked in a quick breath. “So he’s a molly?”

“Of course he is. So is Beresford.”

The last of the light was leaching rapidly from the sky.

Kat knew she should be at the theater, preparing for that evening’s performance. Instead, she went for a stroll through the flower stalls of Covent Garden Market.

Already, the square lay in deep shadow, the few remaining vegetable and fruit sellers scrambling to hawk their fading produce, cheap, before closing for the night. Only the florists, nurserymen, and bouquet girls were still doing a brisk trade, selling flowers to the theater, music hall, and restaurant managers and to earnest beaux looking for posies to present to their lovers. The air was full of laughter and shouting and a sweet, familiar medley of floral scents that always took her back to another time, another place.

When she was a little girl growing up in a small white house overlooking the misty emerald swath of a Dublin green, Kat’s mother and stepfather used to take her to the market that set up every Wednesday afternoon in the cobbled medieval square of their parish church. She could remember running excitedly from one stall to the next, exclaiming over the displays of satin hair ribbons and lace collars and carved wooden tops. But her mother’s favorite stalls were always those selling bunches of yellow daffodils and rainbow-hued tulips, or pots of rue and pennyroyal, hollyhock seedlings and briar rose cuttings. She’d take them home and plant them in the narrow strip of garden beside their cottage’s front stoop. Even now, all these years later, if Kat closed her eyes and breathed deeply, she could still see her mother’s strong hands sinking into the rich dark earth, a faint faraway smile on her lips that told of a deep and rare contentment.

In some indefinable way, Kat knew that the child she’d once been had resented the joy and peace her mother found in her garden. But she’d never been able to decide if her selfishness came from the wish that her mother would find that deep, unalloyed joy in her daughter alone, or if she’d simply envied the tranquility she glimpsed in her mother’s face. And it shamed Kat now to remember that she had begrudged her mother those brief interludes of peace and happiness.