M.A. Lee: May 2024

Meet Vic and his two friends Elise and Hank,

Clarey, and Jem in these first pages from The Hazard of Secrets.

Prologue

Thursday, 9 June

Scared `im, Elise did, when she got all cold and hard and mean. Like she did when they spotted the two women walking, one with a bandbox, and a man behind the women, trundling a small trunk in a pushcart.

“Look, Vic. Good cloaks. And see how the right side of the young one’s skirt is dragging. She’s bound to have a purse full of money.”

“Snatch and grab.” Standing behind his sister, Hank wiped his runny nose then wiped his hand on the trousers that had grown too short.

“An’ the world all `round `em,” Vic retorted, “with that man ready to help. Nyah. For a snatch an’ grab, you need someone what’s lone. Besides, we got a job for later.”

Elise scowled, but Vic didn’t budge on this. He knew more than they did about the streets. He knew what happened when a constable collared you. Worse, what happened when one of the gangs that ran down at Liverpool’s waterfront claimed you’d poached on their patch.

“Besides,” he added, “that’s Berta. Works out of the Three Fishes.”

Elise stood on tiptoe. “Which one?”

“Red frowsy hair.”

Berta was a name they knew, Vic having warned of the trouble she’d bring. He worked best lone, but Elise had hair as golden as the rare sun. When he heard her soft voice and fine talk, he knew she and her brother wouldn’t last an hour on the streets. To think of her fineness ruined by the rough men who visited Pope Joan’s revolted him. So Vic took a risk, one of his few, and brought the pair under his wing.

Then that had to extend to their ma, who he didn’t think were their ma, but he had a circle now, whether he wanted one or not. They were trying to improve him, what with reading and a steady place to sleep.

He just wanted to keep `im alive.

Elise nudged Hank. “That’s the woman we saw talking to that man in the nice suit. The one who looked like he came from London,” she added importantly, “the Royal Courts of Justice, like Father did before he—.” She stopped.

Hank gulped back a sob.

Vic didn’t look at the boy. Elise didn’t baby her little brother, so Vic didn’t. Hank liked to hide the cracks in his toughness, but things leaked through. He were only seven, though. He and his sister both leaked dozens of clues about their background. London and Courts of Justice. How did they come to run the streets of Liverpool? He only knew how they’d met and everything after.

Running `round a blind corner in the warren of alleys, Hank had plowed into Vic. Elise ran on his heels. The fresh apples clutched in each hand, the fear on their grubby faces told him all he needed to know. If they’d known the back streets, they could’ve outrun old Hicks the greengrocer. They were young, swift. But they had turned into one of the blind alleys, unseen for such because of the twisting nature of the narrow backways.

When they skidded to a stop and started back, bound to run into the man breathing loud curses, Vic waved them over and pointed to an empty barrel. The boy hopped in first. The girl climbed in, reluctant but desperate. Vic shoved the lid in place and sat on it, whistling and kicking his heels against the sides. He barely got settled before Hicks came into view.

The grocer stopped. He puffed a moment. “Vic.”

Vic nodded but kept whistling.

“Where’s the two of `em?”

“What two?”

“The boy and the girl.”

“Didn’t see `em,” he lied. He was trusting to his reputation, hard-won, years in the making. He’d run these streets a good four year, far as he counted, and before that, he’d learned pocketpick and lockpick from Liverpool’s best. When Ollie got taken up, Vic kept to what he knew. On a crowded street, a quick dip into a pocket got him what he needed. Lone that first year, he nearly starved, but he’d never stooped to the rougher snatch and grab, and the shop owners knew that. The fences knew him. The cutpurses and robbers knew him. So far, the master of Liverpool didn’t know him. He wanted to keep it that way.

“They came this way,” Hicks insisted.

“Not this far in.”

“I saw `em, Vic.”

“Must’ve found an open door. Wouldn’t know.” Vic knew Hicks didn’t like to be away from his shop. “All I know’s they didn’t go past me.”

Hicks huffed and muttered, but he re-traced his steps, jiggling a few door latches. He found one open and peered into the darkness before changing his mind about following two wild children into an unlit room. Slamming the door, he stomped off.

Vic kept whistling long after Hicks disappeared. He kicked the barrel a few more times, especially when a knocking came on the lid. Then he hopped down, lifted the lid, hissed “sh-h”, and went to ensure the grocer had truly returned to his shop.

The two were still in the barrel when he returned. He helped them out.

Even though it was a fool thing, Vic kept helping them out. He learned their names. He watched the streets grime up their clothes until it took a hard look to see Elise’s lace trimming and Hank’s double-pleated shirt cuffs. Vic learned the woman they called ‘Ma’ weren’t their ma, and they learned the back streets and alleys and the best hiding places. Now they could run as fast as Vic did and never get lost.

But sometimes Elise got impatient with his caution.

“We could have had that nice cloak. Be warm for once. Phin—Ma could cut it down to a cape for her and a cloak for me and a vest for Hank.”

“Sell it and fill our bellies,” Hank said woefully. His growth spurt meant wrists and ankles showing, but his clothes still fit because he’d lost the silken layer that had rounded them.

“You don’t mess with Berta,” Vic warned. “She’s got her side jobs, but she works with the press gang, and the press gang works direct for the master. We don’t cross her, not if we can help it. Besides, we got a job.”

Elise stared at her boots, the blue now hidden by the scuffs and scum from the cobbles. “What’s today then?”

“Not today. Tuesday. Lock job.”

They perked up, for they usually scoured around whatever house he opened for the robbers. The men took the money items while they took food and candles and books and paper, ink and quills. Vic didn’t question why they wanted those things. The robbers didn’t care. Lock jobs brought in coins that kept them fed for the next days, off the streets and away from trouble.

“But I’m hungry.”

“I got a few coins saved back.” Vic jingled the little purse tucked under his waistband. Knowing that none of them had eaten yesterday and little enough the day before, he’d taken a handful of coins from his little hoard this morning. Just in case, he told himself. After seeing Berta, hearing Elise’s plan, and Hank’s woeful addition, he knew he’d have to spend those coins.

“Come on. We’re to the baker. See what he’s got from yesterday.”

Chapter 1

Sunday, 12 June

“Ya hear that?”

At the harsh question, Clarey Parton pressed a hand to her mouth and shrank deeper into the shadows behind the tall cabinet.

The flash of metal held by the bearded man had driven her to hide before they saw her. For three nights at the Three Fishes on One Hook, she’d asked for additional candles from the innkeeper Attley. He promised them every evening but never delivered. Every time she fumbled her key in her door’s lock, she silently cursed the man’s economy. Tonight, though, with two men peering down the corridor, she thanked Attley’s stinginess with the candles and oil. The shadows helped her hide.

“I heerd sommat.”

Clarey caught her breath. Her cloak matched the shadows. Wanting its warmth while she ventured to the maid’s room by the back stairs, she had thrown on the heavy wool. Now she tucked her hands and the neatly ironed cottons under the dark wool cloak and prayed for a miracle.

Without that flashing knife, she might have sailed past these men with the same cheery greetings she’d given all her fellows guests. She knew Rev. and Mrs. Hodnett. She’d met and secretly admired the tall man in the room across from hers. She had managed once, only once, to get a smile out of the scrawny clerk who finicked with his clothes. She had chatted with the maid and the char and the scrawny boy who ran errands for a ha’penny. These men, though—.

They stood in the circle of illumination cast by the sconce at the stair landing. She hadn’t spied such men in rough coats and knitted stocking caps on any of her ventures to the common room or the entrance hall. They likely kept to the taproom whenever they came in. What had brought them to the third floor?

“Can’t hear nothin’,” the other growled, his accent different. Yet they didn’t resume their conversation.

Clarey crowded into the wall, wishing to sink through the wood. She didn’t peek and strained to hear movement. What exactly had she seen?

Backs to the lamp, two men had looked down the stairs. She could identify them only by their build. Flabby’s coat didn’t meet over his protruding belly. Short and stocky had a thick black beard. Their dock worker accents reminded her of disembarking the Agnes Grace, when she was eager to be on unrocking cobbles rather than the schooner that had rolled and wallowed its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Innkeeper Attley had a diluted version of the dock accent. Nothing more distinguished these two men from any others that she’d seen walking the Liverpool streets close to the waterfront. Except that thick-bladed knife.

“I hear nothin’,” the second man repeated. “Rat, probably.”

Clarey wished again that she hadn’t let Miss Tompkins convince her to stay at the Three Fishes. “I will hear from my brother in a matter of days,” the woman had coaxed.

After weeks and weeks at sea and anticipating more days cooped up in a coach to reach her grandfather’s manor, Clarey had gladly delayed her upcoming travel. Now, though, she wished that she hadn’t listened to Miss Tompkins.

She’d hired Miss Roberta Tompkins as a traveling companion for the journey, and she had wanted to be an amenable employer. She had thought Miss Tompkins a lucky find, for she’d overheard the woman tell someone in the downstairs back hall that she knew a man at Parton March. Remembering that comment now, an alarum rang, loud as a fire bell. Why hadn’t Miss Tompkins mentioned that acquaintance during her interview?

“I heerd a sound, I tell ya. Summat, at least.”

“We got better things to do than chase a rat.”

“Ya made up yer mind `bout that man Axminster?”

Creeping like an inchworm, Clarey lifted the cloak’s hood over her head, adding its shadow to hide her pale face.

“Keep yer voice down.”

“Why? Past midnight. Nobody’s awake this late.”

Except for Clarey, needing to dry her hand-washed undergarments quickly and remembering the maid had a flat iron to do it.

Mr. Axminster’s room was across from hers. He’d helped the puffing porter carry her trunk up the flights of stairs. Then, while the porter claimed to be out of breath, Mr. Axminster had hauled the sea trunk into her chamber. A tall man, broad of shoulder and thickly muscled, his face was battered like a pugilist’s. Even though he never returned her greetings, his willingness to help had impressed her. She ignored his bashed nose and continued to smile at him. Just this morning he had touched his hat as they passed in the hall. The clerk could scarcely be bothered with such niceties.

What did two men, one armed with a knife, have to do with Mr. Axminster?

“I don’t like standin’ out here like this,” Flabby complained.

“Like I said, nobody’s out an’ awake this late, `cept the likes of us.”

“We could sit in that little room Berta pointed out to us.”

“We’ll miss the signal.”

“Then what ya think`bout that Axminster? Ya think we’ll get good coin?”

“Big man like him? Aye.”

“He’ll fight us, Cribbs. Ya seen the size of his fists? Like a great club they are.”

“Berta’ll give `im that special rum. That’ll put `im out, guaranteed. Then we git `im down the back stairs, haul him to the ship, an’ git good coin. He’ll wake up far out to sea. He’ll work then, or he’ll feed the sharks.”

The other man hissed a warning. While they peered down the stairs, looking for a signal, Clarey goggled at the flickering shadows cast by the candlelight.

Impressment. That’s what they were talking about.

She’d heard of press gangs, taking men for the Royal Navy, even off American ships. The Navy was desperate for sailors as the war with Napoleon dragged on. Only yesterday, as she sipped her soup in the common room and wished she had the table near the hearth, she overheard two men complaining about how few sailors were available to work on the merchant ships. One had lowered his voice and hissed, “We press them like the Navy does.”

“—split the money fer the pretty lady, with never a mention to the boss. Won’t have to turn over a cut fer her.”

The words had snatched back her attention. Talons of fear raked down her spine as the men chuckled.

“What the boss don’t know won’t hurt him. All to the good fer us.”

“We can have a little play with her `fore we turn her over to the madam. Those big eyes, blue as can be—ya should’ve seen her tryin’ hard not to look when I bumped her on the street.”

Me! They’re talking about me!

She remembered the bulky man who had jogged into her as she returned from the apothecary with a tisane for Miss Tompkins. Above his unshaved whiskers were a flattened nose and piggy eyes. When she sidestepped him with an excuse, he had grinned, gap-toothed. He gave an up-and-down sweep of his eyes then showed her his tongue. Appalled, she swept past. His guffaw had followed her.

The grime of the world, of place and people, hadn’t shocked her. Pa had educated his daughters in letters and ciphers as well as the world’s nefarious deeds. He hadn’t wanted them taken advantage of while he traveled on his long expeditions for the government. One of his chief lessons for Clarey and her half-sister Rissa was to load, prime, and shoot the dead center of a target with a variety of weapons.

Pa had taught defenses against physical harm. Clarey knew no defenses for the emotional harm when he disappeared and Rissa died.

These two men said “play”, but that meant torment and degradation. A solitary woman faced many dangers. Clarey had hired Miss Tompkins for that very reason. She also carried Pa’s pistol. Tonight, expecting only a quick trip down the hall and back, she’d left the weapon in her room.

Mr. Axminster press-ganged. Herself thrown into a brothel.

No.

“We get more if she’s untouched.”

“So she will be, where they want her to be. An’ never have to bring Berta’s name into it.”

Berta? Roberta? Roberta Tompkins? The woman who presented herself as a genteel lady forced by circumstance to seek employment as a companion?

Roberta Tompkins, who had begged this afternoon for Clarey to fetch a tisane from the apothecary for her migraine. “The herbs will make me very sleepy, Miss Parton. No sense knocking on my door after I drink the concoction.” She had pressed a steaming cloth to her temple. “I do promise that we will soon be able to journey to your grandfather. I know he is anxious to see all his living descendants.”

Only now did Clarey wonder how Roberta knew of the event when she was days and days from Parton March.

“My headache will ease by morning, I am certain. And once my brother’s letter reaches me here, we can leave for Parton March.”

Had Roberta delayed their leaving in order to set up Clarey’s disappearance? Had she hired these two men?

Her hennaed hair subdued in a chignon and clad in a high-collared grey gown, Miss Tompkins had claimed to be a former governess seeking employment as a paid companion. She claimed her need to wait on her brother’s letter. Then she convinced Clarey that the accommodations at the Three Fishes on One Hook would be less expensive than the coaching inn. “Only a little inconvenience will occur, Miss Parton.”

Clarey had agreed to wait for the brother’s important letter. Her grandfather, Bennett Howell Parton, had waited months to meet his descendants. Clarey was his granddaughter by his second son. The solicitor’s representative had found the sisters in Philadelphia. Many weeks had passed since then, so Clarey reassured her new employee that a slight delay would not matter.

Now, Roberta’s extreme gratitude for that simple delay loomed with troll-like trouble. The woman must have used the extra days to set a trap.

If the men would move on, Clarey would barge into Roberta’s room and confront her.

Better yet, she would feed Roberta that drugged rum that the men intended for the unsuspecting Mr. Axminster.

Can I manage that?

She knew Mr. Axminster only in passing, but to hear the plans hatched against him and do nothing—her soul revolted.

“Hsst!”

Clarey heard the click and snick of a lock, the creak of a door sounding nearby. She pressed deeply into the corner against the cabinet. She dared not look out.

“There y’are,” Black Beard said. “Time ya got here. Nigh on midnight. That him?”

“Hush you. Just a satisfied customer.”

Recognizing Roberta’s voice, Clarey fisted her carefully ironed clothes.

“We need to get moving.”

“We have time enough,” she drawled.

Clarey risked a peek.

Roberta Tompkins had joined the men at the landing. Her richly red hair flowed around her shoulders. In profile, her high brow and hooked nose could not be mistaken. Nor the little sag beneath her chin. She no longer wore the dowdy grey gown but had on a loose-necked gown of vivid blue.

“Time enough fer you,” the bearded man retorted. “We got to carry him down the backstairs and then trundle him to the docks, all before he wakes up. Then we got to come back for the girl.”

“Time enough and plenty.” Roberta patted his arm. “I’ll fetch the rum from the taproom, then we’ll be about our business. And if the lady stirs up a fuss, well—what goes down his gullet can go down hers. But—.” She wagged a finger. “I want my cut upfront, Bob Cribbs. You shorted me last time.”

“I got shorted m’self. That’s the reason we switched the plan for that pretty lady. Get more for a live one than a dead one.”

“Still, I want it now, or nothing doing, Bob.”

“Take it out of Axminster’s pocket. He won’t be needing it where he’s going. The lady, too. And what we got shorted last time, we’ll get from her.”

“Joan’s wanting her by noon tomorrow.”

Black Beard rubbed his hands. “Maybe dusk tomorrow,” and his flabby mate cackled.

“Sh-h,” Roberta warned. “There’s others on this hall. A dried-up parson and his shriveled wife. Don’t wake them.”

“What they gunna do? Go squeaking to Attley?” and another cackle joined his muffled laugh. “He’s had his cut already. Let’s get a move on.”

“I need to get the rum. Got what will make it special right here.” She touched her bodice. “You two wait in that workroom I showed you, right next to the backstairs. I’ll give you the signal when he’s knocked out. Go on.”

Clarey nearly dropped her freshly ironed garments when the men started toward her.

They would pass her. She heard Roberta hurry down the stairs. Turning her face into the cabinet, she hoped the deep shadows caused by the weak lamplight hid her.

She smelled them before they reached her, rancid sweat, strong ale. They hustled past, not stopping until they reached the end of the hall. One of them tried a door—the stair well with its steep flights turning quickly upon themselves. As he shut it, the other tried the door opposite. Clarey had ironed her cottons there, hoping to pack and leave in the morning.

The men crowded inside the maid’s room.

As soon as the door shut, she flew, silent as an owl. She wanted to hide in her chamber—but when the men finished with Mr. Axminster, they’d come for her. The pistol would balance the scales, their strength against her bullets. Yet gunshots would wake the whole inn. Wasn’t the innkeeper working with this press gang?

And Roberta added another felon to the danger.

Her only hope was to alert Mr. Axminster before Roberta returned with the spiked rum.

His room was directly across from hers. Clutching her folded garments to her breast, she scratched at his door.

Chapter 2

Sunday, 12 June

At the first scratching on the thin paneled door, Jem Baxter opened his eyes.

Far along the street, a church bell tolled the late hour. He’d nearly fallen asleep waiting on the promised tryst with Berta. When he’d connected her with the frumpy companion to the naïve innocent across the hall, he’d been half a mind to warn Miss Blue Eyes that Miss Tompkins wasn’t as genteel as she presented herself.

He kept his mouth shut. He had recognized Berta from his London days. That cast in her eye was unmistakable. Remembering her glee whenever she got her own back against those who wronged her, Jem had decided not to interfere.

Neither he nor Berta talked of London. She flirted, and he decided to tumble her before heading on his way. She’d made him wait an extra day. She flirted well, promised all sorts of delights with her practiced tongue, but—.

Jem didn’t remember the but. He’d thought of it while he ate his supper and listened to the Reverend Hodnett talk about the mission to India. Then it had vanished like smoke while he dozed, waiting for Berta.

Fresh off ship after working a passage back from Canada, he needed to find work. He’d had enough of ships. Climbing rigging to watch the ship leave port, jumping on the mast to get the sails to drop when sea-swollen wood stuck to wood, heaving his guts out below decks as the ship rolled through storm, he didn’t want that experience ever again. He’d also had enough of the cold winter of Nova Scotia. Even though it was May when he boarded the Lady Mersey for England, snow had been falling, dusting the weathered boards of the docks and riming the gunwales and ropes on the ship.

Yesterday he planned to leave the Three Fishes and head for an inland town, but Berta stopped him. In that husky voice, she promised make the wait up to him if he’d stay just one more night.

The scratching came again, jerking him out of his doze.

He ought to make her wait.

He definitely wouldn’t let her know how eager he was.

He linked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles. “Come in,” he offered. He had an end room and no one nearby, just the blue-eyed innocent across the hall. No need to wake her.

The door opened. In the light of his single candle, he saw a cloaked figure slip inside then press the door shut.

Why was Berta wearing a cloak?

She turned and placed folded cloths on the chest beside the door. Then she straightened and stepped forward, pushing back her hood as she did so, revealing a round face with a pert nose and chin and big eyes.

Big blue eyes.

“Hell!” Jem sprang off the bed and grabbed his trousers, turning his back while he stepped into them.

“Mr. Axminster, I must speak with you.”

Her voice shook, what he’d expect if she’d had a fright. An innocent like her, seeing a naked man, she was likely quaking in her kid boots. That didn’t kill his anticipation, not since he’d used those big blue eyes to inspire him every night since her arrival at the Three Fishes.

“Miss Parton, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Sh-h!”

“You need to get back to your room.”

“Sh-h,” she insisted. “We must be quiet.”

He grabbed a shirt. “Don’t know what you’re thinking, but my room ain’t a place for—.”

“Do, hush, Mr. Axminster.” The vehement whisper wouldn’t have silenced him, but her ear pressed against the door did. “You are in danger. From a press gang. As am I.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking—.”

“Roberta Tompkins is part of the gang. She wanted her cut first.”

He dropped the shirt back on the chair. “How you do know that?”

She faced him, her blue eyes unwavering. “Pure luck. We haven’t much time, sir. They planned—they were talking in the hall, just now, and I overheard them.”

He hadn’t heard anyone talking. With her room directly across, how could she have heard? Yet in their few encounters, not once had she struck him as a needy miss desperate for dramatics to fill the tedium of her days. He peeked out the window, careful to keep to one side. Memory served up a trundle cart rumbling over the cobbles, coming from the twisting alley to the inn’s back entrance. A bearded man had pushed the empty cart while a fat-bellied man carried the lantern.

“How many?” he shot over his shoulder.

“Only two, I think.”

Two tallied with his memory.

“And Miss Tompkins. They said something about the master getting his cut, but the master didn’t need to know about the deal they worked with a local brothel for me.”

The bitterness of her last words didn’t belong to an innocent. Her use of “the master” for the man who controlled Liverpool’s underground tallied with his memory, more proof if he needed it. Jem dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window. A shadow on the curtains would alert any watcher. “A brothel?”

“Virginity fetches more money, although they know other ways to play with me.” Her words dropped like stones.

That brief description sickened Jem. “That’s not going to happen,” he assured her. “No brothel will get you. They won’t get their filthy paws on you.”

“Joan is the name Roberta said to them.”

Pope Joan’s brothel near the wharf was known for its open doors and occasional promise of something special. Jem stared at those wide blue eyes and trim figure and knew Miss Parton would be the sacrificial special lamb.

He needed a good plan. He had his fists, not enough against two braw men intent on evil.

A single knock fell on his door.

Miss Parton jumped.

“James,” came the husky voice he’d waited for, “time for play.”

Miss Parton dove between the bed and the wall, landing with a thud he hoped Berta thought was his feet hitting the floor.

“James.” She rattled the door latch. He was shocked Berta hadn’t opened the door. He had no idea what to do.

Miss Parton’s head popped up. “Don’t drink the rum,” she hissed then dropped back down. Her rump stuck up, clearly visible.

Jem opened the door and planted himself where Berta couldn’t see the bed.

And regretted she was working with a press gang.

Her ginger hair was fluffed around her shoulders. She smiled and wet her lips and drew fingers down her neck, drawing his attention to her bosom. The loose bodice revealed her deep cleavage. She’d untied her chemise ribbons. She waggled a dark liquor bottle, already uncorked. “Oh, Jamesy,” she purred and stepped against him. Her hand planted over his heart, sliding a little so her thumb could brush his nipple. He didn’t try to stop his body’s reaction, but he wished he hadn’t groaned.

Berta pressed her full breasts against his chest and tiptoed to give his chin a wet kiss, promising more with a husky laugh. Then she drifted past him into the room.

He turned, watching her go to the table with its plate and mug left from his supper. With her shoulders thrown back, those breasts were tempting. He knew their plushness because he’d weighed them in his hands when Berta kissed him this morning. Her wet mouth promised salacious delights. He wanted to tumble her on the bed and drive out the need that had hounded him since he’d seen the last of Halifax from the rigging of the merchant ship.

If he did that, Miss Parton would lose more of her precious innocence.

Berta returned, offering the rum in the pewter mug. He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

Her tongue almost convinced him to forget Miss Parton. Then her nails scratched his neck. He didn’t mind bites and scratches in the tumble of sex. This was calculated pain, designed to test rather than arouse. Some men got off on pain, giving it, receiving it, needing it for arousal. Men like the ones who threatened Miss Parton. Berta’s pricking nails told him more than Miss Parton’s claim that Berta had called the local madam “Joan”.

Jem pushed her away and took the mug. “Is this whiskey?”

She touched the bottom of the mug, pushing it upward. “Rum,” another proof for Miss Parton. He didn’t need any more. Berta licked the blood she’d scratched from his neck off her nails. Jem didn’t like her smile.

And he kept picturing wide blue eyes peering at them over the mattress.

He backed up. Berta followed. When she reached for him again, he caught her hand and spun her toward the table. Then he quickly shut the door and latched it. “No interruptions.” He hoped his grin looked like a leer.

She had picked up the bottle again and used it to motion at his pants. “Those have to go.”

“I’m ahead,” he retorted. “You catch up.”

She lifted the bottle to her mouth. He didn’t see her swallow. She pointed at the mug. “I’m ahead. You catch up.”

He lifted the mug to his mouth. As she unbuttoned her bodice, he stared at the clear liquid shimmering in the pewter. Whatever she’d spiked the rum with, he couldn’t see it. He let the alcohol wet his lips and pretended to swallow. Her smile increased.

She brushed past him to perch on the side of the bed. He pretended to drink again and once again. She finished unbuttoning her bodice but didn’t offer to push the sleeves down her arms. She swung her feet and lifted the bottle, pretending to swallow twice. So Jem lifted the mug while his mind raced.

He doubted he could muffle her and tie her up without a fight. She would be eager to use her nails. She wouldn’t hesitate to scream—which would bring her partners. Worse odds when they burst in. And the parson down the hall would believe the men justified in hauling Jem off because he’d attacked a defenseless woman.

Any bleats Miss Parton made would be ignored.

He pretended to drink again.

“Jamesy,” Berta pouted, “I’m waiting.”

“And you’re still behind.” He gestured to his bare chest then to her. “I’ve been wanting an eyeful since the first time I saw you.”

She huffed then began pushing the gown off one shoulder. He watched and pretended to drink. And saw Miss Parton peeking.

He waited until one gown sleeve reached Berta’s elbow. She hadn’t undone her cuffs. She reached for the other shoulder. Jem set the cup on the bed table, then he lunged for her. He bore her back to the bed and jerked down the gown sleeve till it trapped her other arm. For a confused second Berta mistook his intent. Then her eyes narrowed. He clamped a hand over her mouth and muffled her scream.

“Miss Parton.” The calm of his voice amazed him. Berta thrashed and kicked. “Would you hold the rum before it empties all over the bed?”

She popped up. Wide eyes took in the woman struggling under Jem. Then she scrambled onto the bed and searched for the bottle. She snatched it up and shoved it at him.

“You’ll have to hold it.”

“Oh.”

Berta heaved and writhed, but she couldn’t dislodge his hand from her mouth or his body straddling hers.

Miss Parton divined his purpose and planted herself at Berta’s head.

“Ready?”

Those wide eyes lifted from the woman. The blue reflected his own grim determination. A fleeting thought wondered where innocent Miss Parton had learned the lesson of “needs must”. “She’ll scream,” was her only comment.

He shook his head. “She’ll be too busy trying to breathe.” He shifted his hand to cover her nose as well.

The woman tried to throw off his hold, tried to buck off his bigger body. Then the need to breathe took control. Jem held his hand in place until her body convulsed, held longer until her lashes flickered.

“Now,” he warned and lifted his hand.

Berta sucked in a galeful of breath then choked as Miss Parton poured the spiked rum. The woman sputtered and coughed. Jem clamped his hand over her mouth, letting her breathe until her throat worked to swallow. Once again he covered her airways.

After the third dose, Miss Parton sat back on her heels, watching Berta writhe under him. “It’s cruel,” she whispered.

Jem looked up. Her determination had slipped. She was still innocent, wise to the world but not yet confronted by the brutality that required ruthlessness in order to survive. Without her action, he would have wound up trapped on another ship, sailing God knew where, and herself enduring cruelty no woman should. He’d taken to crime to win his mother out of that very life, and all the stains on his soul came from that attempt. He never thought it wasted, though his ma lived only a couple of months after he got her out of London. Then he had to pay his own debt to the boss with nearly two decades of crimes. The evil hadn’t started, though, until the boss hooked them up with French spies. Those last three years had tarred Jem’s soul.

“Nothing to what those two men planned to do to you,” he reminded her. “Nothing to the life ahead of you in Pope Joan’s brothel.”

Berta heaved.

Those blue eyes lowered before his steady gaze. She stared at her former paid companion. “She seemed so—nice. She chatted like we were friends. I thought—.” Miss Parton shook her head and lifted the rum. “I’m ready.”

After the fifth dose, Berta’s struggles lessened. Jem expected a trick and didn’t relent.

She lost consciousness after she swallowed the ninth dose of the spiked rum.

He lifted off carefully, ready to cover her mouth, but all Berta emitted was a snore.