What Angels Fear

Chapter 12

Sebastian cast a swift glance toward the yard, where a burly, black-bearded man in a voluminous greatcoat stood with his head tipped back and one extended finger pointing damningly toward the roof.

“Look! That’s ’im, fer sure. Stop, I say. Stop in the King’s name.”

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian. Straightening, he sprinted across the slope of the lean-to, the leather soles of his boots sliding dangerously on the wet slates, the boy two paces behind him.

At the intersection of the kitchen roof and the brick wall of the inn’s ell-shaped wing, Sebastian swung around. “Here,” he said, reaching down to bracket Tom’s slim, bony frame with his hands and lift the boy high. “Grab the edge of the roof and pull yourself up.”

Tom’s bare, cold-numbed fingers fumbled for a hold, found one. “How you gonna get up?” he panted, heaving his legs up in a grunting rush that rolled him onto his stomach, then his back.

The brickwork of the wall was uneven, offering a handhold here, a foothold there. Sebastian scrambled up beside the boy and held out a hand to help Tom to his feet.

“Gor.” Tom let out his breath in a rush of wide-eyed admiration. “You’d make a first-rate second-story dancer, you would.”

Sebastian laughed, his gaze narrowing as he surveyed the tumble-down roofscape spread out around them. A freezing rain had begun to fall, mist-fine and bone-chilling. Blackbeard had disappeared from the courtyard. They could hear more shouts, and the muffled sound of running feet on uncarpeted stairs.

Sebastian glanced down at the boy beside him. In coming to warn Sebastian, Tom had placed himself squarely on the wrong side of the law. Sebastian nodded toward the span of three or four feet separating the Black Hart’s rain-slicked roof from the crumbling tenement beside it. “Can you jump that?”

To Sebastian’s surprise, the boy’s dirty face split into a toothy grin. “Aye. You jist watch.”

His fists clenched with determination, Tom took off at a dead run toward the edge of the roof, launching at only the last possible instant into a leap that carried him easily across the gaping distance. He landed lightly, his body wavering, his feet slipping for only a moment before he caught his balance on the steep wet tiles.

“I think you must have some training as a second-story dancer yourself,” said Sebastian, springing after him. Tom crowed with delight.

Together, they crossed from one sagging rooftop to the next, skirting crumbling chimney pots and dodging broken eaves, their breath little puffs of steam in the cold air. At the end of the block, they found a drainpipe festooned with a tangle of bare wet wisteria branches down which they slithered. They were off and running before the first of the Bow Street men, wheezing and swearing, had emerged onto the Black Hart’s mossy roof.

An early morning crowd of market women and milkmaids, piemen and butchers’ boys filled the narrow lanes. Rounding the corner onto Great Leicester Street, Tom and Sebastian slowed to a walk, heading toward Charing Cross.

“Where we goin’ now?” asked Tom, skipping a little to keep up with Sebastian’s long-legged stride.

Sebastian hesitated, then drew from his pocket the folded note he’d written to Melanie’s sister that morning. “I have a message I’d like you to deliver to a lady. Cecilia Wainwright, in Berkeley Square.” Reaching for his purse, Sebastian counted out a handful of coins. “Here’s a shilling for the letter, and a week’s wages, besides.” There was no way to guarantee that the boy would actually deliver the message, of course. It was a chance Sebastian was going to have to take.

Tom’s unsmiling gaze dropped to the money in Sebastian’s hand, then lifted. He made no move to take the coins. “You givin’ me the heave-ho?”

Sebastian met the boy’s dark, inscrutable gaze. “I don’t think you understand. Continued association with me could very well get you hanged.”

“Naw,” said Tom with a negligent sniff. “Transported, more like. I’m scrawny enough I could let on I’m only nine and they’d believe me. They don’t send little ’uns to the nubbing cheat.” His face darkened as if clouded by a sudden, unpleasant memory. “Leastways, not usually.”

“You’ve a fancy to visit Botany Bay, do you?”

Tom shrugged. “It’s where they sent me mum.”

It was probably the complete lack of emotion in the boy’s voice that got to Sebastian more then anything else. He blew out a long, slow breath. It was an ugly practice, this business of transporting mothers and leaving their children behind to starve on the streets of London. Sebastian held out the money. “Take it.”

For an instant longer, the boy wavered, his jaw held tight. Then he took the coins and slipped the letter inside his shirt. “Where you off to?”

“There’s someone I need to see.”

Tom nodded and turned without another word, his feet dragging, his head bowed. But at the corner he paused, his head lifting as he swung back around. “What’s ’er name, then? This lady what yer so all fired anxious to meet?”

Sebastian huffed a low, startled laugh. “What makes you think it’s a lady?”

Tom grinned. “I saw it in yer face. She must be a rare looker.” He paused, his head tilting sideways. “So what’s ’er name?”

Sebastian hesitated, then shrugged. “Kat. Her name is Kat.”

“Kat? That’s no name fer a lady.”

“I never said she was a lady.”