Three
Joshua gritted his teeth against the flaring pain in his left leg and hauled the groggy Euston up into the carriage.
Henry, his face shadowed by a low-crowned hat and the collar of his heavy cape, peered down from the box.
“Ye sure ye don’t want some help, sir?” he asked.
“Where were you when I had to carry the bastard out of the garden and down the lane a few minutes ago?” Joshua asked.
“Didn’t know we were going to have to get rid of a body tonight, sir. Like old times, eh?”
“He’s not dead. Not yet, at any rate. And no, this is not like old times.”
“Whatever you say, sir. Where we taking him?”
“To a nice, quiet place near the docks where he and I can have a private conversation,” Joshua said.
“Ah, so he’ll be going for a late-night swim after you finish talking to him, eh?”
“Depends on the answers I get from him.”
Joshua dropped his burden onto one seat and lowered himself cautiously onto the opposite leather bench. Another jolt of pain shafted through his leg when he reached out to seize the door handle.
“Damned leg,” he said aloud. But he said it in a whisper.
He was losing focus again. He inhaled slowly and pulled on his years of training to distance himself from the nagging pain. When he was back in control he tightened his grip on the door and pulled it shut.
Euston groaned but he did not open his eyes.
Joshua gripped the hilt of the cane and used the stick to rap the ceiling of the cab twice. The vehicle rolled forward.
He considered whether a scarf mask was required and concluded that it would not be necessary. The interior carriage lamps were unlit and the curtains were drawn across all but a narrow slice of one window. What little light entered the cab would fall on Euston’s face, not his. He had learned long ago how to remain in the shadows.
He sat back and contemplated the manner in which his carefully laid plans had been overtaken by events, in particular the unanticipated actions of Miss Beatrice Lockwood.
He had not set out that evening with the intention of assisting in the foiling of an attempted abduction. Beatrice had been his quarry from the start. But matters had taken a decidedly unexpected twist.
He pondered what he had learned about her in the course of their very short meeting. He had only spoken to her for a few moments back in the garden, but he had always been rather good when it came to assessing the character of others in a short span of time. In the past his life had often depended on his skill in that department. His intuition in such matters was certainly not infallible. The bad leg and the scar were proof that when he did fail he did so in a rather spectacular fashion. No halfway measures for the Messenger, certainly.
But he was quite sure of at least one conclusion about Beatrice Lockwood: She was going to be a much more complicated problem than he had anticipated.
He kneaded his sore leg absently while he thought about her. His initial impression could be summed up in a name, he thought. Titania. Like the fairy queen of myth and legend and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Beatrice was a force to be reckoned with.
The lagoon-blue eyes, delicate features and the air of fragile innocence had not fooled him for a moment. Nor had the unfashionable gown. He had long ago been trained to look beneath the layers of a disguise. Beatrice was an excellent actress—he gave her full credit for her playacting talents—but she had not deceived him.
She had, however, succeeded in surprising him. He was not sure how he felt about that singular fact. It was certainly not a good thing, but for some reason he felt the stirring of something that had been locked in ice deep inside him for a year. Anticipation. He was looking forward to the next encounter with Beatrice Lockwood.
But first he had to finish the business that had arisen so unexpectedly tonight.