Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“Wash your hands,” a voice said, not so far away. “It’s time to eat.” Not just a voice; it was Miss Darling. Rather a relief; he didn’t think she intended him any harm.

Smite also didn’t think that a bare nod to hygiene would make any difference, not with that scent of sewage so prominent. An unfortunate consequence of living in the poorer areas. No matter how the authorities tried to stamp out the practice, people would toss the contents of their chamber pots in the streets.

“I don’t want to.” That voice was unfamiliar. Flat and monotone, it hovered just barely above baritone range.

Miss Darling sighed. “Don’t be difficult.”

“You’re not my mother.” There were clinking sounds—dishes being moved, perhaps? He tried slitting his eyes open, but his head was turned full toward a window, and the red rays of sunlight left him temporarily blind.

“What does it matter, Robbie?” Miss Darling said. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you. Can’t you see that?”

“Ha,” came the morose response from the other occupant.

Smite couldn’t see him, but he could form an image in his mind of this Robbie. Young and hulking, if one trusted that voice. Muscular. A sweetheart, perhaps? He found himself vaguely annoyed by the thought of Miss Darling entertaining so boorish a lover.

“I can’t believe you hit him,” Miss Darling said.

“Huh,” came the man’s brilliantly articulate reply.

Wood scraped against wood. Smite moved his head a fraction, angling it away from the window, and slitted his eyes open again. From beneath his eyelashes, he could make out silhouettes against the light.

By the voice, Smite had expected Robbie to be a large, surly fellow, barely into manhood. But Robbie was a thin reed of a child, his voice desperately outsized in a scrawny body. Miss Darling, not precisely tall herself, towered a good six inches over him.

“You don’t let me do anything,” Robbie rumbled. Or rather, he attempted to rumble. His voice quavered on the last syllable, hanging on the verge of breaking until he cleared his throat and deliberately dropped it a handful of notes. “Can’t take work at the mills. And now Joey says I’m not to be allowed to work with him either. That’s ready money you’re stopping me from getting, to be had for the taking.”

“We both know how Joey gets his money. He’s working with the Patron. I don’t want to see you hanged.”

“Ha,” Robbie repeated.

Smite was unsure what Robbie was, but he was fast building up a list of things that he was not. He was not an adult. He was not Miss Darling’s lover. He was not a stunning conversationalist.

“If you go to work for the Patron, Robbie, so help me I will toss you out on your ear. It is not safe. Now promise me you won’t even try.”

Sullen silence. Then—“What, I’m not even allowed to try a little dipping, but you can do whatever you wish?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why else would you be so angry when I hit that cove? You were planning to sell it to him.”

Miss Darling gasped, and a slap echoed. That sound made the silence that followed all the more pressing. Smite could barely make out the details of the scene—Miss Darling, holding one hand in the other, looking down at her fingers as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done, and Robbie, his own hand rubbing his cheek.

“Right, then,” Robbie rumbled. He shoved away from the table and opened the door. Smite felt a breath of cool air against his face. “Charge him double. After all, he brought company.”

“Where are you going? You haven’t eaten.”

Smite turned his face toward the draft, but his head throbbed and he shut his eyes, dizzy once more.

“Going to smoke with Joey,” Robbie said. “And don’t give me that look—at least smoking’s healthful. Everyone says so.”

The door slammed, and the reverberation echoed through Smite’s throbbing head. But pain or no, he could reconstruct what had happened. Robbie had come upon Smite accosting Miss Darling, and had struck him a blow from behind. Presumably, the two of them had brought him up here, rather than leaving him facedown in the streets. Whoever Robbie was, he was looking for trouble…and dragging Miss Darling into it, right alongside him.

A mess, and Smite had landed himself squarely in the middle of it. He exhaled covertly.

Miss Darling was alone now. Her hair caught the last rays of the sun through what appeared to be a garret window. It seemed to catch into a brilliant orange—like a stack of foolscap thrown on the fire, bursting into flame.

She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “What am I going to do?” Her body curled in on itself. She brought her knees up on the seat beside her and hugged them close, rocking back and forth. It was still impossible to judge her age. She looked young now. Alone and unprotected.