Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“Your Worship, you’ve got powder on the coat now,” Palter accused. “You could spare a half-minute for dignity. The girl will wait.” His clerk handed over a pair of gloves, which Smite jammed in his coat pocket.

A liar who had been prepared to commit bald-faced perjury? Unlikely she’d still be around. Smite simply shook his head and strode to the door. But retrieving the coat had been a cue: Ghost instantly perked up and moved to the door, a silent shadow. The dog looked up in entreaty. Liquid brown eyes begged: Take me with you. I’ll be good.

Oh, the lies that dogs told.

“Ghost,” Smite commanded, “you will stay.”

The dog let out a faint huff of protest. Palter, by contrast, made a muffled, choking sound in response.

Smite turned and raised an eyebrow. “Do cheer up, Palter. I took him for a long walk this morning. He shouldn’t careen off the walls more than five, six…” Smite paused and looked at Ghost. The dog watched, his paws practically quivering in frustrated want. “Maybe seven thousand times,” he finished.

Ghost sat as still as an animal scarcely out of puppyhood could manage. The expression on his face was deeply earnest.

“Ghost. Do listen. In the event that I need a squirrel brought to justice, I will go to you first. Until then…” He adopted his harshest tone. “Behave in my absence, or you will pay the consequences when I return.”

“Your Worship.” Palter’s voice trailed off plaintively.

“Keep the dog in,” Smite advised. “I don’t need him following me.” The last thing he saw as he stepped outside was Palter ducking his head in acquiescence.

Turner pulled the door shut behind him, stepping out into a larger hall. His footsteps echoed on the wood floor. A few laborers were dawdling in the antechamber, but Miss Whitaker—or Miss Darling, as she’d called herself the first time he’d seen her—was not present in any of her incarnations. Damn Palter, for robbing him of those extra seconds. Still, it had not been so long. She couldn’t have gone far.

Smite headed out the main door.

The Council House stood just behind him. High Street was crowded, faces shielded from view by hats and umbrellas and cloaks drawn tight about figures. It was, after all, raining. Nothing but a determined drizzle, but still, it was enough that he tamped down a frisson of unease.

Stop coddling yourself, Turner. Sugar melts; you’ll survive.

Instead, he crossed the street to stand in front of All Saints Church, and concentrated on the crowds about him. He was looking for a young woman, and he couldn’t depend upon the color of her hair or the style of her gown. She’d been disguised in the courtroom; she could be again. He was looking for how, not what.

He found his how a few seconds later. She ducked out of an alley, now dressed in a shabby cloak more appropriate to a serving girl. She glanced from one end of the street to the other with that telltale wariness.

He couldn’t say what it was about her that made him know she was the one. Her hair, whatever color it actually was, was hidden beneath a massive straw bonnet. She started down the street, and then glanced over her shoulder, toward the building beside the Council House. Where Smite was supposed to have met her.

She didn’t see him standing across the street.

He began to walk toward her. He’d left his hat—Palter would rant about it when he returned—and the rain plastered his hair uncomfortably to his head.

But before he reached her, she started off, her strides now swift and purposeful. He was taller, but he made little headway. She darted through the crowds with a determined agility. He followed her down one crowded cobblestone street, past a market and then another church. Buildings loomed, dark gray stone streaked by the rain. Smite’s cuffs became damp, and he pulled the gloves Palter had shoved at him from his pocket.

She was making her way to the Floating Harbour. Just beyond the crowds, he could see the stone wall that bounded the water. Masts of ships stretched skyward. Gulls circled and called as he pushed through the waterfront crowds. He could hear timbers creaking in the wind, the shout of men, and the shrieking complaint of a winch—the all-too-familiar sounds of Bristol’s lifeblood, trade and transportation. In the distance, he could see the high topmasts of the S.S. Great Britain where she waited, silent and lifeless, in the docks. Her funnel, a dark, imposing chimney against the sky, was cold. No smoke issued from it; no boilers worked below. She was the largest steamship ever built, and she was imprisoned where she stood.

He felt an odd sort of sympathy with the ship. They’d neither of them been served well by water.

He shook his head, dispelling the sentiment. Her straw bonnet bobbed down the street some fifteen yards in front of him, and she darted across the Bristol Bridge.