No response.
“They’re as hard here as in London,” he muttered to Blackwood as he took out another shilling. “There’s two bob,” Ashmont said more audibly. “For the clever lad who gives me information.”
He saw one boy whisper to a smaller one, who was dressed in a curious costume. Under the grime, the smaller boy appeared to be fair, with an innocent-looking countenance. He shook his head at the larger one, who moved away.
Ashmont narrowed his eyes. “You, there,” he said. “I can tell a ringleader from a furlong away.”
All wide-eyed perplexity, the little one looked at the boys about him.
“Never mind them,” Ashmont said. “I’m talking to you, old fellow. The jockey.” For, upon further examination, he realized the boy was dressed in the tattered remains of what looked to be a racing costume. And the thing on his head was a yellow cap, two sizes too big.
“I fink His Nibs means you, Jonesy,” one of the boys said.
“If I was a jockey, you fink I’d be wearing vis?” the boy said.
Blackwood, who was more adept in Cockney, translated. And since he was the linguist, he continued with the boy. “Come along and let’s talk,” he said.
“I don’t know nuffink,” said Jonesy.
And all the other boys said, “We don’t know nuffink.”
Blackwood turned his horse and rode a little away, but not before displaying a crown so that only Jonesy could see it. No more than a glimpse before Blackwood made it vanish.
The boy approached him and stood, arms folded. “Vat was pretty good.”
“Owning the coin will be even better, I’ll wager,” said Blackwood. “But only if you tell me what you saw and heard when the toff and the bride were here.”
“Maybe he was here and maybe he wasn’t,” the boy said. “But if he was, I fink I remember he give us a glistener.”
A sovereign? Not impossible. While none of them were pinchpennies, Ripley was the most likely to give a lot of vagrant children an entire pound to keep mum.
“Then why aren’t you out celebrating your riches?” Ripley said.
“On account of not wanting to get flicked.” The boy made a gesture indicative of throat cutting. “I got it where it’s safe.”
If the boy had a coin of such value on him, he wouldn’t be safe, even in Kensington. Not that he looked as though he belonged hereabouts. He had rather more of the city urchin and less of the rustic about him—which probably accounted for the other boys taking their lead from one so small. His age was anybody’s guess.
Blackwood considered the shabby jockey costume. “It wouldn’t be breaking your sacred oath if you showed me where they went. I don’t have a sovereign on me at the moment, but I will take you up on my horse and trust you to show me the way, and give you the crown, as well.”
He’d made the right offer. The boy’s eyes widened—startlingly blue—and filled with longing. Then he glanced back at his cohort and shook his head.
Blackwood reached down and yanked him up onto the saddle in front of him. Though the boy protested loudly, screaming about being kidnapped and murdered and such, he didn’t put up much of a fight.
Blackwood carried him away and Ashmont followed, and a lot of boys as well, shouting as they ran after them. But the horses picked up speed, and after a time the boys gave up. When he decided it was safe, Blackwood slowed and said, “Well played, Jonesy. Now show us the way.”
Something tickled Ripley’s nose.
He opened his eyes.
Flowers bobbed against his face in time to the chaise’s jolting.
They were attached to a hat. A lady’s hat.
He came abruptly awake to discover Ashmont’s future duchess in his arms. In spite of the jouncing chaise, she, too, had fallen asleep: deeply, judging by the steady rise and fall of her bosom.
Hardly surprising, he told himself, given the brandy, the day’s events, and the likelihood she hadn’t slept much the previous night, although for reasons altogether different from his.
Hardly surprising, either, for his arm to work itself around her shoulders. He’d been asleep, or dozing at the very least. A warm female body had settled close to his. Bringing it closer was instinctive.
Other instincts came into play now, and he was getting ideas in his head and elsewhere that would be all well and good in other circumstances. At present they were deuced inconvenient.
Still, he hated to wake her.
He remained as he was and looked out of the window. To keep his thoughts from wandering where they could only annoy him, he dragged into the front of his mind her curious System.
Instead of arranging books in the usual way—alphabetically or by size—she organized by subject, under broad headings like History, Philosophy, and Fine Arts. Within these broad categories were more specific ones. The last thing he remembered was her describing the difficulty of deciding whether one ought to break up into categories sets of books from a single collection, like that of Diane de Poitiers, for instance.
As he considered the pros and cons, bits and parts of a dream intruded: a woman falling off library steps into his arms . . . he, running madly through London streets, chasing a bridal dress that flew above his head like a kite . . . books tumbling out of windows as he ran.
His mind veering from books to dreams, he registered little of the view from the window until the chaise slowed and stopped. He blinked and took in the scene.
Richmond Bridge stretched ahead. They’d reached the tollgate.
His travel companion stirred, and tipped her head back to look at him. Her eyes widened and she jerked away.
“Too late to be shy now,” he said. “We’ve slept together.”
Olympia was sure she’d drooled on his neckcloth and developed sleep creases in her now-red face from pressing it into his lapel.
She had fallen asleep on one of Their Dis-Graces, and not the one she was supposed to marry. Furthermore, she had been far too comfortable tucked against his hard chest, with his muscled arm about her.
It was a very good thing no man had tried to lead her astray all these years, because it seemed as though she was all too likely to go.
She said, “I should not boast of it, if I were you. You’re hardly my first. Clarence would scream and scream during thunderstorms until he was allowed to crawl into bed with me.”
“Now I’ll know what to do the next time a thunderstorm strikes,” he said. “Your hat’s crooked.”
She turned to the window, but the scratched glass offered more of Richmond and less of her own reflection at present.
“I can’t see,” she said. She turned back to him. “Please straighten it. My aunt will be curious how I came to be dressed this way as it is. I’d prefer not to appear disheveled.”
“You’ll arrive with a dirty wedding dress and veil wrapped up in linen and a new large dog. I doubt she’ll fuss over a trifle like a crooked hat.”