Julia looked at the low-ceilinged room packed with small tables and chairs. At each table sat men who looked more dangerous than the last. She suddenly regretted her decision to come along. That regret intensified when the barkeep called from the back of the room, where he stood behind a scarred and battered wooden partition, “We don’t serve your kind. Get out.”
“Want me to kill him?” Mostyn asked so low only she and Neil could hear.
“Not yet,” Neil said. Then louder, “I wish to speak with Mr. Slag.”
Julia was relieved Neil could speak. She could not move, much less form a coherent sentence.
“What do ye want with ’im?” a lad of no more than fifteen asked from the table closest to them. A weak lantern sat on top of that table beside several empty mugs, but the light did little more than illuminate the boy’s small features and dirt-streaked face.
“It’s a private matter,” Neil said.
“Oh, a private matter,” an older man said in a tone meant to mock Neil’s upper-class accent. “Well, la-di-da. I ’ave a private matter I’d like to discuss with your wench.” He grabbed his crotch, and Julia’s face flamed.
“Want me to kill that one?” Mostyn asked, this time his voice a bit louder.
“Yes, and slowly.” He raised a hand when Mostyn began to move forward. “But not yet.” Neil looked around the room. “If Mr. Slag won’t come out, I can only assume he is afraid to face me.”
Julia’s heart froze at those words. She knew men liked to taunt each other, but a remark like that seemed purely suicidal. Perhaps she would fare better outside with the rabid dogs and the greedy prostitutes. But as her gaze swept the room, taking in the angry looks of the patrons, one face looked back at her with fear.
“Mr. Goring?” she said. Her voice was loud enough to carry and, as it was a female voice and quite proper in tone, the rumbling rolling through the room died and every man to a one followed her gaze to the back table where her servant sat, head down, shoulders hunched over his ale.
“Is that you?” she asked. She forgot her fear for a moment. “I did not want to believe Mr. Wraxall when he said you were a patron here, but I see I have been deceived and betrayed.”
Goring looked up then back down. “I apologize, my lady.”
“You have a lot more to apologize for than this. It was you, was it not, stealing from the larder?”
Goring didn’t answer.
“Shame on you,” she said, directing the comment to the room at large. “Stealing from poor orphans.”
“Cry me a river,” one man called.
“I was an orphan, I was, and no one gave me so much as a crumb. Bollocks on orphans.”
Too late, Julia realized her mistake. She’d let her emotions get the better of her and forgotten her audience. These men didn’t care a whit for orphans. She took careful step back and her back collided with Neil’s chest. He caught her and held her in place. “Is this the bit where you inspire civility?”
“Shut up,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Perhaps we might engender more goodwill if you keep quiet and let me speak.”
She doubted it.
“Not another word.”
Now was not the time to point out that she didn’t take orders from him.
“Protector,” Neil said, as the group of men began to rise and move toward them. “It might be time to start dancing.” He backed up, taking her with him, and then stopped just as abruptly. She felt Neil stiffen, then heard Mostyn growl.
“So nice of you to call on us, Mr. Wraxall and Lady Juliana and…friend. Won’t you join me for a drink?”
Julia closed her eyes as Neil turned, moving her in the process. She knew what she would see—the harsh, cold stare of Mr. Slag.
*
Neil had known this was a mistake. It was a mistake to go after Billy, a mistake to give Slag the advantage of choosing the battlefield, and a mistake to refrain from tying Juliana up and locking her in her room. The situation—two dozen angry men behind them and one homicidal monster in front of them—looked bad. In fact, the situation looked very bad. But he’d been in bad situations before, and he and Ewan had always gotten out alive.
I have my dancing shoes on.
But this was one devil even Neil did not want to dance with.
“Finally someone who understands the meaning of hospitality,” Neil said. Ewan growled his disapproval of Neil’s flippant tone, but Neil felt levity was the key now. “I find I am quite thirsty. You, Mr. Mostyn?”
“Parched.”
“And you, my lady?”
“Not really,” she squeaked. He squeezed her arm reassuringly. It was too late to give in to fear. The feeling was useless and dangerous. She would have to show some of that backbone he’d seen in her time and again.
She cleared her throat. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you, Mr. Slag.”
Slag gave her an amused look, then inclined his head toward the rear of the alehouse. “Join me in my private chambers then, won’t you?”
The men in the room parted, like the Red Sea before Moses’s staff.
Slag moved first and Neil followed. He worried he might have to drag Julia with them, but she walked on her own, head held high and looking every inch the earl’s daughter. Ewan followed, of course. Neil could always count on Ewan at his back.
Slag’s ebony walking stick thumped on the floor as he led them past the bar and into a dark corridor. If the crime lord had an ambush planned, this was the time and place for it. Behind him, he heard Ewan’s steps slow as the Protector prepared for an ambush. It didn’t come. Instead, Slag opened a door and led them into a room lit with lamps and made cozy by a crackling fire.
Though perhaps cozy was not the correct word. The furnishings were comfortable enough—several chairs and a couch set on a large, colorful rug and visible by the light of lamps on scattered tables—but the ceiling was low and there were no windows to speak of. To Neil, the place felt like a well-appointed prison.
“Take a seat, won’t you?” Slag pointed to the couch and chairs, but he remained standing, positioning himself near the fire.
“I prefer to stand,” Neil said. Ewan leaned on the wall beside the door and crossed his arms over his broad chest. Julia sank into one of the chairs, looking as though she was only now realizing her mistake in coming. Good, perhaps in the future she would be less likely to rush headlong into danger, although judging from her past behavior, he doubted it.
“It will be difficult to drink tea standing,” Slag said.
“You can drop the ruse, Mr. Slag,” Neil said. “You know why we are here. Let us waste no more time. Give us the boy, and no one will get hurt.”
Slag’s gaze drifted slowly to Juliana. She was peering about the room and missed his look. A small mercy that, for the crime lord’s leer turned Neil’s stomach.
“Give me my blunt or, better yet, the chit, and you have a deal.”
“Out of the question,” Neil said.
Juliana turned back to them. “Where is Billy? Have you hurt him?”
“Hurt him?” Slag laughed. “The lad came of his own free will. I offered him shelter.”
“Shelter? He was quite safe at Sunnybrooke,” said Juliana.
Slag shook his head. “That was not the tale he told, my lady. And the bruises on his face seem to imply he has recently been involved in a violent exchange.”
Neil did not know much about criminals. He knew they were usually caught, if not right away, eventually. He knew they were usually hanged. He knew that the large numbers hanged or transported or tossed in prison hulks did nothing to deter criminals. By necessity, he had associated with criminals on the Continent. He had no trouble deducing why they were usually caught. Most criminals were not very intelligent.
But Slag was no ordinary criminal. He had managed to survive the underworld and to come to dominate his small patch of it. Neil hadn’t investigated Slag’s criminal record—he was no Bow Street Runner—but he imagined if he had, he would have seen prosecutions for a several petty crimes when Slag had been young. Before he had learned to either evade the authorities, bribe them, or, as he did now, send others to do his dirty work.