He’d sent Chiver up onto the roof, ostensibly to get away. The truth was, Freame needed a diversion. While everybody was taken up with Chiver, Freame slipped into the next building, through a concealed door only he knew about.
He stayed hidden in the china shop until the excitement died down.
He hadn’t been able to see much, but he’d heard a few things.
A woman’s voice, calling for Toby. A woman who spoke in toff accents.
Raven, shouting to “Clara.”
Freame didn’t believe in coincidences. He didn’t believe in much of anything. He could do ands, though, like putting together two and two. The tall nob female who’d called for Toby and the tall nob female who’d given Chiver a beating for bothering Toby’s sister had to be the same “Clara” Raven shouted at.
It was a bad idea, Freame had told the late Chiver, to get mixed up with the upper orders. But Chiver hadn’t much in the way of brains. A cleverer man tallied the odds. That man measured future profit against present risk.
Freame was in a risky business, after all. And he didn’t much care how he finished Raven Radford, as long as he finished him. Chiver was gone, but Husher wasn’t. They’d hush Raven one way or another.
The gang leader grinned.
If Chiver’s “bleedin’ great bitch” was the way to get to him, that would only add to the fun.
Chapter Seven
THE BARRISTER . . . 2. He considers the principle upon which the profession of an advocate is founded.—From our tendency to err, the utmost caution is requisite in the discovery of truth, both in the natural and moral world.
—The Jurist, Vol. 3, 1832
Radford turned Toby over to a constable, instructing him to take the boy to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield. Unlike other hospitals, which had specific days for accepting patients, St. Bartholomew’s would admit him without difficulty. The constable would make sure no one let unauthorized persons visit the boy.
Radford would have seen to the business himself, but he didn’t trust Lady Clara out of his sight, and he wanted her as far away from Toby Coppy as possible. Otherwise, he’d have taken the brat to a hospital nearer to their route westward to Kensington, rather than in the opposite direction.
He told her all this when he reentered the hackney coach, which awaited him in Drury Lane, now with its proper driver installed on the box.
“I know I took a risk,” she said as the vehicle set out. “But I could hardly leave him there. He was sick and frightened.”
Radford gazed into her beautiful face. He remembered what his father had said about women. What his mother had said, actually.
His two selves fought briefly and fiercely. Then, “That was a brave thing to do,” he said.
She had been gazing out of the window, her hands folded tightly on her lap.
Now she turned sharply toward him. Her face was white and drawn.
Panic surged. He crushed it.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to be ill,” he said. “You had a hundred opportunities while you were in that house, and better reason. At least I hope you had better reason then than now.” He bent his head to sniff his clothing and caught a whiff of Bad Neighborhood. “Or is it me?”
“It’s you,” she said. “You said something that sounded like praise. You said it to me.”
“I could tell you as well, with greater fervor, that it was a spectacularly stupid thing to do,” he said. “But I’ve said that already in a dozen different ways, and the topic is beginning to bore me.”
“I didn’t feel brave,” she said. “I was nauseated and terrified.”
“But you did it nonetheless.”
“I’m not sure I would have done it if he’d been an anonymous pauper boy,” she said. “But he was the brother of somebody I knew, a hardworking girl I wanted to help. I’d met him and talked to him. I thought, What if one of my brothers had got himself into trouble? Why do I say, ‘What if’? They always got themselves into trouble. And one or the other of them would go to the rescue.” She paused briefly. “They came to my rescue, too.”
Radford remembered the little girl attacking Bernard.
“But you’re a girl,” he said. “Given your upbringing, it was nothing short of heroic. I speak as counsel for the defense. As counsel for the prosecution, I can produce indisputable evidence of reckless stupidity and temporary insanity. Even I would think twice, thrice, ten times, before irrupting into a place like that. We’re not like those children, Lady Clara, you and I.”
“We,” she echoed.
“Yes, contrary to appearances, I had a gentleman’s upbringing. Frankly, I nearly lost my breakfast when I crossed the threshold. I couldn’t believe Freame lived in a place like that, as Daniel Prior insisted. But how would the boys know for certain where Freame lived? He might have his own suite in a brothel or gaming hell elsewhere. But it’s simpler to house the boys in a species of dormitory and store the merchandise near trusted dealers in stolen goods.”
“The pawnbroker on the corner?”
“Very likely.”
She said no more, but turned to look out of the window again.
The windows were clean. He’d had that seen to, and insisted on the coach’s interior being cleaned, among other things.
The morning light gave her face a pearly glow, but her pallor remained. He let his gaze skim downward, past the long row of grim metal buttons, to her gloved hands, folded so tightly on her lap. The gloves were soiled.
She had been brave. What other young woman of her position would have done what she’d done? Now the crisis was past, though, all she’d seen and done would become sickeningly clear in retrospect. That was why she was so pale.
He told himself she was obstinate, and hard lessons were the only way she’d learn. All the same, he was composing soothing speeches in his mind. But before he could do or say anything to spoil the lesson, the hackney began to slow. He glanced out of his window.
“Bedford Street,” he said. “We get out here, to change vehicles. It’s no secret I was on the scene, but there’s nothing special about that. None of them know yet who you are, though, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
They disembarked and climbed into another coach. At the next hackney stand, they changed vehicles again. Following Radford’s instructions, the drivers took circuitous routes. Finally, he and Lady Clara settled into one last hackney and began traveling more directly westward.
They traveled in a silence he didn’t try to break.
She was lost in her own thoughts. He had a great deal to reflect upon as well. He’d pushed these matters to the back of his mind, because, as he’d told Westcott this morning, a man couldn’t be in two places at once, and one didn’t break appointments with the Metropolitan Police, especially in an endeavor one had instigated. There would be plenty of time for dealing with Bernard after Radford took Lady Clara back to her proper world.
That would be the end of this professional detour. He’d return to his sphere and she’d return to hers, and they’d never see each other again.
His other self was demanding to know why, and they were having a furious argument when she said, “I trust Toby will recover?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “Nothing alarming in his symptoms. If he’d had anything resembling a proper home, I’d have sent him there to be nursed.”
“It’s hard to find places for sick pauper children, isn’t it?” she said. “If family can’t look after them, a kindly person must take them in. Or else they go to the workhouse. Or a place like Grumley’s pauper farm.” She touched two fingers to her temple. “Such a world. I’m out of my depth, Mr. Radford.”
“I should hope so,” he said. He wanted to take her hand away from her face and hold it and comfort her. But he wasn’t a comforting sort of person, and it wasn’t his job, and it was, in sum, a foolis
h idea.
“The boys said Chiver went off the roof,” she said. “That’s why you ran into the alley or whatever it was.”
“There was a chance he was alive,” he said. “I’ve heard of some surviving such falls, though not intact. But he broke his neck. He won’t trouble Bridget again, or anybody else. Cheated the hangman, certainly. And he’ll tell no tales. Very convenient for Freame.”
“Do you think he egged Chiver on?” she said. “To run across the roofs?”
“Yes, and easily. Chiver always liked to show off.”
A short, taut silence. Then, “I don’t know how you do it,” she said. She gave a despairing little wave. “How you keep your balance. All the poverty and hopelessness.”
“I don’t usually spend my time in the rookeries, believe it or not,” he said. “I’ve cultivated informants, yes, because I represent the police from time to time. But as I told you, most of my cases are boring. I receive a brief. I study the evidence and the relevant laws. The Grumley case was an exception.”