The Major and the Pickpocket. Lucy Ashford
are,’ replied Marcus, his mood grim once more.
‘Then remember your army training, dear boy. Go to the kind of haunts your enemy would frequent. Probe his weaknesses. And Corbridge’s are…?’
‘You’ve got all night to listen? Well, apart from his general obnoxiousness, his weaknesses, from what I remember, are spending and gambling. And beautiful women, with rather doubtful reputations—’
‘Especially young fillies with an eye for the gaming table,’ broke in Hal. ‘Lady Franklin, Cecilia Connolly, and that ravishing blonde known as La Fanciola from the Opera House—they are all exquisitely golden-haired, all greedy for money by fair means or foul, and he’s dallied with them all! So listen, it’s quite simple. What you must do is find another of the same kind—young, accomplished, preferably with guinea-gold curls—persuade her to entice him to the card tables at some private establishment—and use her to get back all your godfather’s money off Corbridge!’
Marcus laughed, shaking his head. ‘That’s meant to be simple? I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I just run him through? It would be a damn sight easier.’ His hand moved instinctively to his pocket, to check that he had enough money for the night ahead. And then he went very still. ‘My wallet,’ he breathed. ‘It’s gone.’
Hal’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure? You might have left it somewhere, or dropped it in the street, perhaps…’
Oh, no. Marcus knew he hadn’t dropped it. Suddenly he remembered the young fugitive with the mocking green eyes. He remembered, too late, the light hand that he felt brushing his coat as the lad departed. He turned to Hal and said flatly, ‘If you’re still set on a game tonight, you’ll have to lend me the stake. Until I get to my bankers in the morning, I’ve not a penny to my name. That young wretch we helped back there has repaid me by picking my pocket.’ And, Marcus vowed, if he ever caught the lad, he would give his backside a beating he’d never forget…
Hal frowned. ‘The ungrateful rogue! Well, of course I’ll lend you something, Marcus. Who knows? Tonight at the Angel your luck might change for the better!’
‘I certainly hope so,’ replied Marcus with feeling. But his bleak eyes did not echo that smile. And Hal, who had been intending to ask Marcus if he had seen Philippa yet, decided that perhaps now was not the best time to broach that rather tricky subject.
Chapter Two
The street trickster whom Marcus was cursing so roundly was meanwhile twisting and turning knowingly through the assortment of narrow alleyways behind Maiden Lane before finally sidling into the shadows of an empty doorway and listening hard.
Nothing. No pursuers. No Charleys. With a sigh of relief the young thief sauntered off northwards whistling The Bold Ploughboy’, cap pulled down low over forehead, hands thrust deep into shabby greatcoat; because, although it had stopped raining, the February night was still damp and cold. One hand encountered a leather wallet, and those bright green eyes were troubled, just for a moment, at the memory of its owner; then the youngster strolled onwards. Doubtless the dark-haired swell was rich enough not to miss it over-much.
Carefully avoiding the clusters of hard-drinking men who gathered around Bob Derry’s Cider Cellar, the pickpocket, now munching on an apple filched earlier from a fruit stall, chose a secret way through the warren of courtyards that lay behind Drury Lane; then at last came to a halt, gazing up to where a flickering lantern illuminated a faded inn sign. This was the Blue Bell tavern: a pretty name for a low-life inn run by a steel-tongued landlady called Moll. Frowning briefly at the thought of Moll, the youth straightened his shabby coat and marched through the crowded, smoky taproom to push open a small side door into a private parlour, occupied only by a group of men clustered intently round a card game. The sudden draught from the door made the tallow candles flicker. Three of the players leapt to their feet, their hands clutching their cards. Then the fourth one, a gangly young fellow with rather startling tufts of red hair, grinned broadly. ‘No cause for alarm, lads! It’s just our Tassie, bin up to her usual tricks, no doubt.’
The men sat down again. Tassie closed the door with a deft kick, pulled off her cap and threw it defiantly on the table as her long golden hair tumbled around her shoulders. ‘What do you mean, ‘tis only me?’ she challenged. ‘Haven’t you missed me, all of you?’ No reply. Sighing a little, she let her keen eyes rove over the well-worn cards splayed out on the table. ‘Fie, Georgie Jay, if ‘tis whist you’re playing, then I hope you remembered to keep the guard on your pictures, as I told you last night!’
Then the girl sat among the men, quite at ease, as the sturdily built, black-haired man in his thirties whom she’d addressed as Georgie Jay, looked frowning at his cards. ‘God’s blood, but you’re right, Tassie,’ he said.
‘Course she’s right,’ said the red-haired lad, still gazing admiringly at the newcomer. ‘There’s no one to beat our Tassie at cards.’
‘Or dice,’ grinned Georgie Jay. He patted the girl’s shoulder and turned back to the game.
The girl let her fair brow pucker a little. ‘Weren’t you—worried about me, Georgie?’
‘Why, lass? Should we have been?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really. I helped the cups-and-sixpence man up on the Strand.’
‘Old Peg-leg? Did you make much?’
‘Didn’t get the chance. We were chased off by the Charleys.’
‘Good job you can run fast, then.’
‘Indeed.’ Tassie stretched out her legs in their over-large boots and leaned back in her chair, her hands in her pockets, secretly a little upset that they weren’t more troubled by her encounter with the Watch. She decided to say nothing about the dark-haired man and his wallet, though at one time she’d have told Georgie Jay everything, for he was the undisputed leader of this motley crew of travellers, and had been like a father to her ever since he’d found her eight years ago, alone on a country lane. ‘We work when we can,’ he’d told her, ‘and when we can’t—for times are hard for poor folks like us—why, then, we take a little from those who have enough and to spare!’ Yes, Georgie Jay had been her saviour and protector, and she would always be grateful to him. But things had changed. Oh, how they had changed.
Moll, the buxom landlady, had just come into the room to see what was going on, Then she spotted Tassie, and scowled. ‘Our Tassie’s had a run-in with the Watch, Moll!’ Georgie Jay told her.
‘Lord’s sake,’ said Moll, ‘what a fuss you all do make of that girl. ‘Tain’t natural, a grown lass like her trailing round with you all.’
Tassie met Moll’s glare with stony dislike, and began to get to her feet, but Georgie reached out to forestall her. ‘Tassie’s one of us, Moll. Bring the girl some food, will you? You know she’ll be ready for her supper.’
Tassie was; but she fought down the hunger pangs gnawing at her ribs. ‘My thanks, but I’m not hungry.’ Most certainly not for anything Moll dished out.
She picked up her cap, ready to leave; but just at that moment Georgie Jay exclaimed, ‘Tassie! Now, what in the name of wonder is that?’ He was pointing at the ugly bruising on her wrist, where the Watch man had grabbed her.
‘It’s nothing. Nothing at all.’ She stepped quickly back, shaking down her sleeve.
‘So you were in danger! Look, Tass, perhaps it really is time you stopped all your trickery out on the streets…’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks, Georgie,’ she said airily, ‘you all have close shaves with the Watch every now and then, don’t you? Tonight was no different!’
But Georgie Jay was sighing as he gazed at Tassie’s defiant face beneath her tumbling curls that glowed a fierce gold in the flickering candlelight. ‘You’re a lass, Tassie,’ he said regretfully.