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She put a hand to her head. “Where are my smelling salts?”
“No time for fainting,” he said. “Now I’m back, Freame will strike at the first opportunity. We need a plan, and we need it soon.”
Friday 11 December
Breakfast time in the Blue Goose Inn’s public dining room was Squirrel’s favorite time. It was more like London then: busy, crowded, and loud. Better yet, in all the to-do of people coming and going in the coaches and such, nobody paid attention to Jacob and Husher. They sat at their usual table by a window, where they could watch the village green and the busier roads thereabouts. Squirrel stood by them, like a servant would do, waiting to fetch this or that from their room or run an errand.
And all three of them listened to what was going on around them. Raven was back, like Jacob said he’d be. The trouble was, newspaper coves swarmed like flies, and because of them, you could hardly get near the place without some watchman or constable telling you to move along.
Like Jacob said, they didn’t have the hawks here, like in London. But they had private watchmen on account of all the grand palaces. Lords and ladies had their houses all over—down by the green and along the river and up on the hill and in the park.
Jacob was boiling to get to Raven, but not enough to make Squirrel go over the fence to break into the house and let them in. Too easy to get caught, Jacob said.
If any of them got caught, the others would bolt. Had to. Everybody hereabouts knew they’d come here together.
The watchmen and the newspaper culls put Jacob in bad skin. He was hacking at his beefsteak like it was Raven’s innards. And thinking so hard you could practically hear it.
“Naturally we hope for a full commission.” Somebody at the big table close by was talking over the others. “Malvern House is one of London’s finest palaces—in an unfortunate state at present, else we should not have been consulted. But Lady Bredon means to make all as it should be. Down to the stables, you know, though that isn’t my province.”
The talker was an old cove, some kind of tradesman. The expensive kind, going by the cut of his old-fashioned clothes and the big ring on his right hand. He wore spectacles and a wig, like old coves did.
Jacob stopped hacking so hard. You could practically see his ears aiming at the talker.
Somebody else at the table said something, but Squirrel couldn’t hear over the other talk.
“Not at present,” the first man said. “However, his lordship told me they’ve brought the present duke’s mail phaeton out of retirement.”
“More suitable for a family man,” somebody said. “And more convenient for traveling to and from Town with her ladyship.”
Not convenient for us, Squirrel thought. Mail phaetons had a box behind the hood, where you could store parcels and luggage—but more important, there’d be a seat on the back of the box, big enough for two servants.
Before, Raven always traveled on his own, whether he rode or drove.
We lost our chance, Squirrel thought.
“His lordship was so gracious as to inform me the carriage had been well maintained these last few years,” the first man said. “It needed little work to bring it up to snuff.”
He’d been in the house yesterday and talked to Raven and the Long Meg. About curtains or furniture or some such. So people asked him questions, and even the serving maids made excuses to come by and jaw.
Jacob sneaked himself into the general jabber, like he knew how to do. He wanted to know about the shined-up mail phaeton, and the old man was happy to show off all he knew about the brand-new nobs up the river.
Then he was making a bustle—had to meet with her ladyship, and it wouldn’t do to be late.
But as he was leaving the dining room, Jacob caught up with him and got him talking in the passage.
And the end of that was, the fellow’s name was John Cotton, and Jacob was having supper with him tonight, and Husher and Squirrel could look after themselves.
Richmond Park
Tuesday 15 December
It was going to be here, like it or not, and Squirrel didn’t like this park.
Too much of it—ponds and fields and woods and hills. Only good news was, the weather was turning colder, so Raven didn’t drive his lady all over for miles and miles, like the first time. They went round like the swells did in Hyde Park, taking the same route from the house every day. No servants with their arses parked on the seat behind the box, neither. Just them two.
Every day they came down Richmond Hill into the park and took a turn there, then back again.
Thanks to his friend Cotton, Jacob knew they’d be driving out every day. Thanks to Squirrel following them two days in a row, he knew their route.
Had to be here, Jacob said. In Richmond, everybody watched everything and told everybody everything. Practically nobody came into the park this time of year, especially late in the afternoon.
Jacob had his plan worked out, step by step. They came early, to the spot Jacob picked, and practiced. Then Jacob and Husher left Squirrel to mind the curricle. He hid with the carriage and horses a short ways down the road, round a turning at the bottom of a hilly stretch, behind a thick clump of tall bushes with shiny green leaves.
Husher said it was going to be fun.
Squirrel wished it was over.
He waited and waited, and it felt like days.
Finally, he heard the carriage—two horses, four wheels—coming.
Radford caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, an instant before a familiar, wiry figure ran out from the bushes into the horses’ path, spreading out the front of his greatcoat and flapping it while shouting, “Help! Help!”
Birds flew up from the trees, setting the leaves rustling while they squawked warnings to their friends. Spooked, the horses reared up, while Freame—it was he, new whiskers and all—went on shouting and flapping the coat, though keeping out of the way of the hooves.
Come and get me, he seemed to say, and Radford longed to go after him and stop him, whatever he was up to—Freame and the others Radford knew were there.
But the horses would bolt. He had to get them under control first
“Give me the reins!” Clara cried.
Another, much bigger figure burst from the shrubbery. He lunged up at Radford, grabbed him, and pulled him off the carriage seat and into the road.
Don’t panic, Clara told herself.
She focused on grabbing the ribb
ons as Radford toppled from the carriage. She made herself concentrate on threading the reins through her fingers and getting the horses under control. She had no idea what was going on behind her or how many assailants had burst from the woodland, and she couldn’t take the time to look back. If she jumped or fell from the carriage and broke her neck, she’d be no good to Radford. They’d be no good to anybody if the horses trampled them. She had to keep her mind on what she was doing, focus on managing the panicked creatures with voice and reins. She could do it. She had to.
Husher was young but large and strong as a blacksmith. He had solid ground under his feet, while Radford had nothing to stop his being launched into air and thrown onto his back, hard. His ears rang. Panic washed in. The world started to darken and in the shadows he saw Bernard’s face, taunting, mocking.
Dead, dead, dead. The bastard.
The world flashed with bright lights. Radford was going somewhere, quickly. Where? Away, far away. Forever? He was aware of the taste of blood and hard ground under his back. The blackness still swirled toward him, an irresistible tide.
No. Something more.
More to be done. Said.
Clara. I love you.
No time for that! Get up! Fight back! Do something!
He scrambled to push himself up—Bernard had knocked him down, time and again. He knew what to do. Or did he?
His hand . . . on the ground, no, something there, solid. He closed his fist around it. He opened his eyes and saw a big hand upraised. Husher’s face, a wide, gap-toothed grin.
The lowering sun struck the knife’s blade. A blinding gold flash. Radford rolled away as the blade slashed downward. He heard a roar of rage, then Husher fell on him, hard and heavy, made of bricks. Radford gasped for breath but he held on to the solid thing in his hand—the whip handle—and as the knife came at him once again, he knocked it aside. Husher swore and grabbed Radford’s hand, the one holding the whip, squeezing painfully.
