Page 57 of A Sham Engagement

Jack made no preamble. “Where is my son?”

Warren, for it had to be he, gave a shrug of the shoulders as though that scarcely mattered. “Now then, boyo, no need to get all arsey.” A definite Welsh twang to his voice. He could be someone who’d known Mary, but had his lovely Mary attached herself to this venal creature in her youth? Impossible to imagine. The man was most likely lying, and Mary hadn’t been. He wanted to cling to that idea, even as inside himself he knew she had been.

Behind Jack, Benjamin had closed the door and was now leaning his narrow shoulders against it, much as he’d done in his ailing father’s office. Was he here to make sure Jack didn’t hurt Warren, or to make sure Warren didn’t hurt Jack? Whose side he was on seemed a moot point now. Had he ever made the break from his good for nothing father or had he been gulling his mother and Jack all this time, fooling his hapless sponsor concerning his new life? What did any of that matter now?

“What have you done with my son?” Jack asked.

“Don’t you mean my son?” Warren said. The singsong lilt that had made Mary’s voice so attractive sounded out of place and coarse in his. Alien. Jack itched to plant him a facer. He clenched his fists by his sides and stood silent. That could wait until he had Edward back. Then he’d deal with this cockroach.

Warren smiled, showing crooked, yellowed teeth with big gaps where some had been lost, to scurvy, no doubt. A single gold incisor flashed. Gold earrings decorated the lobes of his fleshy ears, and around his neck hung a gold necklace, peeking from between the collars of his shirt and blue sailor’s coat. Unwise to go about the Devil’s Acre showing off your riches like this. The man must be confident no one would touch him. Confident, perhaps, in the patronage of Reuben Sharpe.

“I’ll ask you once more. Where is Edward?”

“That what you call him, is it?” Warren ran a grimy finger along the groove of his chin. “Well grown the way he is, he’ll make a likely cabin boy when I take him back to sea wi’ me.”

“I want him back. He’s not your son.”

Warren threw a scornful glance at Benjamin. “You’ve fed the brat better than you have this one, with his trap stick legs, I can see. Oh yes, I know all about how you’ve treated my mate Reuben.” He laughed, a hoarse, grating sound like a saw. “You make a habit of stealing other people’s wives, he tells me. If I weren’t so pissed with you, I’d thank you for taking such good care of my boy.”

“He is not your boy.” The urge to seize the man by the throat waxed strong. It was only with great difficulty that Jack kept himself under control.

Warren grinned, and his gold tooth flashed. “In the eyes of the law, he’s mine all right, boyo. Mine to use as I want, to take where I want, to put in work as I want. And he’s big enough to put to work in one o’ they cotton mills up north in Manchester, if I’ve a mind to it. Or down a mine. I’ve been up there, seen those mills. They’ll snap him up and pay me for it. He’s mine to sell as I want. To the highest bidder… of course.” He winked at Benjamin. “Think your man here can be the highest bidder?”

Benjamin said nothing, his face a study in uninterested nonchalance. Hedging his bets, damn the boy.

Every bone in Jack’s body cried out that it would be wrong to give this man money, that he shouldn’t submit to this blackmail, that he should find some other way to get Edward back. But he couldn’t. If Warren was indeed Mary’s husband, then Edward was legally his child. To this man, Edward was nothing more than a ticket to riches, and if those riches didn’t arrive, Edward’s life would be worth nothing. At the very least, Jack had to appear to be compliant. For now.

“How much do you want?”

Warren seemed much given to smiling, flashing that gold tooth with abandon. Even with Reuben Sharpe’s patronage, Jack knew the man couldn’t be certain no thief wouldn’t stick a knife in him for that tooth and the necklace and earrings. “That’s better, boyo. I knew you’d see the light.” He ran his fingers through his thatch of shaggy, straw-colored hair. “Only there’s not just me wants recompense now. There’s my mate Reuben downstairs, who helped me find you and my boy. Glad, he was, to be offered the chance to get one over on your high and mighty lordship.”

He grinned yet again. “All I knew when my ship docked back in London was my Mary had been working the alehouses here in London when I left with my ship for the Antipodes. Last I saw of her, she was workin’ The Angel in Limehouse, for your friend Reuben. Luck brought me back to Reuben’s door, and luck threw us together with one end in our hearts. Yours.”

He chuckled. “See? He’s got his own axe to grind, you mark my words. He tells me you prigged his missus and took her along with mine. One wasn’t enough for you.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Make a bit of a habit of priggin’ other people’s wives, do you, boyo? All Reuben’s regulars know the story. There weren’t no shortage of volunteers to help me snatch my boy back.”

Jack said nothing. Telling this man how Reuben had beaten his wife would make no difference. He’d probably beaten Mary himself when they’d been together, or she might not have left him. Although, of course, as she’d kept her married state secret, she’d never revealed anything to Jack.

“I don’t just want money for giving up my boy,” Warren said. “I want compensation for the loss of my wife. For the earnings she should’ve been giving me. Reuben told me she was raking in a fine fortune singing for the gentry in theaters up west. You owes me for that. And for her loss when you let her die birthin’ my boy. And my mate Reuben wants the same for his wife. You deprived him of her services these eight years past.” He paused and gave an earthy chuckle. “Now, what do you suppose, boyo, is a wife worth to a man? And his children. Reuben’s lost all his children, hasn’t he young Benjamin? Savin’ this one, I hear.”

Benjamin shifted a little but said nothing.

Oh, how much Jack didn’t want to give this grasping man money. To give neither of these extortionists a penny. To see them both in Newgate Jail, or transported to Botany Bay. Though, for preference, hung. Outside Newgate Jail, in public.

“How do I know he’s still alive? I need to see Edward for myself.”

Warren shook his head. “Not happenin’, boyo. I’m no flat to be gulled by you. No money, no boy.”

An impasse.

“Prove to me he’s safe, then.”

Warren’s ferrety face crunched in a frown. “How’m I to do that, d’you s’pose? Without showin’ you my hand? D’you think I’m an idiot?”

Jack jerked his chin at Benjamin. “Show Reuben’s son my boy is safe. Living. Without proof he is, I’m not prepared to give you a single penny.”

Benjamin straightened up.

Jack dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He was depending now, on Benjamin being on his side. For all he knew, Edward was already dead, and if Benjamin came down on the side of his father and Warren, he might lie and say he’d seen Edward. But he wouldn’t think like that. He had to believe his son still lived. He had to put all thoughts like that from his head as they only bred fear, and he couldn’t falter in his resolve.