Page 102 of Thief Taker

When Elias reached the moment everything fell apart, his throat constricted, his anger still raw. Not just anger. “I saw his arm and I…” He stumbled. “I knew, Hal. I couldn’t deny it any longer.”

Hal was silent for a beat, and then said, “Did he confess to it?”

“Aye.” His hands were tight on the table, knuckles white. “Said he did it to save his estate, his sister’s future—all of that. Usual excuses.”

“Hardly usual.”

“Still excuses.”

Hal observed him impassively. “You and I, Elias, think differently on what motivates a man to steal. Putting food in his stomach, I say, is not an excuse—it’s a necessity. It’s a righteous justification. It’s no sin, even if it is a crime.”

“We’ve argued this before.”

“So we have.” After a pause he said, “So is this gent of yours currently languishing in Newgate Gaol?”

Elias hesitated. “No.”

“Ah.”

“I know I should have taken him in, but I couldn’t—He… That is, we …” Bloody hell. He coloured up. “I couldn’t.”

Hal let out a breath. “Here we have it then,” he said, with less derision than Elias had been expecting. “A matter of”—a slight pause—“the heart, is it?”

Elias swallowed but couldn’t keep the emotion down. All he could manage was a nod. “For my part at least. And I don’t know what to do.” He risked a glance at Hal; his face gave nothing away. “You know why I left. After you let that…that bastard—”

“His children were starving.”

“My brother was dead!”

Hal spread his hands and said no more.

After a pause, Elias went on. “For eight years I’ve walked the right side of the law. Everything I am tells me to haul him up before the beak, but…” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “He’s a decent cove, Hal. I can’t see him hang.”

Hal didn’t respond to that, at least not more than a slow letting out of breath. “So what have you done with him?”

“I ain’t done nothing with him. I told him to run. Gave him ’til morning to leave London.”

“And did he?”

Elias nodded, part relieved and part hurt. He didn’t know what he’d hoped for when he returned to Curzon Street that morning—Kit begging him to go with him perhaps? But there’d been no chance of that, not after Elias had made it clear that everything between them was a lie. Which was why he’d said it in the first place: to cut the tie, to make sure Kit ran. Pulling the parcel from inside his coat, Elias set it on the table. “He left this”—he unwrapped the silver pistol—“on his bed.”

Hal cocked an eyebrow. “You know why?”

Elias thought he did. It was a promise that Wessex would disappear, that Kit would give up his thieving. An apology, of sorts. It would be like Kit to do it, to want to make redress even when he believed Elias had seduced him for his own gain. God, but it hurt to know he’d think that. “Perhaps he don’t need it no more,” was all he said aloud.

Hal skimmed the pistol with a practised eye, its superbly engraved stock, the well-maintained flintlock. It was a beautiful weapon. Valuable. “What will you do with it?”

“Do with it?” He frowned. “It’s evidence. Found it in his bloody bed chamber, didn’t I?” What else could he do with it?

“You plan to go after him then?”

Elias stilled. That was the question. That was why he was here. “I—I ain’t got no choice. He’s Wessex. I’ve been hunting him for months.”

“And yet here you are, Elias.” Hal cocked his head. “What do you want from me?”

Elias spread his hands on the table. It was sticky with spilled beer, gouged and uneven. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what to do.” Hal’s eyes glinted in the dark, his mouth a hard line. “This was a stupid idea”—Elias stood up—“I shouldn’t have come.”

He’d half-turned away when a hand touched his wrist, stopping him. “Wait,” Hal said. “I ain’t—This ain’t forgiveness. But…” He dropped Elias’s arm, withdrew again. “You know you wouldn’t be alone in this if you hadn’t left the Brewery; you’d have brothers on your side.”