Page 117 of Thief Taker

Their gaze met, those blue eyes of Kit’s as open as ever despite his obvious unease. “Then…may I come in?”

With a nod, Elias stepped back, his heart kicking against his ribs. Conscious of how modest this room must look to Kit, he was ready with defiance as he closed the door. But he needn’t have bothered; Kit’s attention was fixed only on him.

In the grate, the coals hissed and settled. From the street below came a shout, the rumble of a passing carriage, running footsteps. Yet the silence inside the room was profound. Kit removed his hat, his presence filling the small space with a cold, windswept tang. He opened his mouth a couple of times, as if to speak, and then changed his mind. The silence stretched on forever and Elias couldn’t stand it. He blurted, “I went to the docks.” His voice sounded too loud in the quiet room. “I looked for you.”

Kit gave a scant nod. “I saw you.”

“You saw…?” He’d seen him yelling after the damned ship, his heart breaking right there on Wapping Old Stairs. “And you said nothing?”

“I hid.” Kit looked away guiltily. “I was afraid you’d come to arrest me, and if that’s your intention, I—”

“It should be,” Elias snapped. “Or maybe it shouldn’t, I don’t know. Either way, it weren’t.”

Kit bowed his head in silence, his lips parting with a long, steady exhale. “That was my hope,” he said quietly, “when I followed you here from Bow Street.”

“Did you really think I could see you hang?”

“Of course I did!” Fire flashed in Kit’s eyes. “You told me to run. You told me that everything tender between us was a lie!”

“I was angry! You made a bloody fool of me, Kit. Elias Cole, thief taker—hah! I couldn’t spot the thief in my own bloody bed.” He turned away, the memory of his failure still hard to bear. “I bet you were laughing.”

“You know I wasn’t.”

Quiet fell, but not silence. Kit’s breathing filled the small room, his presence overwhelming. Eventually he said, “If not to arrest me, then why come to Wapping?”

Why indeed? “I came to tell you that I—” But his voice cracked on the cusp of the truth. “That I visited your sister.”

Coward.

“Charlotte?” Kit sounded weary, bone tired, and Elias felt a helpless need to offer comfort. But what comfort could he offer? The trust between them was shattered. “What for?”

“To…” Chin lifted, Elias braced himself for a different confession. “To give her the deeds to Ashbourne Abbey, and the disentailment deed.”

Kit stared. “You…” His voice was a raw whisper. “You what?”

“You heard.” Turning away, Elias moved to stand by the window, lifting the curtain to watch the street below. He didn’t want Kit’s gratitude, but he feared his judgement more.

Footsteps scuffed the floorboards behind him and when Kit spoke again, he was standing closer. “I read in the newspaper that Marlborough was killed.”

“So he was.”

A tense pause. “By your hand?”

In the window, reflections flickered in the uneven glass: the fire, the lamp, a shadow that was Kit. “You think me a murderer?”

Kit didn’t answer and Elias let his head fall forward, resting against the cold glass. He deserved this distrust but that didn’t make it sting any less. “It’s true,” he said softly. “Marlborough died by my hand. I took the deeds from him—I broke into his room at the inn and took them from his bag. He woke.”

Kit set a hand on his shoulder and Elias startled, his guts knotting in want. “There was a fight?”

Elias had to clear his throat before he could speak again. Even so, his voice came out uneven. “He came at me with his cane,” he said, ignoring the pressure of Kit’s thumb against the skin above his collar. “We struggled and he fell, hit his head on the hearthstone. Judge me, if you dare.”

“Judge you?” Kit said. “I tried to steal the deeds myself. How could I judge you?”

Elias had no answer to that, so ploughed on with his confession. “It wasn’t planned, but I took the opportunity as it came and left your pistol next to Marlborough’s body. Groves isn’t best pleased, but he knows what Marlborough did to Hawker. It’s justice, of a sort.” He swallowed, clenched his fingers into his palms to screw up enough courage to confess the worst lie. “You’re safe now, Ashbourne’s safe and you can go home. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

Kit’s hand left his shoulder. “Is it?”

The question hung, unanswered, between them for several moments. Then Elias said, “Why didn’t you sail with your ship? Your sister believed you would.”