"Janey." Reid"s quiet voice broke through Mrs Wick"s anxious flutterings and her head instantaneously swivelled towards him.
"Yes, Robert?"
"I"ll be going now. They"s two eggs keeping hot in the pan for you, and you"re to eat them both, hear? No giving them to Johnny or them greedy twins."
She blushed faintly and glanced at Mary. "Two eggs? But I couldn"t..."
"You can, and you must." He turned courteously to Mary. "Evening, ma"am."
She nodded graciously and watched him take leave of the children, bidding them be good for their mother"s sake. It was impossible not to admire the compa.s.sion he showed them. As Reid let himself out of the door, he glanced once more towards the back of the room, his gaze swerving towards Janey Wick as though by compulsion. Guarded as his expression was, Mary couldn"t help but see the longing and tenderness in his eyes.
She was almost sorry to observe it. There was no way this man was a casual, drunken pub brawler. That, combined with his pa.s.sion for Jane Wick and his affection for her children, meant that his bruises were significant. They"d been fading on Monday, so the fight had taken place perhaps a week ago. She wondered if Wick"s body had also borne evidence of a fist-fight.
Mrs Wick, whose attention had wandered to her children, pa.s.sed a weary hand over her forehead and yawned. The languid gesture pulled her dress tight against her body a her thin, narrow body a and the slight swell of her lower belly. Mary"s gaze was riveted once more. On a woman that gaunt, such a belly could mean only one thing; even she knew that. It might not be Reid"s baby, of course. But odds were it was, and that was more than sufficient motive for violence. It was enough even for murder.
The door clicked shut behind Reid and Mrs Wick smiled at Mary, meek and conciliatory. "Forgive me, ma"am. I"m sure I don"t know why I"m so weary these days. It"s in my bones, like."
Mary murmured something about trying times. "Have you family close by? Someone to help with the children?"
She shook her head. "I ain"t from London; it was Wick as wanted to work here, and what could I do but follow? I was right sorry to leave Saffron Walden."
"Have you thought about what you might do? Go back to Ess.e.x, perhaps? Or at least send some of the children?" A better-off relative might even offer to raise one of them for her.
"I don"t rightly know, ma"am. It"s all so sudden, and Wick not yet buried on account of that ink..." She made a helpless gesture.
"What do you do, for work?"
"Straw-plaiting, ma"am."
So that was why her hands were so callused and scarred. They were the hands Mary herself ought to have had, the better to pa.s.s as a builder"s a.s.sistant. "And you find time to plait straw, with six children in the house?"
"Aye, ma"am. Katy"s a wonder for looking after the little ones, and Johnny"s old enough to help in his way. Wick had his trade, but it"s powerful hard to keep a family of eight even on a bricklayer"s wages, ma"am, and a working man"s wife has got to help in any way she can."
"Very proper," said Mary. "You must both have worked hard, indeed."
Mrs Wick nodded. "Oh yes, ma"am, poor Wick worked hard enough for his wages. Why, they"s nights he ain"t come home till nine, ten, nor even eleven o"clock! A working man"s life is a hard one, they say, and it were so for Wick."
Nine or ten o"clock, from a building site? From the pub, more like. Mary looked critically at Mrs Wick"s bruised eye, still swollen and slightly distorted. They were an oddly discoloured pair at the moment, Jane Wick and Robert Reid a and it was almost certainly thanks to the same, dead man. "And was Wick a good husband to you?"
Mrs Wick flushed defensively. "I hope you"ll pardon my saying so, ma"am, but if a man"s so hard-worked, he"s often weary."
But not too weary to beat his pregnant wife. Mary"s mouth twisted in disgust, but there was no point in pressing the issue if Mrs Wick was only going to defend her husband"s brutality. And what would such an admission prove? Only that Wick was like thousands of men across England. "I ask," she said in a conciliatory voice, "because I wonder what else I might be able to do for you. What do you need, Mrs Wick?"
A prouder woman would have refused, at this point. A pragmatic one would have made a request. But Jane Wick merely shook her head, uncertain. "I don"t rightly know, ma"am, for all you"re so kind..."
"The funeral"s tomorrow?"
"Yes, ma"am, and there"s my mourning to finish ... I been that busy, I ain"t yet put the bodice to the skirt."
"Who will watch the children?"
Three sharp raps on the door interrupted them.
Mrs Wick looked anxious once again. "I ain"t never had so many callers," she said apologetically. "Johnny, do you answer that, there"s a good boy."
Johnny left the table still chewing, a hunk of bread-and-b.u.t.ter in one hand. The hinges were rather stiff and he had to pull on the door with his body-weight in order to open it. What he saw on the other side caused him to gasp and let go of the doork.n.o.b, dropping onto his bottom with a thump. His bread-and-b.u.t.ter tumbled to the floor and he made no move to retrieve it.
"Good evening, young man," said a low masculine voice. "Is your mother home?"
For the second time that evening, Mary froze with a combination of panic and disbelief. But this time, it was much, much worse. This time, she had no hope at all of going unrecognized.
This time, the man was James Easton.
He hadn"t thought himself all that terrifying to look at. But judging from the little boy"s expression, he was the bogeyman himself. It was rather late to be paying calls, of course, but he couldn"t help that. He needed to build a picture of the dead man in his head. Was Wick the sort who"d flout safety precautions while in the belfry? Or was he a steady, cautious sort whose fall was inexplicable except by violence? Part of the answer lay here, in his home, and the Wick family would just have to believe that he wasn"t a tax-collector, bailiff, or worse.
"Well, lad?" When the child continued to gape up at him, James glanced past him into the house. And what he saw made him stare too.
Two women stood at the centre of the room, interrupted in deep conversation. One was pallid and emaciated a obviously the widow Wick, surrounded by her enormous brood. The sight of the other made his pulse kick hard, the blood rush to his head, his hands go weak.
Mary advanced towards him, a complicated expression in her eyes. "Mr Easton," she said in a high, affected voice. "How very kind of you to call on the Wick family, too. You remember me, of course: Mrs Anthony Fordham, from St Andrew"s Church."
He stared at her for a long moment, then swallowed. "Mrs Fordham." His voice was rusty, but at least words were coming out. "What an unexpected surprise." Belatedly, he managed a clumsy bow.
"Wholly unexpected," she agreed emphatically, inclining her head. The long, dyed-blue feathers in her hat swayed each time she moved. "I"ve just been having a conversation with Mrs Wick a woman to woman, you know a but I shan"t detain her any longer. I"m sure you have business to transact."
"Hardly business," he protested. He wasn"t sure he liked the sound of that. And he certainly disliked the voice she was using as Mrs Fordham. But she wasn"t attending. Instead, she turned back to the young widow and murmured a few rapid sentences. Mrs Wick nodded, apparently rather bowled over a by Mary? By the sudden stream of do-gooding callers? By life in general? a and bobbed a string of curtseys, nodding all the while.
The sitting room was narrow. On her way to the door, Mary pa.s.sed so close that her wide skirts brushed his trouser leg and he caught the fragrance of her lemon soap. He inhaled gently, surrept.i.tiously.
Mary bowed once again, a faint flicker of mischief in those hazel eyes. "Good evening, sir."
"Allow me to help you to your carriage."
Slight alarm flared in her eyes. "How kind of you, but it isn"t necessary."
Alarm. He could deal with that. He rather liked that. "I insist." He turned to Mrs Wick, who was watching with dazzled confusion. "If you could be so kind a two minutes" indulgence..." James turned back to Mary and offered his arm, his eyes daring her to flee.
She looked as though she"d rather walk with the devil himself, but she placed her extreme fingertips on his right sleeve. He clamped them in place with his left hand, and her eyes widened. Still, she said nothing. The moment the door closed behind them, he expected her to wrench free.
Instead, she stopped demurely on the pavement. "Thank you, sir. This is my carriage just here."
He pressed down on her gloved hand, wishing he could feel her skin. "What are you playing at, Mary?"
"I beg your pardon?" The voice was still Mrs Fordham"s, but there was a slight quiver at the end that he quite enjoyed.
"I think you"d better tell me what you"re up to." He paused, looked into her eyes. "Both here and on site."
Her eyes widened.
He grinned.
"I a I must be on my way." She glanced quickly at her coachman, a young fellow who watched them with undisguised interest.
James scowled at him and he merely smirked in response. Insolent. "Well?"
"Did you follow me here?" The voice was all Mary, now a not Mark, not Mrs Fordham. He"d not realized how much he"d missed hearing it.
"Answer me first."
She glanced towards the carriage again. "We haven"t time right now."
"So out with it."
With a sigh, she tried to pull her hand away.
He curled his fingers around hers and gripped hard a hard enough to hurt.
"Carter!"
The young coachman hopped down from his seat. "Yes, Mrs Fordham."
James promptly relinquished her hand. "Until tomorrow, Mrs Fordham."
She didn"t reply. But he caught a glimpse of her expression as she mounted the steps to the carriage, and it was both worried and cross. Good.
At least there, they were even.
Fourteen.
The early hours of Thursday, 7 July
The Agency"s Headquarters The drive back to the Agency was swift and tense a on Mary"s part, at least. She couldn"t see Felicity, perched atop the carriage, but her imagination was vivid. She saw herself shamed, scolded, sacked. And she had little to say in her own defence, except the stupid-sounding "He didn"t seem to recognize me." How could she have been so naive as to hope that? So foolish as to conceal James"s presence from the Agency?
Once in the attic office, though, the conversation took an unexpected turn. Rather than reprove Mary, Anne sighed. "I must confess, I worried about your ability to blend invisibly into a building site."
"I thought we did well, considering the pressing nature of the a.s.signment," said Felicity smoothly. A trifle defensively.
Almost without pause, Anne asked Mary, "Have you any suggestions as to how you might explain yourself to Mr Easton now?"
Mary nodded slowly. "I had an idea ... not an especially good one, I"m afraid, but it"s plausible."
"Wait a moment," drawled Felicity, leaning forward. "Even with a beautifully turned, utterly plausible background story, we"re rather missing an opportunity here." Both Mary and Anne turned to her with some surprise. "This is the second time you"ve encountered James Easton. He was rather helpful to you during the Thorold case, was he not?"
"He was." Mary cursed the warmth in her cheeks that must signify a blush.
"And he"s certainly curious about your current activities. Even I could see that."
Mary nodded, remembering the smirk on "Carter"s" face as she and James bickered on Mrs Wick"s doorstep.
"I think no matter how perfectly you performed as Mark Quinn, he would always have recognized you. He probably knew you straight away, but was keeping silence for his own reasons."
"I expected him to know me. But when he didn"t let on, I thought it best to leave it alone."
"And he"s just returned from India. This isn"t the sort of small job he"d normally bother with."
"That"s right."
"Clever, discreet, and underemployed." Felicity made an elegant gesture with her hands. "Why not recruit him to work for the Agency?"
"What?!" gasped Anne.
Mary stared. It was either the best or the worst suggestion she"d ever heard. It might be both.
"Of all the absurd, impulsive, inappropriate schemes!" Anne nearly spat the words. "How utterly nonsensical!"
Bright flags of colour appeared on Felicity"s cheeks. "How so? Easton demonstrates all the traits we seek in candidates."
"He"s ... why, he"s-"
"Male. Is that the problem?"
"Well, it"s certainly a problem for the Agency. We were founded on the Scrimshaw Principle: women, who are undervalued and underestimated at every turn, have the advantage when it comes to intelligence work."
"I"m well aware of the Agency"s history," said Felicity. "But in this case, Easton has the advantage. He has experience of building sites, and a position of authority."
"That"s because we had no business accepting this case! We strayed outside the Agency"s area of expertise, and this confusion is the consequence. James Easton, whatever his virtues, can play no part in the usual work of the Agency."
"The "usual work of the Agency"," drawled Felicity, "bears reconsideration. The current case demonstrates that perfectly. If we cannot accept work a interesting, well-paid, important work a we ought to question our self-imposed limitations. Male agents may be just what we need in order to grow as an organization."
"The current case is not just beyond our scope! It is inimical to our aims."
"Please!" interrupted Mary, standing awkwardly. Anne and Felicity stared at her, startled. They seemed to have forgotten her presence entirely. "I must return to Lambeth. I"ve a decent story to tell James Easton for the moment, until you a until a decision is made."
Anne swallowed and said, in something approximating her usual tone, "It"s very late, Mary. Why don"t you stay here until morning? It"s quite safe for you to do so."
Mary nodded reluctantly. She had already compromised her seamless existence as Mark Quinn. James Easton had destroyed her cover. It seemed she had nothing to lose by staying one night in her old bed, here at the Agency a while it was still the Agency she knew.