Page 26 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

Chastity bustled back into the room, breathless and laughing. “I declare! That Bill Haythorpe! I’ve never known any man to get so easily foxed. Just wave a cup of stout beneath his nose and he’s under the table.”

“He’s an old drunkard, Mum. I don’t know how you can encourage him to hang about or that Madame Dubonnet. I should think you would want to forget that we ever had any connection to her or her house.”

“Betty is an old friend, Sara, and Mr. Haythorpe is a kind, generous man. It was him as apprenticed your brother Davy into a profitable trade.”

“As a resurrectionist? Stealing and selling dead bodies!”

“It’s nice steady work, miss.”

“If Davy were not so lazy, if he had an ounce of ambition in that thick head of his—”

“Now don’t you be so hard upon my poor little man. Davy is a good boy, so he is. He looks after his poor old mama.”

Sara rolled her eyes but held her tongue.

She had never been fond of her younger brother David, finding him both shiftless and underhanded.

But it was useless arguing with her mother on that point.

Besides, Chastity’s last comment about how well David looked after her had been a broad hint, Mum’s gaze fixing upon the parcel Sara had brought.

Sara handed her the package and Chastity pounced upon it as greedily as a small child.

Chastity cooed with delight over the tea, the pound of coffee, the chocolates, and sundry other delicacies.

But what pleased her most was the box of cigars.

Mum had acquired a taste for the nasty things from one of her lovers who had been a sea captain.

As Chastity examined the last of Sara’s offerings, several new pairs of knit stockings, Sara reached for her reticule. She fished around inside, drawing forth a small wad of pound notes.

“I am sorry I could not bring you as much as I usually do,” Sara said. “Since my parting from the marquis I have had to be more careful with my funds.”

“Ah, don’t you fret, babe.” As she took the money, Chastity reached out to give Sara a motherly pat on the cheek. “Things will come out all right. So that wretch of a man left you. You’ll find a new love soon enough.”

Sara started to reply, then closed her mouth.

It was of no use trying to explain to Chastity that Mandell had never been her love or that it had been Sara who had broken off the relationship.

Mum would never understand whistling such a handsome and wealthy lover down the wind any more than she would understand Sara’s yearning to be a real lady, to achieve a noble marriage.

“I am sure I will come about in time,” Sara said. “But I worry about you, Mum, about being able to bring you enough. I don’t want you feeling hard-pressed or thinking that you have to go back to Madame Dubonnet’s.”

“Lordy, child, as if I would ever have to do that if I didn’t want to!” Chastity daintily tucked the money inside the bosom of her gown and gave a proud toss of her head. “Your Mum still possesses a few resources of her own, you know. Besides, you forget I have two strong sons to care for me.”

“But that is the other reason I came here today, to tell you Gideon had to leave London, perhaps for quite awhile.”

“Oh, er—yes. Poor Gideon. Traveling on that horrid stage up north. I have only my little Davy left now.”

“How did you know where Gideon went’?” Sara asked sharply. “I just sent him off yesterday and I gave him no chance to come back here,”

“Well.” Chastity moistened her lips. “I expect I heard it from Davy. Yes, Davy. He just happened to be at the inn, spying upon you. You know what a rogue he can be sometimes.”

Giving a nervous laugh, Chastity’s gaze flicked toward the curtained alcove and guiltily away again. Sara stiffened. Her mother had the most transparent features imaginable.

Sara swore. How could she have been so stupid when she peeked behind the curtain before?

The glossy boots should have been familiar as the snoring, the huddling down beneath bedcovers pretending to be asleep.

It was one of the oldest tricks of their childhood.

Compressing her lips, Sara stalked toward the alcove.

”Oh, no, Sary,” Chastity cried. “I have a guest in there I didn’t tell you about. You don’t want to—”

Ignoring her mother, Sara flung back the curtain. Gideon was already leaping up from the bed. Shoving back the strands of his tousled hair, he gave her a sheepish grin. “Hullo, Sara.”

Sara’s fingers clenched about the end of the curtain. “Damn you, Gideon! I put you on that stage myself. I had you out of here. Why the devil did you come back?”

He spread his hands wide in an apologetic gesture. “Well, my dear, when the stage got past the city, I chanced to look out the window.” He gave a mock shudder. “There were pastures, Sara. Cows! Sheep!”

Chastity gave a shrill giggle which died when Sara whipped around to glare at her mother. “This is not amusing, Mum.”

“Aw, Sara.” Gideon tried to get an arm about her shoulders, but Sara flung him off.

“Come now, Sary,” Chastity coaxed. “You have got yourself into a rare state of panic over nothing. Gideon told me everything about you trying to make him run off over a few suspicions. No one is accusing him of being the Hook yet.”

“When someone does, it will be far too late,” Sara snapped.

“If it’s the money you wasted upon the stage,” Gideon said, “I will pay you back somehow.”

“It is not the money, you fool! I am trying to keep you from being arrested for murder.”

“Bah, there is nothing to connect Gideon to those killings. Only rumor.” Chastity smiled, preening a little.

“Mind you, it has not hurt my reputation in the neighborhood a bit, having people imagining Gideon might be the one. Why, the Hook is getting to be something of a legend like Dick Turpin or Robin of the Hood. The butcher actually slipped me an extra slab of bacon the other day.”

“When you see your oldest son swinging by the neck, I hope you will think the bacon was worth it, Mum.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t.” Chastity’s smile faded, her chin quivering. “I went to see poor Meg Cuttler’s boy turned off just last week for horse stealing. Davy and I attended the hanging. It was dreadful, though Meg did lay out a nice funeral breakfast in her flat afterwards.”

“And all the while I suppose Davy plotted to steal the corpse.”

“Certainly not!” Chastity said. “I raised your brother up to be a gentleman. He’d never open the grave of anybody he knows.”

A smothered choking sound escaped from Gideon, but Sara had no desire to laugh. She did not have the strength to be angry anymore, either. Sinking down at the table, she rested her brow upon her hands, determined not to have another headache.

What was the use of arguing? she thought wearily. What was the use of trying to help either one of them? It was hopeless. Life had always been hopeless in Bethnal Green.

Gideon drew their mother aside. After a little whispering between them, Gideon handed Chastity some coin, instructing her to bring back some rum from the shop around the corner.

Snatching up her shawl, Chastity slipped out of the room, promising to be back directly.

A silence settled over the flat when the door had closed behind her.

Gideon ambled back over to the table, but he did not sit down.

Resting his hands on the back of one of the chairs, he stared at Sara and said, “It wasn’t any good me running away, Sara. I think we both realize that.”

“If you had just possessed the sense to keep on running.”

“I have done some checking, Sara. The authorities are as baffled as ever. They have no witnesses, no clear description of the Hook. I am safe.”

“For the moment.”

“The moment’s enough for me. It always has been.” He gave a fatalistic shrug. “Bloody hell, Sara. I can’t run away from myself. If I don’t find trouble here in London, I’ll just find it elsewhere.”

“You are utterly determined to end up in the dock.”

“And when I do, I hope they don’t call you in for a testimony to my character.”

“I would lie through my teeth for you,” Sara said bitterly.

“So you would.” Although he leaned forward to chuck her under the chin, an expression of rare seriousness stole into Gideon’s grey eyes.

“Don’t you understand, little sister?” he asked. “It is you who should run from this place and not come back. Why do you persist in returning for these visits?”

“What a stupid question! Mum needs me. And you.”

“Mum can look out for herself and so can I. And even if it were otherwise, don’t you see, Sara? You can’t help us. You are the only one of us who has ever had dreams, imagining something much better than all of this.”

A hard smile touched Gideon’s lips. “Me and Mum and Davy don’t dream.

We just exist and we are content with that.

But you, Sara, you are different, bright, clever, determined.

You’ll get what you want someday, but not if you keep coming back here, getting tangled up with us. We will only drag you down.”

Sara felt a faint flush of shame stain her cheeks. Gideon was not saying anything that she had not already thought herself more than once.

Gideon finished by giving her cheek a playful flick, forcing the lightness back into his tone. “For what it was worth, that was a piece of free brotherly advice. It is likely the only thing you will ever get from me.”

Sara shoved back from the table, a hard set to her jaw. “Thank you, my dear brother. You are quite right, of course. You are all fools here. I shall not bother with you again.”

“That’s the spirit,” Gideon said, holding her coat to help her into it.

Sara was just donning her bonnet when Chastity came rushing back into the flat, bottle in hand. She gave a crow of dismay to see Sara on the verge of leaving.

“You cannot mean to be going so soon, Sary? And without a nip of rum to warm you, put some color back into your cheeks.”