Page 53 of A Sham Engagement

Best not to answer this one, as that was exactly what Jack was thinking.

Benjamin straightened his skinny limbs and pulled himself up from his position lounging at the bar. “Then we’re goin’ in.” He turned to Jack. “You’d better come wi’ me right now. I daresn’t leave you alone in here.” He grinned, showing his crooked, yellowed teeth. “I don’t think this lot likes the look o’ you too much.”

In agreement on that, Jack followed Benjamin as he edged through the surly, still threatening crowd, who seemed less inclined, now, to move than ever, toward the far side of the tap room. There, a low door lurked in a shadowy corner, guarded by two enormous men, their beefy arms folded across their wide chests. By their cauliflower ears and broken noses, they looked as though the fighting ring was their preferred milieu. Probably bare knuckled fights like those Jack had gone to watch and bet on in his reckless youth.

Both of them surveyed Jack out of hostile eyes for a moment before the one on the right unfolded his arms as though this were a great chore. He wore a dirty, collarless shirt, the sleeves rolled up to above the elbow to exhibit a tangled mass of tattoos. With a curl of his hairy upper lip, he tapped on the door with the delicacy of a duchess, while never taking his watchful eyes from Jack’s face.

“Enter.” A deep rumble of a voice Jack well remembered answered.

The tattooed man jerked his head at Jack and Benjamin, and with one muscle-bound arm, pushed the door open. Jack had to duck to pass through it. Even Benjamin, who was small and wiry, had to stoop to avoid losing his own jaunty cap.

The room Jack entered was small and square and hung like the taproom with low beams overhead that brushed the top of Jack’s head. A coal fire blazed in the hearth and in the center of the room sat a solid oak desk, much gouged about on top and most of its polish gone. Behind the desk reclined a mountain of a man who made both Havelock and Jack look slight, and who, like them, would have found it difficult to stand upright in the room. Time had not been kind to him. Not only was he tall, but in possession of a huge gut that he’d not had when Jack had last met him eight years since. The buttons of his brocade waistcoat strained across it, intent on giving up the challenge to hold him in. In front of him, on the table, lay the remains of his dinner—a well-picked chicken carcass.

“Jack Deveril, or I’m a niffy-naffy feller. Well, strike me down.” The man’s piggy eyes, nestling within flaccid, pouchy cheeks, ran up and down Jack in obvious assessment. “The years’ve done you well, I see.” His greasy lips curved in a smile. “I didn’t think you’d dare venture into my neck o’ the woods ever again.” He coughed into a voluminous handkerchief. “Although I’ve heard about your exploits snatchin’ children off the streets. Rumor has it you’ve been cookin’em and puttin’em in pies.”

He gave a great guffaw which ended wheezily in more coughing. Was that blood on the handkerchief?

Jack fought to hang onto his self-control. His son’s life depended on his comportment now. He mustn’t put a foot wrong. “Well, here I am.”

The two burly guards had shouldered their way into the room behind Jack and Benjamin and their meaty, solid presence rendered the room airless and claustrophobic. Did they imagine Jack might try to harm their guv’nor even now, with all those men out in the taproom just feet away? He wasn’t an idiot.

Reuben Sharpe wiped his mouth and waved a dismissive hand at them. “You can wait outside. My boy’s enough guard for me tonight. And me an’ this gentleman’re old acquaintances.” He nodded at Benjamin. “You got your barking irons, boy?”

For answer, Benjamin tapped his waist where his loose coat covered the top of his trousers. “I don’t come out wivout’em, Pa.” The two guards, faces wreathed in disappointment that they weren’t to be involved in the battering of such a swell cove, and whatever profits that might generate, retreated, and Benjamin closed the door behind them.

Reuben nodded, a satisfied grin spreading across his face, and Jack had pause to wonder if it had been a good idea to entrust himself to Benjamin’s tender care. The boy had spent more than half his life in his father’s company and been nearly a man grown when his mother had escaped that life, and was also used to going about armed. Perhaps his present employment was all a sham. It didn’t do to take people at face value.

Reuben pushed aside the plate of bones. “Warren said you’d come.”

“Warren?” Jack frowned. What did Sharpe mean by that? It wasn’t lost on him that Warren had been Mary’s surname and thus it was Edward’s as well. But who was this Warren and how was he someone Reuben Sharpe knew? Mary had told him she’d had no family to turn to, and that she’d been quite alone in the world. It seemed Reuben Sharpe was already well acquainted with Jack’s reason for being here. That would save some time.

“Know the name, don’tcha?” Reuben was enjoying this, his eyes dancing with malicious fervor.

Of course he did. Jack’s mind leapt back to the day he’d first met Mary Warren, ten years ago. She’d been singing in a tavern, in Limehouse, when he’d come in with some friends for a dare. It hadn’t been the sort of establishment men of the upper echelons of the Ton were wont to frequent, but he and his fellow young blades had taken it upon themselves to visit every tavern in London between them. The Angel, Limehouse, had been on Jack’s list, and back then it had happened to be the tavern run by Reuben Sharpe.

Mary had been the evening’s entertainment. As Jack and his friends had settled with their tankards of ale, she’d taken to the makeshift stage, such as it was, to sing Farewell and Adieu to you Spanish Ladies. An aptly chosen ditty, which had fitted her dockside audience who joined in with the rousing chorus with gusto. Most of them, as Jack found out later, were sailors who’d been, or still were, part of the force fighting against the French.

Jack and his friends had raised their glasses to her and sung as lustily as the denizens of The Angel, but Jack had only had eyes for the singer.

Mary had been the most beautiful girl Jack had ever seen, with her wild black hair cascading about her almost naked shoulders, her slanting cat’s eyes and her luscious red lips. A look of the exotic about her, but an accent that was pure Welsh valleys. Young and full of bravado, with a heart already swelling with love, he’d raised his own tankard of ale in salute to the beautiful young singer and the brave sailors who surrounded him. And that had been the start of the relationship that had led to her death two years later.

“Who is this Warren?” Jack asked. Was he mistaken in his belief that Mary had possessed no relatives? She’d been gone so long, now, it was hard to recall. And her death in childbirth had left him so racked with despair his reaction had been to shut out all memories of her. Only her child had remained, consigned, at first, to a wetnurse chosen from amongst his tenants at Broxbourne Park and only later part of his life in London.

But Reuben wasn’t about to reveal all his secrets straightaway. He leaned forwards suddenly, pointing a stubby, dirty-nailed finger at a rickety chair. “Sit yerself down, why don’tcha? Milord.” That last word came out as a sneer, the effect somewhat marred by another fit of coughing. This time it was obvious he was coughing up blood. Of course, consumption—with his pasty almost gray skin and hollows around his eyes, it was clear the man had that death sentence of an illness.

Jack eyed him in speculation for a few seconds. But, if he wanted to find out what was going on here and retrieve his son, he’d best do as he was asked. He sat down, and Benjamin retreated to the door, which he leaned against, arms folded across his scrawny chest.

“That’s better.” Reuben wheezed a chesty cough again, this time producing nothing. “I got a lot to say to you.”

Jack resisted the inclination to say, “Well, get on with it then,” and stayed silent.

Reuben rubbed his stubbly chin. “I can’t say as I ain’t got no axe to grind wi’ you, my fine lord, because I has. And you well knows it. You prigged my wife’n’fam’ly more’n eight years back, and I ain’t a man as takes that lyin’ down.” He grinned, flashing an array of brown teeth and a couple of gold ones at Jack. “Though I’m a man as likes to take his time with things like revenge. No rushin’ in like a bull in a china shop for Reuben Sharpe. I’m a man as likes to savor his revenge when it comes. A patient man, that’s me.”

That this was revenge had occurred to Jack as soon as Sharpe had mentioned Mary’s surname. Whoever this Warren who’d taken Edward was, he must have known she’d worked for Reuben in the past. And eight years ago, when Jack had helped Martha Sharpe escape her bully of a husband with her brood of terrified children, Reuben had sworn Jack would live to regret it. The man was right. He’d waited a long time to hit back, if that was what this was. And perhaps the arrival of this man Warren had triggered this.

“You have my son?”

“Do I?” Reuben smiled. “You thinks I do, most clear. But do I? What would I want wiv a lad like him? A twig off the grand trunk of milord Jack Deveril? A small an’ snivelly twig, at that. Cries like a baby, so I’m told.”