She didn’t flinch. “I was being watched, Mr. Markhat. I’m sure of it. So I wrapped Mr. Tibbles in a towel and I stole a maid’s wrap and I sneaked down to the kitchen and then I walked out with a bag of trash, and I’m not sorry.”
Mr. Tibbles indicated his agreement by baring his teeth and growling.
I sighed and pulled one of Mary’s kitchen chairs around and sat on it.
“Tell me why you think you were being watched.”
“I peeped through the curtains sometimes. The same man was on the same corner all afternoon. He didn’t even move to the shade when the sun got hot. I know all of Daddy’s men, Mr. Markhat, and the man I saw wasn’t one of them. I left everything in my room. If they go in they might think I’m still somewhere in the hotel. Was that a smart thing to do, Mr. Markhat?”
I nodded. It was, actually. People seldom just walk away from their things, even when clinging to them puts them in peril.
“Still. You took an awful risk. Why didn’t you go home?”
“Because Father would have just sent me back there, Mr. Markhat. Or to another hotel. I’m tired of hiding. My wedding is just days away. Now then. Have you found Carris yet?”
Darla hid a grin.
“I’m close,” I said. “After tomorrow night, I hope to know who has him, or at least know more about them.”
Tamar nodded but did not smile.
“The caterers have been paid in full,” she said. “They need to know when to start icing the cake.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Darla shot me a look. “But you can’t stay here that long.”
“Mary said I could stay as long as I want.”
“Tamar, dear,” purred Darla. “He’s gruff, but he knows his business. I’m sure Markhat knows a better hiding place.”
“I do indeed. But moving her tonight isn’t the best way to handle things. We need crowds to hide in. Too, my Avalante carriage isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”
Tamar beamed and scratched Mr. Tibbles behind his scruffy little ears. “Did you hear that, Mr. Tibbles? We’re spending the night with Mary.”
“Are all the doors locked?”
Darla nodded. “Doors and windows.”
“Good.” I rose. “Lock this one after me.”
She frowned. “You’re leaving?”
“Only to send my driver home. I’ll be right back. Does Mary have a fireplace?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Then she has a fireplace poker. Keep it handy.” I kissed her on the nose and peeked through the door glass and then opened it quickly and waited there until I heard the locks click.
I asked my driver to ride around Rannit for a couple of hours before heading home. If anyone was keeping an eye out for finders in borrowed black carriages, that ought to prove amusing.
Then I headed back to Mary’s cheery little bungalow, my hand on Toadsticker’s hilt. I got indoors without incident, and I placed a straight-backed wooden chair across from the front door and angled it so I could see the room behind me.
Mary has a fancy brass clock on the mantel above her fireplace. It ticked and tocked the whole night long, while I watched windows and doors and fought off sleep by holding Toadsticker out level with my chest and balancing a glass on his blade whenever I felt the urge to doze.
Darla hadn’t asked where I intended to take Tamar. I still wasn’t sure. A hotel downtown, under an assumed name, I decided. With Mills idling in the lobby and keeping an eye on the stairs. I could hit up Fields for reimbursement later, and it was only then that I realized I no longer trusted the baker enough to tell him where I was hiding his daughter.
The brass clock struck out the third small hour when Darla emerged, wrapped in a blanket, sleep in her eyes. She curled up on the floor next to me and wordlessly went to sleep, her hand in mine.
Darla is beautiful, by the way. Far too beautiful to be walking out with a rogue such as I. But here she was, at my side.
Evis’s admonition to keep Toadsticker handy ran hobnailed through my mind. Hell, I was putting her at risk every day. If halfdead weren’t out there lurking, the kidnappers might be.
All because of me.
She opened her eyes for a moment and looked up at me and smiled and then fell fast asleep. In that brief moment, it appeared as if she was about to speak.
I listened to the wind outside, and I wondered until sunrise just what it was she might have said.
Mary appeared, clad in a high-necked dressing gown that concealed her so completely I would have been hard-pressed to identify her species, much less her gender. She shooed me into a corner and set about bringing her kitchen to life.
Bacon fried. Biscuits baked. Eggs scrambled. Toast toasted. Coffee perked, making wet sputtering noises that roused the rest of the ladies.
I was elected to take Mr. Tibbles for his morning constitutional. He appeared to be no more thrilled with the task than I, but apart from pulling at his leash and trying to hike his leg on my right boot, he behaved well enough.
I never left Mary’s yard. I did scandalize the neighborhood by waving to her sleepy-eyed neighbors and introducing myself as her beau until Darla dragged me back inside.
Tamar and Mary were already seated and dining. Two plates waited for Darla and I.
“Good morning, Mr. Markhat. Did Mr. Tibbles behave himself?”
“He was a model of decorum, Miss.”
“Are you still angry with me for leaving the hotel?”
“Furious, Miss. But I believe in letting bygones be bygones.” I munched on some sausage and swallowed. “You know you can’t stay here, though.”
“She can stay as long as she kens ta,” said Mary. “’Tis my house, and my say.”
“But she kens to go with me,” I replied. “Because if she doesn’t, I’ll do one of two things. One, I’ll just head downtown and tell her father where she is, and he’ll be along to fetch her and none too happy about it. Or two, I’ll put her over my shoulder and carry her out.”
Mary laughed. “Aye, I reckon ye would at that.” She topped off my coffee cup with a bitter black brew as strong as anything I ever drank in the army.
“Mr. Tibbles wouldn’t like that,” said Tamar. “Neither would I. But would you really? Men are always saying things they really don’t mean, just because everyone thinks they do.”
“He means it,” said Darla. “And he’s right. There are safer places. Places only a finder would think of. Isn’t that right, dear?”
She caught me with a mouthful of scrambled eggs, so I just nodded.
Tamar sighed. “Well. If you think it’s a good idea, then…all right. We’ll go.” Her face took on a sudden expression of genuine concern. “You aren’t about to tell me I have to leave Mr. Tibbles behind, are you? Because I won’t. I simply won’t.”
I swallowed. “No. Never. He goes where you go. That’s a promise, Miss. Me to you.”
She beamed. “I knew you wouldn’t really go and fetch Father. You’re not that kind of man.”
“Thanks. I think.” I drained my cup and wiped crumbs off my chin with one of Mary’s embroidered white napkins. “Finish up, ladies. We’ll be leaving soon. I’m going to go sit on the porch and see if anyone takes notice.”
“Where are we going?” asked Tamar. “Is it a secret place? Somewhere forbidding and mysterious? Will I need a hat with lace, or a veil? I have both. You never know which you’ll need, so I brought one of each.”
I dived in when she paused for breath.
“A veil, then. Mary, thank you for breakfast, and your hospitality.”
“Aye.” She shoved a paper bag of biscuits toward me. “Ye might be wantin’ them for later.”
I took the bag and headed for the porch. Darla followed me out while Tamar shoved bits of bacon toward an anxious Mr. Tibbles.
“So, have you decided where to stash Tamar, dearest?”
“Of course I have. All part of an intricate scheme I formulated long ago.”
Darla laughed. “In other words, you’re making this up as you go.”
“I prefer to think I’m acting with situational awareness in a fluid event dynamic.”
“You’re already talking like a general.”
We kissed at that point. A passing cabbie shouted his approval.
“You’re going to work?”
“As long as we have clients, and we do. Not everyone has headed for the hills.”
“Good for them.” I brushed her hair back, and a vagrant breeze pushed it right back on her forehead. “I’ll stop by before the store closes.”
Her brow furrowed.
“Oh.”
“Oh? Had you rather I not?”
“No, no, not at all. It’s the way you said it. You’ve got something going on after Curfew tonight, don’t you?”
I did indeed. A meeting with Lethway, who’d tried to murder me when last we sat down to fancy cigars and light conversation.
“Nothing terribly dangerous. And I won’t be alone.”
She grabbed me and shivered.
Tamar barged out, bag in her right hand and a squirming Mr. Tibbles in her left.
“We’re ready to go,” she said. Mr. Tibbles yapped his assent. “Isn’t this exciting? Is Darla coming too? I wore the veil. I can put Mr. Tibbles in the bag when we get there. You won’t mind, will you, Mr. Tibbles?”
Darla laughed softly and let me go.
“Be careful,” she said, and then she was off.
I darted out to hail a cab.
There’s a trick to hiding young women in fancy hotels. If you ever need to do so, never mind the reason, there’s a right way to do it, and a wrong way.
The wrong way seems the best way to honest folk. They think that by slipping furtively into the hotel and speaking in hushed tones to the desk clerk and paying in cash and calling yourself Mr. Smith you’ll simply sink down into a blessed state of total obscurity.
That’s why honest people are so easy to find.
Taking the sneaky approach just brands you as one of two things, in the minds of hotel staff. You’re either sneaking around on your spouse or you’re hiding from someone. So when inquisitive sorts start asking questions and perhaps handing out coins to the talkative, the hiding place is revealed as surely as if a giant hand reached down and ripped off the roof.
That’s the wrong way.
The right way?
Tamar rushed into the hotel lobby a dozen steps ahead of me. The pillow she’d placed under her blouse did a credible job of simulating the middle stage of pregnancy. She let me get in the door and take a single step before she turned on me and let loose a stream of loud, heartfelt invective that turned the heads of everyone in the lobby.
Once all eyes were upon us, she took off her wedding ring, which was actually a bauble purchased moments ago from a shady street jeweler for a couple of coppers, and flung it at my face.
“I told you if your mother didn’t leave I would,” she screamed, putting just enough screech into it. “I will not spend another hour under the same roof as that mean-spirited old warthog!”
“Honey,” I said, raising my arms in surrender. “It’s just another week—”
“You said that last week. And the week before.”
Right on cue, Flowers rushed in, freshly scrubbed and wearing the first new shirt he’d ever seen, much less worn. I didn’t trust his accent or his diction, so I’d told him to keep his mouth shut, and he did.
“Come, Reginald,” said Tamar to Flowers. “See? He can’t stand your mother either. Now pay the man, and pay him enough to keep me here until you remove that awful woman from my house!”
And with that, she turned and stormed up the stairs, Flowers in tow.
The room was suddenly filled with barely-suppressed snickering. I made a heavy sigh and approached the desk clerk, a grinning little man in his early hundreds, with my hands in my pockets.
“Trouble to home, is that it, sir?” he asked.
“Guess you could say that.” I leaned on the counter and lowered my voice to a whisper. The room went as silent as a tomb, as two dozen ears strained to hear something that wasn’t a bit of their business.
“How much for a room for the wife and son, for, let’s say, a week?”
“Might be cheaper to just rent one permanent-like for your mother.”
Laughter rippled through the lobby. The old man cackled.
“Have a heart. How much? I can’t move Mother now. She’s taken to her bed. What am I supposed to do?”
He cackled and named a price. It was a quarter again too much, but I didn’t haggle.
I did tell him my name was Smith, which touched off another round of laughter, and that I’d also want to purchase extra meals for the boy and laundry service for the wife. More coins changed hands. My next sigh was very real.
But it had worked. Anyone sniffing around for word of a single young woman who kept to herself and never left her rooms would be greeted with shrugs and shakes of the head. Tamar was an angry pregnant wife with a son in tow and a milksop for a husband.
And that, my friends, is the right way to hide a woman in plain sight.
I left my curiously estranged wife and headed for Granny Knot’s humble abode. Granny has a shack off Elfways—not on the trendy shops and eateries end, but on the old end, well removed from the last stop on the high-priced curio and ornate hat trail.
Granny wasn’t home. You’d think finding an aged spook doctor during the day would be simple, but most of the times I’ve knocked at Granny’s door I’ve knocked in vain. I gave up after a time and settled in the shade of her porch and watched her ne’er-do-well neighbors sneak by. Crows cawed and pecked and hopped in the cemetery next door. I didn’t care to know what it was that they worried. Sometimes the gravediggers don’t bother to go the full six feet.
My meeting with Lethway would commence in a few hours. I listened to the crows and planned my wardrobe. I’d don my new tan britches, my good white shirt and the shiny black shoes Darla got me for Armistice Day.
I would have to leave Toadsticker in the carriage. Swords simply aren’t worn in places like the Banner. I could probably get away with a dagger in my boot and brass knuckles in my pocket, but that would be the extent of my weaponry. Of course the whole point of surprising Lethway at the Banner with his mistress was to avoid a fight, but when tempers flare there’s no predicting how events might unfold.
I wondered if Pratt would stay away, and decided he probably wouldn’t. He might keep out of sight, but I was betting he’d be nearby. Since seeing Fields use his magic secret door and returning with the head of the walking stick that had killed Tamar’s would-be kidnapper, I’d realized Pratt was playing his own games. I hoped I wasn’t being used as a stepping-stone to further his own agenda.