Unraveled (Turner #3)(7)
But before he reached her, she started off, her strides now swift and purposeful. He was taller, but he made little headway. She darted through the crowds with a determined agility. He followed her down one crowded cobblestone street, past a market and then another church. Buildings loomed, dark gray stone streaked by the rain. Smite’s cuffs became damp, and he pulled the gloves Palter had shoved at him from his pocket.
She was making her way to the Floating Harbour. Just beyond the crowds, he could see the stone wall that bounded the water. Masts of ships stretched skyward. Gulls circled and called as he pushed through the waterfront crowds. He could hear timbers creaking in the wind, the shout of men, and the shrieking complaint of a winch—the all-too-familiar sounds of Bristol’s lifeblood, trade and transportation. In the distance, he could see the high topmasts of the S.S. Great Britain where she waited, silent and lifeless, in the docks. Her funnel, a dark, imposing chimney against the sky, was cold. No smoke issued from it; no boilers worked below. She was the largest steamship ever built, and she was imprisoned where she stood.
He felt an odd sort of sympathy with the ship. They’d neither of them been served well by water.
He shook his head, dispelling the sentiment. Her straw bonnet bobbed down the street some fifteen yards in front of him, and she darted across the Bristol Bridge.
She’d crossed to the other side by the time Smite reached the edge. He came to a stop.
There was nothing odd about this slow-moving body of water—it was a bit of liquid, nothing more. He was perfectly safe. The solid stones of the bridge had withstood the traffic of heavy-laden carts for almost a century. Its span stretched twenty feet above the level of the water. On a clear, sunny day, he could cross with only the slightest twist to his stomach.
Today, though, the waters were gray-green from a week’s worth of hard rains. They seemed closer than usual, and, as they slapped against the stones of the channel, they spoke a language all of their own. In Smite’s ear, the sound whispered of dark cellars and the rising tide of a flood.
Nonsense. He snorted. It wasn’t even a river. Besides, the level of the Floating Harbour never rose—it was regulated by locks.
“Don’t be an ass,” he advised himself aloud.
And she—whoever she was—was disappearing down the street. If he didn’t follow now, he’d lose her. With a deep breath, Smite looked forward. He set his gaze on the street across the bridge, where a team and horses stood, men loading goods into the cart. So long as he didn’t think of the water at all, it couldn’t bother him.
Smite looked at the solid ground on the far side and stepped forward. He had more important things to concern himself with today.
THERE WEREN’T MANY PEOPLE who felt easier in the dark corners of the slums than in the wide streets of the city center. But Miranda had lived in Temple Parish for three years. She knew the backstreets, the people. She knew the alleyways she shouldn’t visit, and the ones where she’d be watched by unseen eyes and kept safe. Here, she was free from the harshness of sanctioned order, arbitrarily enforced by constables in blue tailcoats. She’d paid for her freedom; she might as well enjoy it.
Still, she’d felt her skin prickle the entire journey back, as if the long arm of the law still hovered over her.
That, she told herself briskly, was merely the last remnant of her conscience speaking. She leaned against the brick at the mouth of the alley where she lived and pulled off the bonnet she’d been wearing, and then the wig. Her hairpins underneath caught; she wiggled them free carefully, counting as she removed them. She couldn’t afford to lose a one.
Her own hair—a too-recognizable orange—spilled over her shoulder as she stuffed the weight of that blond wig into a sack she pulled from her skirt-pocket.
Lord Justice obviously had his suspicions about the fresh-faced Miss Daisy Whitaker. But he’d be looking for a young, golden-haired girl staying at the Lamb Inn, not a redheaded seamstress, a sometime wig-maker who lived in a garret beside a glassworks. She was safe once again. At least for today.
Miranda shut her eyes and raised her face to the rain. It felt freeing to have her skin washed clean of its suffocating layer of rice powder and rouge. She pulled a handkerchief from her basket and wiped her brows, her cheeks. The remains of Daisy Whitaker disappeared in a smear of rouge and the coal dust she’d used to darken her lashes.
She let her handkerchief fall, opened her eyes—and jumped back. A man was standing directly in front of her. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
“I do beg your pardon,” the man—the gentleman, by that haughty accent—said.
He didn’t sound as if he was begging her anything. From the proper tone of his speech, he’d never had to beg at all—just buy. There was something familiar about his voice, though. As if to reinforce that sense of familiarity, he reached out and placed a gloved hand on her wrist.
She sized him up in one instant, taking in the thick, fine wool of his greatcoat and the snow-white of his cuffs, peeking out beneath well-made sleeves. His shoes were polished black, with no creases worn in the leather. His cravat had been fastidiously starched. She couldn’t find even a solitary piece of lint on his clothing, a surer sign of wealth than even his shiny brass buttons. He was handsome in an austere sort of way, his features sharp, his eyes clear and blue in contrast with the ebony of his hair. Incongruously, a dusting of white powder touched the shoulders of his coat.