Unraveled (Turner #3)(9)

“Your forbearance?

“My interference. I didn’t let them swear you in. As it is, you merely told lies. Perjury, by contrast, is punishable by six months in prison.”

She went utterly still.

“If you had actually committed that crime, it would have been my duty to act on the matter.”

Miss Darling licked her lips and looked away. “Thank you, then.” She glanced down the alleyway. “I can explain.”

Smite cut her off with a chop of his hand. “You can excuse. I’ve heard it all before. You didn’t have a choice. You did it for the common good.” As he spoke, he ticked off fingers. “You were hungry.” He shook his head. “I’m not interested in your pathetic reasons. This isn’t a hearing.”

“What is it, then?”

“A warning. Don’t tell tales in my presence. Don’t disguise yourself in my court. If ever I see you before me again, dressed as someone else and spouting falsehoods, I will have you arrested on the spot. And I won’t give this—” he snapped his fingers “—for your excuses.”

She took a deep breath and eyed him. It was a canny look, that, one that sized him up and found him wanting all at once.

“Ah.” He took a step closer to her. “You think you can fool me. That you need only don the right disguise and I’ll look right past you. You’re wrong.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I saw you first on October the twelfth, a little more than one year past. You spoke on behalf of Eric Armstrong, a thirteen-year-old boy accused of striking a patrolman. I actually think you were telling the truth then. You were wearing a gown of dark crepe.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I glimpsed you in the hall eight months later. Then, you were dressed as a boy. I checked the records after; I believe you testified that one Tom Arkin was not the same boy who served as an apprentice to the chimney sweep.”

He could see her swallow, could trace the contraction down her throat.

“I remember you precisely,” he told her. “I’ll be looking for you. You can’t disguise yourself from me. Don’t even try.”

This time when she looked at him, he finally saw what he’d been waiting for. Fear. Real fear.

“You are inhumanly precise,” she finally said.

“Yes.” No point in quarreling over the truth. What did it matter, how inhuman his memory was, if it served his purpose? He’d scared her, and she would stay away. If he was successful, he’d never see her name on the gaol delivery lists. His inhumanity was a small price to pay for that.

“Enjoy the rest of your day, Miss Darling.” He reached up to tip his hat to her, but then remembered that he hadn’t brought one. He converted the gesture into a meaningful tap of his forehead and turned to leave.

He had taken four steps away when she spoke again. “Do you recall all your witnesses in such vivid detail, Your Worship?”

He paused, not looking back at her. “Yes,” he said. “I remember everything.” It was close enough to the truth to serve. His memory felt like dry leaves, pressed flat between the pages of some heavy book. The essence was preserved, but what remained was a poor facsimile for reality. He never could recall scents, and without those nothing seemed real.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I particularly remember you, Miss Darling.” He met her eyes.

He hadn’t meant it that way, but she raised her fingers to her lips, and a different sort of flush pinked her cheeks.

Nobody would call her beautiful, but she was striking. And perhaps some dormant part of him belatedly decided to notice that she’d called him pretty before she’d known who he was.

A woman. Wouldn’t that be nice?

No. Not this one. And definitely not now.

He shook his head, more at himself than to her, and left before his imagination could cause him any more trouble.

OLD BLAZER WASN’T IN. Miranda could tell in one breath when she opened the door to the little shop on Temple Street. No heavy pipe smoke greeted her. Only a faint, lingering bitterness, hours old.

Old Blazer was in less and less these days.

Miranda sidled past the secondhand gowns that hung on pegs, waiting for new owners. Spools of cheap ribbon and bolts of middling quality calico were displayed atop barrels and boxes.

She did not look to her left. If she did not see how she had fared, she couldn’t get any bad news.

She wasn’t sure if she should be happy about the old man’s absence. Only a faint, sour hint of pipe smoke remained to remind her of his presence. The two customers who were in the store were silent, looking through the wares. That, most of all, made the shop seem smaller and gloomier than usual. Usually, Old Blazer was chattering away. And unless he’d been set off on one of his famous rages, someone would have been laughing in response.

Miranda clutched her basket to her chest and tiptoed to the back of the store. The counter there, usually stacked with goods, had been cleared of everything but a red pincushion.

Jeremy Blasseur—Old Blazer’s grandson—was sitting on a stool, needle in hand. He was slender, and had a shock of sandy brown hair that curled of its own accord. He was frowning at a seam, which gave him a somewhat abstracted expression. It almost made her want to laugh, which would have been very wrong, because Jeremy was one of the most intensely sober individuals she had met. Especially these days.