The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7), Nathan Goodwin [little red riding hood ebook TXT] 📗

income was derived entirely from smuggling and, since the arrival of the Ramillies, the contraband runs had dwindled in both number and successes. At the Bourne Tap, previous circumspect murmurings and infrequent rumours that the gang might not be able to continue, were now—at least outside of Ransley’s earshot—openly discussed as the most probable outcome. The catalyst, however, for Ann, had been the incident at the Walnut Tree Inn last week with Sam.

The perishable recollection—obscured and dimmed through the passing days and the dazing effects of the rum and water—was replaying in her mind, when something hard jolted into her right shoulder, knocking her sideways.

Ann looked up to see two gentlemen in long black coats with black top hats and shiny black boots striding past. ‘Oi!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t be minding me!’

The men’s snappish pace faltered, and they turned around at the same time.

‘Watch where…’ Ann shouted, before taking in the men’s faces. One of them she recognised as being Jonas Blackwood. ‘Jonas?’

The other man laughed in the mocking, patronising way that gentlemen of his sort were inclined to do. ‘Jonas?’ he repeated. ‘Is this some kind of a trick?’ He twirled around, then faced her again. ‘Are you the distraction while someone picks our pockets?’ He slapped his arms down by his side and checked over his shoulder. ‘I should warn you that we’re armed with pistols.’

Ann stared at Jonas, certain that she was now looking at the same man whom she had seen at the Bourne Tap, in Braemar Cottage and, dressed similarly to now in the Black Horse, watching Alexander Spence die. His eyes had widened slightly. Perhaps, she wondered, with a hint of conspiracy, he was asking—without asking—for her to pretend that she did not know him?

‘Do you know her, William?’ the other man asked Jonas.

He shook his head with disdain. ‘Never met her before in my life.’

‘What do you want?’ the other man demanded.

‘I be wanting nothing from the likes of you,’ Ann returned, spinning on her heels and marching indignantly to the coach stop outside the Packet Boat Inn.

She reached the stop and looked down the quay. The two men were now barely visible in the distance. Again, Ann found herself questioning what she had just seen, wondering if her mind were playing tricks on her; but, no, she was certain that the man was Jonas Blackwood, or William, or whatever his name might be. She did not know why she had allowed the other man to speak to her in such a way but there had been something in Jonas’s face—a pleading in his eyes—which asked her to keep quiet.

The clock tower said that she still had an hour until the coach would depart for Ashford. As always, she had retained an extra six pence for a pint of rum and water before she left. This morning, however, she had settled her mind to bank the six pence and forgo the drink. But now that she was here, that firm decision began to crack; the unpleasant encounter with the two men mingled uncomfortably in her mind with the earlier fatigue of having trawled up her past in Miss Bowler’s lesson.

Pushing past a drunk fisherman, Ann entered the inn and ordered a drink. She stood at the bar sipping from the glass, taking in the surroundings which she knew so well, consciously ushering her thoughts to the possibility of purchasing a place of her own like this.

A woman in a grubby iris-blue gown with matching bonnet slunk in beside Ann. ‘You be a-looking for work, Miss?’ she asked, revealing her dark brown front teeth. ‘I got gentlemen what be a-paying a lot for a girl like you.’

Ann smirked but said nothing.

‘Missy—I be a-talking to you,’ the woman persisted.

‘She’s with me,’ a voice said. ‘Move along.’

Standing on the other side of Ann was the tall muscular frame of Jonas Blackwood. She turned her head back towards the lady and said, ‘I don’t be wanting nothing from you and your gentlemen folk.’ Then she turned to Jonas and said, ‘And I certain-sure ain’t with you.’ Ann picked up her glass and walked to the other side of the bar, where she found herself an empty table.

The woman sloped off out of sight, but Jonas—or William—seemed to be less easily dissuaded. He paid for the drinks, saving Ann the need to evade paying later, and carried his pint of ale towards her and seated himself, uninvited, at her table.

‘“William, do you be knowing her?”,’ Ann mimicked. ‘“No, never seen her before in my life”.’

Jonas smiled weakly, his eyes mildly accepting the rebuke. ‘I’m sorry. I think you know that my real name is Jonas, not William Fry.’

Ann shrugged apathetically.

‘I wanted to thank you for not revealing my true identity. I expect you’ve questions for me?’

Ann turned up her nose. She did have questions for him: besides the obvious ones, she wanted to know why a supposed gentleman’s expensive clothes did not quite fit him; why his nails were grubby and his hands more calloused than a labourer’s; why, when he spoke, his voice revealed subtle notes of both the upper and lower classes. But she said nothing and concentrated instead on tracing a fingernail around the rim of the glass.

Undeterred by her indifference, he said in a quiet considered voice, ‘I’ll tell you my story and hope you might forgive me by the end of it. My name is Jonas Blackwood; I was an orphan before I can remember and was placed in a workhouse. The streets of London were where I grew up, labouring when I could, thieving when I couldn’t.’

 Ann softened somewhat at hearing how closely his early life had mirrored hers. However, she was not yet ready to show it; she continued to sit uninterestedly drinking her rum, wanting to hear more.

‘But it’s no life living on