Page 119 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
“Then I think it is time you did a little plain speaking yourself.”
When Nick frowned in puzzlement, Sara went over to the tall wardrobe which housed Nick’s rainbow array of frock coats. “Do you remember the morning after we were wed?” she asked. “I was attempting to help you dress so that we did not have to be intruded upon so soon by any servants.”
Sara eased open the wardrobe door and reached far back on the top shelf. “I found this when I was looking for a clean stock.”
She turned and held up the object that had so unsettled her peace of mind. It was a gauntlet, fashioned to make a man look as though he had no hand, the end curving into a lethal-looking steel hook. She crossed the room and laid the damning evidence upon the bed before him.
Nick fingered the gauntlet and heaved a deep sigh. “I can explain, Sara.”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “No explanations are necessary. I don’t know what reason compelled you to run about at night, playing at being a footpad, whether you were trying to become a Robin of the Hood, or merely seeking to drive home your point about the need for a better police force,”
Nick looked nonplussed. “You appear to have taken this discovery quite calmly, my dear.”
”I have spent most of my life watching someone I love flirt with the hangman’s noose. I never expected I would have to continue the tradition with my husband. But I supposed I must grow resigned to being worried to death.”
“Sara—”
“I wish you would not continue on with your activities as the Hook, but I want you to know that I shall support you in this, the same as in any other endeavor, even if we both end up in Newgate.”
To her astonishment and indignation, Nick only laughed.
“Sara, Sara! Your devotion overwhelms me. I daresay I will find myself in Newgate someday, most likely because I havewritten something to annoy those damned Tories who control the government. But I will never be arrested for anything so dashing as being the Hook.”
Regarding her with a tender smile, Nick held up the gauntlet. “My dear Sara, I confiscated this infernal thing from your older brother.”
The Palmer family gathered around one of the tables in the Running Cat tavern, the murky atmosphere suited to the general mood. Chastity and her youngest son, Davy, sipped at their tankards of ale, both faces as mournful as though attending a wake. Gideon appeared unaffected by their air of discontent. He rocked back on the legs of his chair, listening to his mother’s complaints with a kind of lazy amusement.
“I always wished Sary well,” Chastity said. “And lord knows I tried to understand the child’s mad obsession with becoming a lady and turning respectable. But I never thought the dire effects of Sary getting married would spill over onto us. Nick Drummond’s a pleasant enough fellow, but I could tell at the outset he means to make a thorough pest of himself. Imagine! At our first meeting, telling me he meant to wed my babe, then already hinting that I should not be living over a pawnshop and drinking gin.”
Mrs. Palmer took a deep draught of her ale and shuddered. “He even had the boldness to suggest I might like to meet some respectable gentlemen, a country curate or a red-faced squire. Mr. Drummond means to saddle me with a second husband. I know he does!”
“You never had a first husband, Mum,” Gideon reminded her.
“Don’t be impertinent, sir. You know what I mean. I prefer to choose my own admirers.”
“I don’t know what you are complaining about,” Davy said querulously. “What about Drummond’s blasted plans for me? He said since I have this interest in handling corpses and picking people’s pockets, I might as well do it honestly and become an undertaker.”
Gideon no longer made any effort to contain his mirth. He laughed hard enough that his chair slammed back down on all fours.
Both his mother and Davy glared at him.
“I don’t know what you find so damned amusing,” Davy said. “Drummond has already put a crimp in your affairs, hasn’t he, my fine sir?”
Davy’s sneering remark sobered Gideon a little. His lips twisted at the memory of his grim confrontation with Sara’s future husband, listening to Drummond’s earnest lecture on the follies of a life of crime.
“I’ll never understand how Mr. Drummond figured out you was the Hook, Gideon,” Mrs. Palmer lamented. “Sara’s husband does not look all that bright, and you did manage to fool all the best Bow Street Runners in London.”
Gideon cast a dark glance to where George Nagle was serving up some ale. “Drummond is cleverer than he appears, and I have no doubt he was helped along by the gossip and suspicions of a certain tavern host who’d sell out his own mother for a ha’penny.”
Davy smirked. “However, Drummond found out, he’s put a stop to your doings good and proper. He even made you surrender your hook, didn’t he?”
“Ah, but that is the wonderful thing about losing a hand made of steel.” Gideon’s teeth glinted in a feral smile. “One can always have another one made.”
Then he raised his glass and proposed a toast to the new bride and groom. “May my dear sister Sara have found herheart’s desire, and may she keep her new husband far away from us.”
It was a toast Mrs. Palmer and Davy heartily seconded.
Twenty-Three
