Page 2 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
He reached for the back of his neck and rubbed once again, even though little needles of gooseflesh stabbed at every inch of his skin by now.
“Dorian about?” he asked.
“In the kitchen fleecing doxies out of their hard-won earnings wif his dice last I checked.” She swiped at her forehead with the back of her wrist and wrinkled her nose at him. “I’ve a mind to boil your wee arse in my pot next, ya noxious goblin. I can smell you from here.”
Cutter’s testing sniff of his own person was interrupted by a strong arm around his neck as he was pulled in for a grapple choke that might have resembled a boisterous hug if one was feeling generous.
“Oi! I think you smell awright.” Dorian’s voice seemed to deepen by the day, though Cutter’s had changed over a year ago, much to Blackwell’s competitive consternation. “I’ve heard there’s a dead body or some such washed up at Hangman’s Dock.” His mate’s dark eyes gleamed with a greedy sort of mischief. “Wot say we go and work the crowd?”
Working the crowdwas their language for relieving the distracted onlookers of their watches, coin, and pocketbooks.
“Maybe later.” Cutter rubbed at his chest as the dread that had dogged at him now bared its teeth and struck, wrenching at his heart with an icy pain.
Pain meant weakness. And one never showed weakness here, not even in the presence of those he knew the best. He always covered his pain with humor if not indifference.
“Your mum just offered to bathe me.” Cutter waggled suggestive brows and summoned a cheeky smile from lord-knew-where. “Now toddle off, son.”
A hot rag hit him square in the face, eliciting a very unmanly squeak of surprise.
“Wash your face, you little deviant, and then both of you make yourselves scarce, I’ve work to do!” Jane’s bellow was softened with a wink, and Cutter gave himself a half-hearted scrub before he tossed the soiled rag back to the laundry pile and threw Jane another smile.
This she returned with a curse and a shake of her head.
He’d felt this strange sort of veneration for her since the first time Dorian had brought him and Caroline around. She’d allowed them to curl up in the kitchens and sleep like dogs by the stove in the winter and eat whatever crusts they’d helped clean from the tables. The next morning she’d sent them to Wapping High Street with strong warm tea in their bellies and a few pointers on how to beg.
“You’re two golden-haired angels, inn’t ya?” She’d tugged their noses fondly. “You’ll empty more pockets than a naughty peep show, eyes that big and blue. ’Specially you, darlin’.” She’d pinched at shy Caroline’s pale cheeks and tugged at her golden ringlets.
And so they had. For years, Cutter and Caroline worked the streets of London, his sister drawing upon the kindness of those who would stop to offer a coin, while he learned to divest them of the rest with a pick of the pocket and a nimble getaway.
Sometimes they’d be caught, and Cutter would take the beating meant for them both. Those were often their most profitable weeks, as he could use the pitiable bruises and abrasions to solicit more charity.
This kept them fed until they’d passed their first decade and were no longer young and wretched enough to pity. People began to solicit them rather than offer them kindness, and eventually Cutter learned to answer the beatings he received with violence of his own.
Because he lacked the brawn of other boys, he relied on reflexes more advanced than most, and he’d mastered a slingshot as well as his sleight of hand, earning him the moniker, “Deadeye.”
It was that name the streetwalkers of Whitechapel squawked as he tumbled into the common room with Dorian, loping toward the front entrance.
“Bugger me at both ends, you ladies ever seen an angel and a devil so ‘andsome?” A girl they ironically called “Dark Sally,” jabbed at one of her friends, who gathered at the long-planked table nursing sharp beer and waiting for darkness so they might ply their trade.
Cutter knew instantly he was the angel, as Dorian’s wealth of shiny, black hair and sharp, satirical features made the comparison bloody obvious.
“I don’t see no ladies here.” The older plump prostitute named Bess gave an overloud bark of laughter before peering over at the boys. “I’ve swived plenty of devils in my day, but I’d bonk an angel with pretty eyes like that for free.” She reached out an almost masculine hand to Cutter. “Come over here, darling, and let’s see what you’re packing.”
Cutter didn’t raise his eyes from the floorboards as his cheeks burned. “Any you seen Caro?”
“Look! Someone who still blushes in this shitehole,” crowed yet another woman. “I’ll bet you a pence he’s a virgin.”
“Caroline, you seen her or not?” he asked again.
Bosoms bounced as shrugs passed around the table, though it was Dark Sally who spoke. “She took up with an old watchmaker last I heard.” She turned to Bess. “Remember the one, had an orange to share and it weren’t even Christmas.”
“I’d do right sick things for an orange,” muttered a girl he didn’t recognize. “Little bitch swiped him up before anyone got the chance at him.”
“Careful, you,” Bess threw a soiled handkerchief across the table. “That little bitch is his sister.”
“I like virgins,” sighed a thin, waspish woman around her sip of beer. “They ‘aven’t learnt to be cruel yet, and it’s over quick enough. Right grateful they are.” She sized Cutter up with a look that made him squirm.
“At that age, they’ll pay you for another go in five minutes!” said Bess.
