Page 81 of Murder at the Seven Dials
Audrey spun around, fumbling to shove the note into her pocket. A man stepped through the split in the canvas panels. Fellows stood a full head taller than her and wore the common clothes of a laborer, trousers and shirt, a patched jacket. His collar was open enough to display several scabbing lines across his neck and at his chin. Defense wounds from Miss Lovejoy’s nails.
“Told me to get it back and destroy it,” he said.
Audrey’s blood pumped, hot and cold at once, and she put together how Fellows must have gotten the letter. “Miss Lovejoy left it at the theatre. You went back for it, but…Mr. Bernadetto saw you.”
He’d been the one to slash the theatre manager’s throat, and to leap through the open window and run. The destruction of the office had been in effort to find the letter, and he had.
“The old man shouldn’t have read it.”
“Why didn’t you burn it?” she asked, if only to keep him talking. She needed time to think her way out of this.
“I know what I am to her. Hired hand. Expendable. She might’ve got me out of the workhouse, but she could just as easily point a finger at me to save her own skin, if something went afoul.”
Audrey took a step back—her skirts brushed the cot. He shook his head.
“You should’ve stayed out of it,” he said.
“You murdered an innocent woman.”
He scoffed. “She was a whore.”
Audrey breathed in through her nose, disgusted. Terrified. He had no remorse for what he’d done, and he’d think nothing of killing her, too.
He took a step toward her. Audrey jumped back. He laughed. “Where do you think you can go? You’re a far step from your fancy manor now, aren’t you?”
“Someone knows I’m here. A Bow Street officer. He’s meeting me,” she said rapidly, hardly breathing. Lies. She’d left a note, but she had no idea if Mr. Marsden would come, or how he’d find theJackdaw. Still, she hoped it would give the killer pause. Make him reconsider.
Fellows chuckled again. “He’s nowhere near here.”
He launched forward, shoving aside a chair between them. She grabbed the pail of his refuse and without hesitation, flung it into his path. The contents splattered over him as Fellows batted away the pail. Audrey ran past the stove and toward the back of the shanty. The opening on the other end was her only chance.
Without breathing, without thinking, she jumped over a spool of rope on the floor, sweeping an arm at a stack of empty fish traps as she passed. The netted cages tumbled behind her, though she didn’t know if they delayed her pursuer—she didn’t dare look. Fishing line and poles brushed her shoulders as she made for the back of the shanty; her toes caught on something hidden in shadows and she pitched forward. Her hands caught on a metal pole and she landed hard on her side, the wind driven out of her—along with any sense of promise that she’d make it off the shanty safely.
Giving up, however, was not an option.
Still holding onto the metal pole, Audrey slashed it out in an arc, behind her before even looking to see where Fellows was. Her senses had known he was close, and indeed, he’d been reaching for her ankle when the end of the pole connected with his face. Blood spurted, he bellowed and pulled back, and Audrey scrambled for footing.
She stumbled through the flaps, her shaky legs threatening to fold beneath her. The stern was packed with debris, covered with more tarpaulin—there wasn’t a place to step. And no dock to jump out onto—it must have ended midway along the length of the boat. Now, there was just open water. Audrey started for the railing, heedless of the fact that she couldn’t swim, when Fellows burst from the flaps. Blood streaked his face, but it was the small pistol in his hand that her eyes stuck to. The nose of it was aimed right at her.
A deafening crack. A blast of searing pain. And Audrey went sprawling back, toward the water.
ChapterTwenty-Three
The report of a pistol echoed across the wharves just as the little girl pointed Hugh toward the dilapidatedJackdaw. Through the thickening mist, the figure of a woman stumbled back, over the stern, and splashed into the water.No.
“Audrey!” Hugh broke away from the young urchin and bolted down the connecting wharves, dodging debris and slipping on the wet, corky wood. He kept one eye on Audrey’s billowing skirts in the water and the other on the man who’d shot at her.
“Fellows! Stop!” Hugh shouted. The man jerked toward him, then flashed into the covered portion of the shanty.
His instinct was to give chase and apprehend him. The man was a criminal, a murderer. He needed to be stopped before he could harm anyone else. But Hugh’s attention shifted to Audrey in the water, and he knew there was only one choice.
“Sir! Get the carriage!” he shouted over his shoulder. Hugh reached the end of the dock and without hesitation, plunged into the water.
Audrey wasn’t far from his reach, but as he broke the surface of the briny, refuse-filled Thames, she seemed leagues away. The cobwebbed spray of her golden hair showed the pins and combs at the back of her head. She was face down, and she wasn’t attempting to thrash or swim. Her heavy skirts would drag her under any second.
Hugh pinned his lips together against the foul water and finally reached her, flipping her over so that her nose and mouth were in sight. Blood streaked her chin and tinged some strands of her hair pink. The bullet had struck her. Hugh hooked her with one arm and pulled at the water with his other, toward the dock as the shrill blare of a pea whistle split the air.
A commotion on the wharves stole his attention, though only for a moment. He kicked his water-logged feet and cut his arm through the water, toward the dock.
