“I know what you mean, Ian,” she said. “Hart has large ideas and doesn’t notice the smaller problems of ordinary people. Not until it’s too late, anyway. Like he didn’t notice the Fenians until they tried to kill him. And then he had the gall to be surprised.”
Ian continued to gaze at her, unblinking, as though mesmerized by her eyes. Eleanor waved her hand in front of his face.
“Ian.”
Ian jumped and looked away.
Eleanor pushed the memory book aside. “You sound very certain that you will find Hart. Almost as though you already have found him. Do you know where he is?”
Ian went silent again, his gaze moving past her to the window and the darkening fog beyond. He studied it for so long that Eleanor began to believe he did know and was trying to decide whether to tell her.
Then Ian rose. “No,” he said and walked out of the room.
Chapter 21
The pipe-smoking Reeve rented a small boathouse near Blackfriars Bridge on the south side of the Thames, but he and his wife and son spent most of their time either on the river or on the boat wedged up onshore.
Reeve roamed far and wide looking for treasure in the sewers, the river, the water and gas tunnels, under the bridges, and inside the railway tunnels. He claimed that anything along the buried Fleet River was his, though his rivals contested him from time to time. Hence the knife.
Mrs. Reeve provided her family with fresh water every day from a public pump—one of the new wells that tapped fresh water far from the river. She brought enough for all of them, even enough for Hart to wash and clean his teeth. He’d never before realized the simple joy of the tooth powder he had the lad Lewis purchase for him from a chemist.
The Reeves did not tumble to who Hart was, nor did they seem to care. Hart proved willing enough to help—he and Reeve hauled the boat in and out, Hart knew how to cast a net, and he helped Lewis go through the “catch” every night.
The only thing Reeve refused to let Hart do was go with him into the tunnels—it took a special knack, Reeve said, and he didn’t want to be hunting for Hart in them again. Hart agreed, never wanting to see the bloody sewers again. Hart knew too that Reeve didn’t want to take the chance that Hart would disappear and not give Reeve his reward money.As for Hart, he was not yet ready to leave. He wanted more than anything to get back to Eleanor—he dreamed of her every night. But once he’d discovered, through the discarded newspapers Reeve brought to the boat, that Eleanor was alive and well, and so was Ian, he made himself resist the frantic urge to rush to her. Scotland Yard and others were still hunting those trying to kill Hart, and Hart could protect Eleanor and his family better by lying low. He needed to get a message to Eleanor, however, to reassure her he was all right.
For that, he’d have to recruit help. Hart watched the Reeves, assessing them, working on winning their trust as he decided whether to trust them in return.
Hart never tried to take command of Reeve’s boat or tell him what to do. He made requests instead, reasonable ones, offhand. For boots that fit so he could better help carry the boat over the shingle. A fisherman’s sweater to wear over his thin shirt so he didn’t have to borrow Reeve’s extra coat. He’d had Mrs. Reeve find him some trousers before he’d been there a day, converting his plaid into a cover for his pallet. He also let his beard grow in, rough and red, prickly stubble. From a distance, and perhaps even up close too, he now looked like just another fisherman.
Hart started suggesting where they might take the boat and cast the nets for a better haul. He began standing guard at night so the boy and Reeve could get more sleep. Gradually Reeve began asking for Hart’s opinions, and then, when Hart’s ideas found them more valuable flotsam and jetsam, Reeve started waiting to be told what to do. Hart was a natural leader, and Reeve, though not a mindless follower, began to acknowledge Hart’s casual command.
He decided that he should not use Reeve as his messenger to Eleanor, however. Reeve would do anything for money, and he might decide that selling information about a rich stranger leaving a message in an odd place would fetch more than what Hart could give him. Mrs. Reeve was stoutly loyal to her husband, though she let her opinion be known when she disagreed with him. Loudly.
The lad, now. Hart had won Lewis’s respect by helping with the nets and letting Lewis instruct him what to look for. Hart learned much about which bits of trash could be turned into money and which bits were worthless. Lewis was loyal to his father but also his own man, young as he was. Lads grew up fast on the river.
“Lewis,” Hart said to him when he felt the time ripe. “I need you to run an errand for me.”
Lewis looked up at him, neither interested nor uninterested. Hart rubbed his face, feeling that his beard had softened from stiff bristles to wiry hair.
“I need you to go to Mayfair for me,” Hart said. “And not tell your father. It’s a simple task, nothing dangerous to you, and I promise I am not trying to cheat your father out of what I owe him.”
“How much?” Lewis asked.
He was his father’s son. “How much do you want?”
Lewis contemplated. “Twenty shillings. Ten for doing it, ten for not telling my father.”
The boy was a shark. “Done.” Hart held out his hand, and Lewis shook it in a firm grip. “Now, then, lad, how good are you at climbing fences?”
Eleanor opened the gate of Grosvenor Square and walked into the little park. It was early by Mayfair standards, about eleven o’clock in the morning. Nannies in gray with white starched aprons pushed prams or held the hands of small children, or sat on benches while their charges played on the grass. They watched Eleanor, used by now to seeing the famous duke’s wife take her morning amble. Such a brave woman, trying to bear up.