little,” Caleb protested weakly. “I’m fine boned.”
But the man wasn’t listening. “Maybe I should kill ’im. At least get some money for ’is body then.”
That sobered him up right quick. The man was busy counting out the sorry collection of coins in his palm. Gathering his strength and what little balance he had, Caleb was able to put his head down and ram all his weight right into the man’s stomach.
Ruby screamed as her partner fell backward. “Charlie!” She crouched over him as he swore and wheezed. She wrenched back around and faced Caleb. “You bloody rotter! You bloody liar! To think, I spent all night plying you with beer and kisses. Not even a bloody guinea to your name!”
Caleb doubted that he’d done more than knock the wind out of Charlie, but he wasn’t eager to find out. Stumbling and nearly slipping again in the putrid mud, Caleb staggered out of the alley and back into foggy oblivion.
21
IN WHICH THERE IS A FAMILIAR FACE.
TABBY HURRIED THROUGH the city. Wet leaves slicked against the cobblestones and a cold breeze carrying the scent of wood smoke clung to her cloak. The brilliant, early days of autumn had come and gone, leaving the trees bare and a bitter promise of snow in the air.
In the past two months, she had survived by watching and embroidering, taking in mending. It was a lonely existence, and aside from occasionally crossing paths with Mary-Ruth, she had become a creature of silence and solitude. She missed Eli and their little routines, their shabby yet homey rooms in the boarding house. Only occasionally did she allow her thoughts to turn to Caleb, and wondered where he was.
But tonight there was no dying person to watch, and so she would have to sleep at the flea-ridden room she shared with six other girls in a rickety tenement. They slept two to a bed, the straw mattresses damp and moldy. The last time she had slept there, someone had stolen her stockings as they’d hung on the grate to dry. As if reminding her that she had no other option, the wind kicked up, frigid air biting her through her thin cloak.
People hurried home from work, doing their last errands before the snow began. Tabby had always loved the bustle before the storm, the sense of camaraderie that it inspired. In that brief window of anticipation, all differences were forgotten as people made predictions about how much snow would fall, laughing and greeting fellow last-minute shoppers. For those few moments, even Tabby belonged.
She stopped at a crossroads, taking care to keep her face covered. If she turned right, the street would take her to the north end of the city and to her cemetery. To Eli. More than once she had teetered on this corner, fighting the urge to run home and see him. But she had a chance to make things right, not just for Rose, but for all the nameless dead who had been robbed of their dignity and eternal rest. There were answers out there, and they only needed to be found. If what Mr. Graham had said was true, then the men in power were the ones responsible and would never do anything. But she could.
Turning in the opposite direction, she made her way across the city to find answers.
* * *
Caleb’s head was pounding, his jaw ached, and his mouth tasted like blood. The sound of shops opening and heels clicking on cobblestones ricocheted through his pounding head. Cracking one eye open, he was met with a horizontal view of a London gutter. The smell hit him shortly after that.
Good God, what had happened last night? He vaguely remembered drinking piss-poor coffee in a pub, the shrill laugh of a woman.
He groaned as the memories became clearer. Red hair, too many cups of ale, and a fist connecting with his jaw in an alley. In a panic, he sat himself up and frantically went through his pockets. His money was gone, all of it. That money had been his seed, his chance to rebuild his life. And now he would have to start all over. A passerby looked askance at him as he hurriedly removed his boot and pounded on the heel until a coin fell out. His last shilling. Well, that was something at least.
Grunting, he hauled himself up and divested himself of a rotting piece of cabbage that had somehow found its way onto his coat. If he had been disoriented last