The Postilion (The Masqueraders #2) - S.M. LaViolette Page 0,136
boy. I’ve got yer pay. But I’ve got something else, too. Something maybe worth even more to you.”
John looked down a good eight inches into the other man’s eyes. “My. Money.”
Riddle’s swallow was audible even over the din behind them. “Aye, here ‘tis.” He placed a small pouch in John’s bloody fist. John didn’t need to count it. Riddle would be a fool to cheat him; a bleeding, bruised fool with broken bones. He turned away.
“Wait, Fielding, don’t you want to know who’s looking for yer?”
John didn’t hesitate. What convict with even a teaspoon’s worth of brain would want to know such a thing?
“He says he has information about you—about your Da.”
Riddle’s words hit him like grappling hooks, sinking into his memory like it was flesh. John’s feet became heavy, as if they still bore the manacles and heavy chains that had encircled his ankles all those years ago. The metal rings had chafed his adolescent legs until they’d bled. They’d left scars.
Always more scars.
He whipped around and demonstrated the skill that had earned him the nickname Lighting John. Riddle’s throat felt like a dry corn stalk beneath his hand: thin, delicate, breakable. John squeezed. “Name.”
The smaller man’s Adam’s apple fluttered against his fist, like a tentative, anxious knocking against a door. John loosened his grip a little.
Riddle gasped and choked and then gasped again. “Worth, Stephen Worth. The banker from Siddons. The one who’s come about the timber.”
Riddle’s high-pitched squeak made John realize he’d squeezed the man tighter, this time in surprise. He released the weasel-faced manager and turned away.
The crowd was already dissipating as he made his way back to town.
John smiled bitterly at the word: town. Only a true savage would consider the pathetic collection of shacks a town. It was nothing but a prison that had spread beyond its borders. He, like just about everyone else around him, was one of its inmates. Of course he’d heard of the arrival of Stephen Worth—who hadn’t? Visitors to the wretched penal colony, at least voluntary ones, were rare. Rich Americans visitors were even rarer.
John had been living outside the prison even before his seven-year sentence ended. He’d been deemed an exemplary prisoner in his fourth year and, as such, allowed to live in his own hovel. The gesture was more to shed the expense than to reward a prisoner. As he was allowed only a pittance of what he earned the notion that he’d have enough to rent quarters—not to mention feed himself—was a fiction maintained by all. He wouldn’t have lasted a week without the money he made from fighting. It was better than most others, many of whom made their money off whoring. Women were almost non-existent on Norfolk and some men were not choosy.
John frowned at the unwelcomed thought as he entered the building where he lived, a ramshackle structure that had been divided into four tiny rooms. The short hall was dim and he almost didn’t see the person leaning against the door to his room. A large, well-dressed man; a big, red-headed bastard, to be precise.
“John Fielding?”
John eyed the tiny, cramped corridor behind the other man. He had come alone, unprotected. And unwise.
“Aye, ‘oo wants to know?” John asked, even though he already knew.
The American extended a hand, something convicts did not do. John stared at it until the other man dropped it back to his side.
“Stephen Worth, I’m with Siddons bank.”
John waited.
The other man smiled, amused, rather than annoyed, by John’s belligerence. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Mr. Fielding.”
John raised one eyebrow.
“Of course I already knew you were a good man to have beside you in a fight.” He paused and the smile dropped off his face. The look that replaced it chilled John’s bones, a thing he wouldn’t have believed possible anymore. This man was dressed like a gentleman, but he was not one: This was not a man to cross. “You don’t remember me, do you, John?”
Something about the other man teased at John’s memory, but it was a wisp, a tendril of smoke and too tenuous to grasp. “No.”
“I’ve spent a great deal of time and money looking for you, Mr. Fielding. You should trust me—it is in your best interest to give me a few moments of your time.”
Something about the man’s face, maybe it was the expression on it—could that be honesty? Not that John could remember what such a thing looked like after nearly a decade in this hellhole—helped him make up his mind.