“If you wanted a simple coachman, you would have hired one from The Dog and Duck.” From atop his box, Wickett inclined his head respectfully. “Strange, I do not recall asking for your opinion.” Why else would he have come if not to practice his pugilistic skills? Pity the fool who thought him easy pickings. Every light-fingered cove in the district will be out on the hunt tonight.” Wickett stared at the fog-drenched street and shook his head. That would be enough time to lure a rogue or two out from the shadows, enough time to heat the blood as it rushed through his veins. After straightening his coat, he jerked his head to his coachman, Wickett. And yet the need to rouse a flicker of emotion in his lifeless chest had drawn him out from his house in Berkeley Square to this dirty and dangerous part of town.ĭressed in black, Vane opened the door and stepped down to the pavement.
At night, a man could embrace the cold emptiness filling his heart.
Ross Sandford, Marquess of Trevane, Vane to his friends and enemies, shuffled to the edge of his seat and extinguished the candle in the lantern hanging from the roof of his conveyance. The soprano came in the form of women hawking their wares, of stray dogs whining and children crying. The deep rumble resonated like that of a tenor singing the restless song of the poor.
Drunken quarrels tumbled out from packed taverns onto the streets. Here, so close to the narrow lanes and crooked timber buildings of St Giles, the night was anything but still. The black unmarked carriage rolled to a stop on the corner of Longacre, a street north of Covent Garden.
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