The Bride of the Unicorn. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ your name, madam?” he asked now, extracting a single gold piece from his pocket and offering it to her.

      “And that’s a golden tongue ye have, don’t ye, boyo? My name is Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan, seein’ as how ye asked so nice like, but I’ve been Peaches since m’salad days in Dublin and then in Piccadilly.” The woman smiled, then quickly snatched the coin from his fingers, biting on it to ascertain whether or not it was real before stuffing it inside the low bodice of her filthy gown. “M’cronies dubbed me with the name ’cause I was so good at stealin’ sweet things from the stalls. I was the best—once. But that’s a long time past, and best forgotten.”

      Her smile vanished as she leveled narrowed eyes at Morgan. “Now take yerself off, pretty boy. I ain’t got nothin’ more ta say. Just like I told that other fella all those years back—a mean-lookin’ mort with a smile that wide, but that still couldn’t hide the old divil what was peekin’ out between his two eyes—there ain’t no Caroline here. Not no more.”

      Morgan shook his head, disgusted with himself that he should feel so discouraged. He should have known. “She’s dead, then?”

      Peaches cocked her head to one side, blowing a greasy lock of graying red hair out of her eyes. “And did ye hear that from me? Ye got a mind what leaps ahead fast as a horse can trot. Mayhap she is, boyo, and mayhap she ain’t. It depends, don’t ye know. What would the loiks of ye be wantin’ with Caroline Monday anyhows?”

      “Caroline Monday?” Morgan repeated the name questioningly. “Then this particular orphan we’re speaking of has a surname—a last name? Perhaps she isn’t the one I’m seeking after all.”

      Peaches snorted. “Don’t know a lot, do ye, boyo? It’s me what named her Monday. That’s the day I found the creature on the doorstep, just like I find so many of ’em, cryin’ her little heart out fer her ma. She told me her other name all by herself,” she continued, smiling reminiscently. “No higher than m’knee, she was, but she told me her name plain. Just afore she bit m’hand as I was offerin’ it ta her. The divil’s own rogue, she was, and no mistake. Then she caught the fever, like so many of them do, and I wouldna gived a plugged pennypiece fer her. But she didn’t cock up her toes, not that un, even if she was poorly for ever so long. Too stubborn ta know she should be dyin’, I said then ta anyone who’d listen, and I say it again now. Too simple mean stubborn by half! Think she was the bloody queen o’ England herself!”

      Morgan was elated by this information, but he deliberately tamped down his enthusiasm, saying only, “Yet you told me, as you told this other man you spoke of, that Miss Caroline is gone.”

      Peaches allowed the bundle of rushes to fall to the ground. “Miss Caroline, is it, now? And don’t that sound grand fer a foundlin’ brat?” She peered at him again, as if assessing him for flaws. “Now I’m thinkin’ mayhap it’s time some more of your worship’s lovely gold passed over Miss Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan’s palm?”

      “Perhaps,” Morgan replied tightly, and then for the first time spoke aloud of the memory his uncle’s patently false, contrived confession had brought crashing to the forefront of his mind. “Or perhaps it’s time I rode to the village to summon the constable, so that you can tell him that Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan is a member of the gang of nefarious and long-sought kidnappers of one Lady Caroline Wilburton, daughter of the earl and countess of Witham, who were cruelly murdered on a roadway not thirty miles from here some fifteen years ago?”

      Peaches plunked herself down atop the bundle of rushes, her skinny calves sticking out from beneath the hem of her gown. “The divil you say, boyo,” she responded as she looked up at him, her voice tinged with wondrous awe but not a trace of fear or guilt. “And would ye be knowin’ if there’s a reward in the offin’ for the safe return of this poor little darlin’? After all is said and done, it’s me what kept her little heart beatin’—what with m’lovin’ good care of the tot, don’t ye know.”

      Morgan knew he could either dole out a coin for each piece of information or shorten the process by some minutes by acknowledging how important the woman’s answers were to him. Deciding to leave subterfuge for another day and for someone less sharp than Peaches O’Hanlan, he pulled a small leather purse from his pocket and dropped it in the Irishwoman’s lap. “Where is she?”

      The purse followed the gold coin before Peaches answered him. “That’s what I like, boyo—a fella who comes right to the heart of the thing. She’s not here, nor has she been in this stinkin’ hole fer this year or more. But I knows where she be, and it’s more than a good ride from here. Ye’ll be needin’ me ta get ta her, don’t ye know. Needin’ me to point her out ta ye, ta get her ta trust ye. And it’s the only real mither she’s ever known or remembered since the fever struck that I am, the only one she loves. I’m her dearest Peaches, that’s what I am.”

      “How commendable of you. You’ll be well rewarded if you continue to cooperate. That purse is only a pittance, one that could be trebled. Gather whatever belongings you have and meet me outside these gates in an hour. I’ll return with my carriage.”

      Morgan felt very tired as he turned to mount his horse. What was he doing? The Irishwoman could be lying to him. His uncle James most probably had been lying to him. And yet some of the puzzle pieces were already beginning to fit. He had to continue the search for his instrument of revenge against Richard Wilburton. He had been patient for three long years. It was time to act. “An hour, Miss O’Hanlan, and no more. And don’t breathe a word to anyone.”

      “Me?” Peaches responded, scrambling to her feet. “It’s close as an oyster I’ll be, and ye can take that as m’word.”

      “I’d prefer not to take either your word or your person anywhere, Miss O’Hanlan, but as you Irish say, ‘Needs must when the devil drives’.”

      Morgan swung himself up into the saddle. “Oh, and one more thing. Kindly bathe before I come back. You reek of the sewers, Miss O’Hanlan.”

      Peaches gave a flirtatious flip of her bony hand as Morgan guided his horse toward the path. “Dip m’self in parson’s ale? Well, all right—but only a little bit, and only ’cause ye’re a such pretty thing, boyo.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      Beware, as long as you live, of judging people by appearances.

      Jean de La Fontaine

      “DULCINEA? DULCINEA! You sweet, wretched angel, I see you skulking out there. Come in here to me at once! I have just now had the most splendiferous notion!”

      Caroline Monday lifted her small chin from her chest, where she had let it drop while she indulged herself in a moment of exhaustion not unlike all her waking moments, and tiredly hauled herself up from the slatted wooden bench pressed against the wall of the hallway outside one of the small rooms reserved for affluent patients.

      “Aunt Leticia, all of your notions are splendiferous,” she soothed kindly as she walked toward the open doorway, “and as you have these notions at least three times daily, I see no need to rush lickety-split to hear the latest one.”

      “Oh, pooh,” Leticia Twittingdon, who would never see the sunny side of fifty again, complained from her cross-legged perch on the wide cushioned window seat, thrusting her lower lip forward in a pout as Caroline entered the room. Miss Twittingdon’s long, angular body was dressed from head to toe in brightest scarlet, and a crimson silk turban perched primly on her childlike curls. “And I was so certain you’d want to have me teach you the names and various titles of all СКАЧАТЬ