It Started With a Whisper: A Historical Romance Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monarchal Glenn Press
Published: 2018-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

When our city’s famous Bow Street Runners appear, you know there’s trouble afoot…

-Whispers from Lady X

Wolverston Hall

Eight days since the death of the Earl of Wolverston

By the time Gabriel made it to Hill Street, he’d already worked a full shift at the station, plus an hour spent with the magistrate, conferring on his most recent arrest. The thief in question had been caught with his hand in an aristocrat’s overcoat, his fingers closed around a particularly nice pocket watch. Arthur Garland was well-known at the station house, and likely would be sentenced to Newgate for the third time. Gabriel had little hope this stay would change his criminal predilections, as Garland was a longtime member of the notorious thieving gang run out of Rat’s Castle in St. Giles, and locking him up in the college kept him around other criminals of like mind.

Imprisonment served two functions, neither of which had anything to do with rehabilitating the criminal. It took Garland off the streets, and it allowed law-abiding citizens to think that illegal actions had consequences. In his years as a Runner, Gabriel had learned that for most people, it was not the actual sentencing that mattered, but rather the idea that justice had been served. Their world could return back to its preferred state of order. The good triumphed, and the bad were punished.

It was a fable, of course, as dismissive of the nuances of individuality and circumstance as the leading theories on predestination and social class. In his experience, a person’s individual character determined their worth, not the lot into which they had been born. Perhaps it was his friendship with Philip that had planted this kernel of truth, that all people ought to be treated as though they were equals—despite the laws of the day drawing definite lines in the sand between the classes.

He turned the corner, approaching Wolverston Hall from the rear. The street was unoccupied for now—most of the ton was either entertaining guests inside their homes, or off to visit one of Westminster’s many delights. He stole across the street swiftly, silently, coming to a stop in front of the iron gate that marked the end of Wolverston’s property.

He remembered this gate, remembered sneaking out with Philip to the tavern a few streets over. As two stupid young boys, those illicit tankards of ale had felt like the greatest of rebellions. How many times had they gone through this gate, too foxed to chance Lord and Lady Wolverston catching them at the front entrance?

“Friends forever,” they’d vowed. “May no dimber gels come between us.”

He pulled out the key Jemma had given him. The brass was heavy in his hand, weighed down by all the promises he’d broken over the last three years. The people tossed aside as if they had not formed the very foundation of his character.

Regret gnawed at him like a rabid dog with sharp teeth, its bite fierce and powerful enough to tear the breath from his chest. He should have been stronger.

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