Like an ancient heathen idol, that face was now.
"Many times I've heard her complain about her age. Bores everyone to tears, sometimes, going on and on about her aches and pains. But I've never once heard her sighing like a stupid sheep and whining about her inevitable imminent death. Stop it, woman. I despise cowardice—and you have no excuse at all."
With that, she turned and left. On his way out, following her, the young husband paused at the door and looked back. With that same sweet smile with which he'd entered.
"Yeah, I know, she's rougher than a cob, sometimes. Sorry 'bout that. But she's still right."
And he was gone, too. Isabella gaped at the empty doorway. No one had spoken like that to her . . .
Ever, so far as she could recall. Not even her father. And he had been the ruler of the world's mightiest empire!
"The impudence! I can't believe—!"
For a moment, she considered summoning the guards.
But . . . Well, she had promised safe conduct. And as quickly as she imagined the Richter creature was striding, she'd probably reach her room before the guards could catch up with her. With that horrid pistol in it, which Isabella had no doubt at all the monstrous creature would use before letting herself be arrested.
Her husband's shotgun, too, which might well be worse. Isabella had heard tales of the destruction those up-time weapons could deliver, at close quarters. Higgins himself was even famous for it, apparently. But it hardly mattered. Albrecht had been but an indifferent armsman, but had anyone ever come for Isabella they would only have reached her over her husband's corpse.
So, she let it pass. But she was livid for the rest of the day, furious for three, and sour and disgruntled for a week thereafter.
That night in the chapel, though, when he said his evening prayers, Bartolomé de los Rios y Alarcon added a prayer for the soul of Gretchen Richter. She was Catholic herself, after all, even if mostly a lapsed one. But Bartolomé would have prayed for her soul even had she been an outright heathen. He was quite sure the ogress had just added five years—three, for sure—to the lifespan of the archduchess.
Chapter 25
Southwark, England
"Well?" asked Harry Lefferts, after George and Juliet Sutherland had brushed the snow off their coats and hung them up. "Do we need to start planning how to get rid of that crime lord of yours?"
Looking even more placid than usual, George glanced around the large central room of their lodgings, where most of Harry's wrecking crew were sprawled about. The assortment of furniture that served them for the purpose could most charitably be described as "modest." Like the house itself, the furnishings were old, often ramshackle, and looked to have been assembled in a completely haphazard manner.
Not bad, though, by the standards of Southwark. Although Southwark was now legally part of London, under the formal designation of "The Ward of Bridge Without" and the more commonly used term "The Borough," it amounted to a separate city in most practical senses of the term. It dated back at least to the time of William the Conqueror and hadn't been officially incorporated into London until 1550. And, for centuries, it had been divided from the larger city just across the Thames by long established customs and traditions.
Southwark wasn't exactly the lawless part of London, but it came rather close. It was where England's capital perched its most disreputable establishments, like the theater, and was the city's largest and most active red light district. Much of the area was simply slums, but nestled here and there were any number of more prosperous dwellings. If there was a lot of poverty in Southwark, there was also quite a bit of wealth—and some of it highly concentrated.
Harry wasn't sure yet, because he hadn't moved about much himself since they'd arrived two days before. But he thought he was going to love the place. It reminded him of Las Vegas. Not the boring and oh-so-damn-proper adult amusement park that Las Vegas had become in his lifetime, once Big Respectable Money started erecting their huge theme casinos on the Strip, but the fabled city of vice and sin that his father and uncles had told him about.
It was too bad, really, that he hadn't rented one of the fancier houses in the area. He could certainly have afforded it, with the money they'd finagled out of a semi-legal art deal they'd pulled off in Amsterdam before leaving for England.
Regretfully, he'd concluded that would give them too high a profile. And there was always the possible awkwardness of having to explain to Mike Stearns exactly why a commando unit which was officially part of the USE's army—even if most of that army's officers would have been surprised to discover the fact, and a fair number would have been positively aghast—had found it necessary to spend money on lavish digs while in the middle of a Desp'rate Feat of Derring-do.