When the Duke Returns(74)

“How dare you terrify an old woman!” she shouted at them, suddenly furious. “You’ve frightened her!”

Bartlebee just laughed at her, and even his eyes, those horrible flat eyes, looked amused. “It’s a valuable lesson she’s learning. Duchesses shit as well as everyone else. And once you’ve been in the shit as much as we have, you learn that the color of the stuff is the same, ain’t it, lads?”

There was a chorus of agreement.

“Let’s cut the sauce,” Bartlebee said suddenly. “We’re only halfway through these privies, duchess. You wouldn’t want us to leave the job undone, would you? Because no one else is going down into that pit. No one in England. So we’d like a little present to keep us going.”

“No,” Isidore stated. “You’ve been well paid.”

The dowager was utterly silent, staring at the men with horrified eyes.

“The young lady don’t even look frightened,” Bartlebee said, turning to his men. “That’s unusual, that is.”

“I’m not frightened,” Isidore spat. “I’m disgusted by your lack of kindness. Have you no grandmother yourself?”

“Is that a grandmother?” Bartlebee asked, interestedly. He moved closer to the dowager, who cowered away with a stifled little moan. “Oh, I see. It must be the wrinkles, am I right, Wiglet? The more wrinkled you are, the older you are? I’ve heard of that. Course, we on the Dead Watch don’t generally live to collect all that many wrinkles, so we don’t bother. We don’t have families in the regular way of things.”

They all guffawed.

“You’ll excuse me for not pitying you,” Isidore snapped. “If you have no families, it’s due to your criminal tendencies. Doubtless, no woman will have anything to do with you.”

“Doubtless, doubtless,” Bartlebee said. “But just to make you feel better, miss, I will tell you that Wiglet here married Betsy as does behind the livery stables on Pond Street. Now there, does that make you feel better?”

Isidore looked at Wiglet. He had no teeth and a leer.

“Did I express any sorrow over your lonely condition?” Isidore asked, politely enough. “If I did, I assure you it was an error.”

“Enough of this charmin’ banter,” Bartlebee said. “We’ll be having a jewelry box, since you was daft enough to bring it into the shit, if you’ll pardon my plain speaking. And just as payment for this delightful little chat, we’ll be having the large box, not the smaller.”

“The duke will have you all thrown into jail,” the dowager half screamed. Her fingers were digging into Isidore’s arm like small talons.

“That he won’t,” Bartlebee said. “I’m happy to reassure you there. Where the Dead Watch go, nobody sees. That makes us above the law, as they’ll be happy to tell you in London.”

“No one is above the law!” Isidore snapped. If she could just keep the conversation going. Simeon would finish his letter. Honeydew would return. She took another cautious step to the side, dragging the dowager with her. She almost had her back to the ballroom door.

“Now if I murdered someone,” Bartlebee said, with that horrible mirthless grin of his, “I reckon you’d be right. A parish constable might knock on my door, if he could find it, of course. It’s such a temptation sometimes. All you’d have to do was tip someone into a pit, and they’d fall into a permanent sleep due to a sad, sad accident. Ain’t it a temptation, lads?”

Only Wiglet answered: “Ay!” Bartlebee was grinning, but his other man didn’t look as comfortable.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” Isidore said, schooling her voice to a clear, high severity. “We’re paying you a fair and honest wage for the work you’re doing. And how do you repay us? By frightening an old woman half to death.”

As if on cue, the dowager groaned and sank against Isidore’s shoulder, though Isidore noticed that her mother-in-law kept tight hold of her jewelry box. Now the door was directly behind her.

Bartlebee stepped smartly forward, and she realized that she was going to have to give up the jewelry box, that all the jewels in the world weren’t worth one touch from his finger. She couldn’t turn around to open the door without letting go of the dowager, or letting go of the box.

Just then she heard a voice behind her, like a thread of sound. “Isidore.”

It was Simeon. The door at her back started to ease open. Bartlebee was reaching toward her, grinning; any moment he would see the opening door.

Without hesitation, Isidore shrieked “Now!” Then she lifted the box she held and dashed it to the ground at her feet. With an ear-splitting crack, it opened and jewels skidded across the floor.