The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

Blackdown banged his hand on the table, and the noise made Julia jump. “It is ridiculous, yes!” His voice was loud and angry. “In time the dark ages will be understood to include our own!”

Clare and Julia both laughed, and Clare got up and kissed him. “Oh, Nickin, I do think you should join Brooks’s sooner rather than later. Or start your own club. And let me join it.”

He glowered and stuffed a bite of fish into his mouth, but Clare stood with her hand on his shoulder and smiled at Julia. “My brother has returned from Spain a changed man. He believes that women should control their own destinies. Such a rare beast. Do you think we should put him on exhibit at the Tower of London, alongside the lions and tigers?”

“Please, ladies, do take control of your blasted destinies and save me a headache,” Blackdown said, wiping his mouth with his napkin and looking decidedly frazzled. “I have been back in England for a few short weeks, and all I seem to do is worry about women and their godforsaken reputations. Rise up and claim your rights and leave me in peace!”

The Russian interrupted their laughter, and what he said was so absurd and so kind that it took Julia a long moment to remember that he was her enemy. “Anyone who would doubt Julia Percy’s good name? That man is a fool.” His voice was harsh. “Just look into her eyes.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stalked from the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Nick stood on the top step and took his time adjusting his hat to his satisfaction, enjoying the sight of Arkady, already in the street, scowling and tossing his stick from hand to hand. “Surely this could wait until tomorrow, Arkady. It is well past midnight.”

“Tonight you begin your service to the Guild. You should be eager, like the young hound! But you worry over your hat like a woman. Come! We will be late.” Arkady turned and started walking.

Nick walked lightly down the stairs, glanced up at the stars, then sauntered after his friend. “I do hope we are taking a hackney? Or are you going to jump us to the twenty-first century for a tube ride? Because I for one am unarmed.”

“Do not be a coward. I have a cudgel.” Arkady slapped the heavy brass knob at the top of his stick into his palm. “A hack! The tube! I spurn them both! It feels good to be alive when there is danger. The stars and the moon, they shine. The city may stink but she is very beautiful. She smiles on us. We are her kings, her masters. In all ages she recognizes us and welcomes us as a lover.”

“Hmm. The stinking city welcomes us both as her lovers. What a vision. You are a terrible poet.”

“Pah!” The Russian snapped his fingers. “That is for your criticism.”

They went down Berkeley Street toward Piccadilly, then east toward the City. Arkady wasn’t wrong. The night was beautiful and perilous, and as he walked Nick felt an answering courage flow through his veins. Footpads, cutpurses, highwaymen, and all the other Georgian bad guys—Nick was ready for them. Why did that readiness feel so much like happiness?

Julia. That was the answer. She had come to him in the cupola and he had drawn out her sighs like spun sugar. Nick surrendered to lascivious thoughts. Why not? He was home again, London was filthy and dangerous again, he was alive. What better way to celebrate than to imagine the delicious deflowering of Julia Percy?

For a while Nick and Arkady walked in silence. The streets were dark but they weren’t sleeping. Here and there small groups of men were making their way homeward. Now and again a woman, leaning in a doorway, made clear what she was offering. A dog barked and was answered by another, and out of the corner of his eye Nick saw a rat slip over the cobbles in the shadow of a crumbling wall. When they reached the Strand, the street grew more crowded. Down side streets to the south they could see the Thames—it was at low tide, and the night-fishing boats, each with its dancing lantern, crowded the center channel. The long, sloping banks were dotted here and there with people, some tending small fires, others combing for treasure among the rocks and bones and broken pipe stems that littered the mudflats.

Out of nowhere, a clutch of children appeared, scarcely older than infants. They trotted at Nick and Arkady’s heels, begging for money. The stars ignited their hungry, hopeful eyes. Nick was about to toss them a few coins when he remembered that to do so could well make him a target of older children or even adults, watching and waiting in the shadows.

Nick looked sideways at Arkady, the man who had brought him back here. The Russian’s smile was as tranquil as the slender moon. He turned a ragged child gently aside with his stick. He did it expertly, lifting it slightly under one thin arm and redirecting its steps. It was as if the child were a cat that had sidled up, hoping to be stroked. The child turned to try again, its little face lifted up, but Arkady’s stick was in the way and Nick watched as the child’s face lost its look of hope and closed in. The children fell behind, their pleas turning to shrill little curses as the two tall aristocrats strode out of their lives forever.

“You ask no questions,” Arkady said, breaking the silence. “That is unusual for you.”

“I have learned that I will receive no answers.”

“Yet I have told you I am taking you to a rendezvous far from gracious Mayfair. I lead you into the dark City, to meet strangers. You are either very brave or very stupid, my friend.”

“That’s easy. I am very stupid.”

“Don’t you want to know where we are going and why?”

“Oh, no.”