“Kn-know what?” he whispered, his voice trembling from both pain and fear.
Sparky flashed a toothless grin, cold, empty, and missing all warmth. “This is yar home now, Yar Majesty. King of the sewers. Get used to it.”
Another surge of energy burst through Percy, and he didn’t care that he’d been sick. Or that his stomach turned like he was going to throw up. “This isn’t my home. Do you hear me? This will never be my home!” He kicked and twisted and fought the mean men. “Someone will save me.” Only . . . Percy sobbed. Who would save him? There was no Mama or Papa anymore.
Penge slapped him across the face, rattling his teeth. “Get the bag,” he ordered Sparky.
And this time, as the scratchy fabric was brought over his head and Percy was shoved inside and flung over one of the strangers’ shoulders, he closed his eyes, grateful when the darkness crept in.
“No one is comin’ for ya. Ya ’ear me? Ain’t no one lookin’ for an orphan.”
That cruel threat echoed, coming as if from a distance, far, far away.
Someone was coming. They had to be . . .
He tried to speak the words aloud but couldn’t make his mouth move. Or make a sound.
Someone was . . .
Percy closed his eyes and remembered no more.
Chapter 1
THE LONDONER
MYSTERY!
All of London is in search of the gentleman who’s been robbed of his title by treacherous relatives. The new Earl of Maxwell remains a mystery to all . . . There is only one certainty: the Lost Lord has no wish to be found!
V. Lovelace
The Seven Dials, London, England
Shite.
Having dwelled in the sewers longer than he’d moved amongst men on the equally fetid streets of St. Giles, Malcom North held slogging through that muck as the most familiar memory of his existence. It was also the oldest.
Malcom picked his way through the dank grime that eventually tunneled out and emptied into the Thames.
He timed each rise and fall of his foot to the flow of water. He used the sounds of London’s true underbelly to mask his steps. Using the seven-foot pole that he’d carried for almost fifteen years now, he navigated the underground system.
He stilled, the water sloshing around his ankles, as the distant whine of an approaching herd echoed around the tunnel. Shoving the pole into the clever loop in his shirt, Malcom caught a metal chain in both hands. He climbed his feet up the walls, and hefted himself higher. Then, grabbing for the metal hooks left by the scaffolding that had built this underground world, he held himself aloft as the army of rats splashed ahead, racing through the filth and waste. The creatures squealed and chirped as they ran, climbing over one another in search of a poor blighter to feast upon.
Malcom’s arms strained from the exertion, but he channeled the stinging discomfort. Over the years, he’d learned one discomfort transmuted into another. A man wasn’t capable of feeling two hurts at once, and as long as he mastered one, he could defeat anything. His biceps and shoulders strained; sweat dripped from his brow.
He grimaced through the pain and remained hanging there until the last of the rodent pack, a lone white creature, went scurrying past.
Malcom lowered himself. Waiting. Waiting. The rapid splash of water breaking grew more distant, and he let himself fall. His previously strained muscles exalted from that release, the prickling that shot through his limbs a peculiar blend of pleasure and pain.
As his feet hit the stone floor, the water splashed noisily, splattering his trousers with the residual waste. He’d long ago ceased to smell the stench of this place, the tepid air more rotted than the coal-infused scents which those who dwelled in East London were forced to breathe daily.
As a boy, this had represented a choice . . . a luxury Malcom and all those born of his rank were without. Which sewer would he search? How would he find the means to survive? He’d not relied on the support of any gang leader. Every decision had been made by Malcom without any influence from the derelicts above. The life of a tosher represented all he knew.
And all he wished to know.
Gathering up his pole, Malcom resumed his march through the tunnel, scanning the brick walls as he cut a path through the water. Walls which had been a home, a place to hide from bastards bent on buggering a terrified street lad alone in the world. A haven from the constables who’d rid Polite Society of the guttersnipes sullying the air with their mere presence. And a place to hide from the gang leaders who’d built their empires on the backs of boys and girls.
Malcom stopped; his gaze zeroed in on a brick that jutted out, the difference between it and the others so slight it might have been an optical illusion. And yet there were no illusions in these parts. Just harsh realities.
Unsheathing the crude dagger he’d found in another tunnel when he’d first begun as a tosher, he did a sweep of the darkened space and then started forward, lifting his legs and lengthening his strides to minimize the echo left by his splash.
Sticking the weapon between his teeth, Malcom pressed his back against the wall so he could search for the foes who lurked everywhere.
Because for all the uncertainty that met a man in East London daily, there was only one fact which held true: there was always someone waiting in the hopes of usurping from a person his power.
Malcom always remained one step ahead of those trying to take his territory. It was why he was here even now.
Reaching behind him, his fingers immediately found the brick jutting out no more than a quarter of an inch. When he was a boy, digging in these spots had proven a simple, effortless task.
The brick immediately slipped into his hand. Setting it aside, Malcom probed the surrounding stones. He immediately loosed four bricks until a two-foot-wide opening gaped in the sewer wall. Angling sideways so he could both maintain a watch on the tunnels and assess that opening, Malcom stretched a hand inside . . . and immediately found it.
His fingers collided with a familiar, heavily patched burlap sack. Malcom yanked it out and fished around.
Empty.
The bloody bastard.
Swallowing a curse, Malcom pushed the bricks back in, and shoving his hat back into place, he rested a shoulder against the wall.
And waited. Waited with anticipation singing in his veins until he heard sloppy footfalls draw closer.
The figure, several inches smaller and two stones heavier, came crashing through the opening of the tunnel and then stopped. His gaze landed on Malcom North, and a burlap sack slipped from the other man’s fingers. It fell with a noisy splash and then disappeared under the grimy water. “North?” the man croaked.
“Alders,” Malcom called out, almost pleasantly. Cheerful, even. So jaunty that one who didn’t know him might have taken it for a pleasant greeting.
“W-wasn’t expecting you.”
No, he hadn’t been. Fury whipped through Malcom, but he’d become a master of reining in his emotions.
“N-not what it l-looks loike, N-North,” the man stammered.
Malcom took a perverse glee in the way the trembling bastard’s eyes bulged as they landed on the weapon he held. “Oh.” He stretched that syllable out slowly, layering it with a silken steel warning. “And how is that?” He dusted the tip of the blade back and forth over his callused palm.
Even with the dark set to the tunnels, Malcom caught—and relished—the paling of the other man’s skin. “W-wasn’t . . . w-wasn’t . . .” Alders’s voice emerged garbled as he choked on that guttural Cockney, unable to bring forth the lie he no doubt sought. “These tunnels, th-they’ve been empty. Fair game, they w—”