Den of Thieves Read Online Free PDF Page B

a**e. You’re about as honest as Molly Everymans from the Jolly Boatman.’
    â€˜Watch it, Cat. My patience with you ’as its limits.’
    He was riled: a point to me then.
    I put the black silk bag containing my lock of hair on the table. ‘As I infuriate you so badly, Billy, why not finish it between us? Tell me what you want. I’ll do it if I can, then we’ll call it quits. Youleave me alone and I promise never to lay my eyes on your ugly mug again.’
    â€˜I’m glad to see you’re a girl that keeps ’er word, Cat. I ’alf expected you to make some excuse about promises extorted unfairly. I ’ad you in a bind that night, didn’t I?’ He chuckled at the memory.
    â€˜When you’ve stopped congratulating yourself on your low cunning, Billy, perhaps you’ll get to the point?’ I scratched at the upholstery, feeling the stuff split under my nails. He’d been cheated by his supplier if he thought he was getting the finest.
    â€˜All right, Kitten –’
    â€˜Don’t call me Kitten.’
    â€˜Kitten, I want you to get me something.’
    â€˜What exactly?’ I didn’t like this – I didn’t like this at all.
    â€˜I’ve got everything a man could want, but I’ve found that recently I’ve developed the tastes of a con-a-sewer.’
    How appropriate. He meant connoisseur, of course.
    He rose from the couch and beckoned me tofollow him. ‘Come and see my collection.’ Seeing him on his feet for the first time, I noticed that he loomed over me these days. Leading me to a door in the wall beside the over-large mantelpiece, he took out a key and unlocked it. I hesitated: the room he had revealed was dark; I suspected a trap.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Cat, it’s not what you think,’ he laughed.
    â€˜What do I think?’ I tried to keep my voice steady.
    He leant over a candelabra standing ready on a table and lit it with a taper. ‘You think I’m like some wicked Italian count in one of Mrs Radcliffe’s books, waiting to lock up the heroine in a dungeon.’
    â€˜Congratulations, Billy! You’ve learnt to read at long last. I hadn’t realized you had such feminine tastes.’
    â€˜I was just pitchin’ my conversation to your level, as a gentleman should.’
    His repartee had improved. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was taking lessons in that too, topass himself off as a gent in any society stupid enough to give him houseroom.
    â€˜
Generosus nascitur non fit
,’ * I quipped, knowing full well he wouldn’t understand.
    â€˜Don’t come over all clever with me, Cat. Just because you spent a couple of weeks in breeches learnin’ fancy languages, don’t mean you can outwit me.’
    â€˜Course not, Billy,’ I said with a great show of humility. ‘What, I, a poor little ignorant maid, dare to rival the great, the learned William Shepherd?’
    â€˜You know wot, Cat?’ he retorted, his accent on the slide. ‘I wish I’d ’ad the beatin’ of you when you were at that school. I ’ear you were quite the favourite punchbag for a while there. ’Ad I known, I’d’ve enrolled and whipped some of that cheek out of you.’
    â€˜You’re a true gentleman, Billy, do you know that? One would never guess you were raised in the gutter and made your way through thieving and thuggery.’
    I truly was insane. Here I was in his house, with his servants waiting on his call, and I was insulting him as freely as ever. But Billy had had enough. ‘Shut yer mouth and get in there.’ He gave me a shove in the small of the back.
    I gasped. I had stumbled into Aladdin’s cave. It wasn’t a dungeon but a display cabinet for Billy’s collection of –
    â€˜Jools, Cat, that’s wot I like. See a bit of work that catches me eye and I ’as to ’ave it.’
    The shelves were