Free Tarnished by Karina Cooper Page A

the silence stretched between us, thick with something I didn’t recognize.
    Finally, he stirred. “There was no man at the gate,” he said with barely civil finality, “and no handkerchief.”
    He turned, and I stared at his back as he walked away. In front of me, one of the men sniggered.
    I bared my teeth at him. His grin faded.
    The shadows swallowed Hawke with ease, and I was left staring at both guards, each rubbing whatever part of their anatomy I had assaulted.
    I didn’t care. I rubbed my arms as I recalled the heavy weight of Hawke’s gaze on mine. What had he been thinking as he stared at me?
    What game was Micajah Hawke playing? Had Cummings gotten away? Had some helpful soul freed him?
    Impossible. There were times when it seemed Hawke knew everything that happened on the grounds. There was no way he could have lost Cummings this morning. The man was lying to me.
    The footmen watched me warily.
    Flipping them a tight little smile, I turned and walked away.
    I wasn’t going to wander through the gate. Those men weren’t entirely stupid. They’d dispatch a message to Hawke quick as a lick, and I’d find myself on the defensive instead. As soon as I could, I slipped off the path and into the shadows beyond the lanterns.
    I knew of a half a dozen ways to get into the Menagerie, but I usually used the gates to maintain a certain element of propriety. The same could be said of the private gardens. The hedge walls were usually deterrent for average customers, but I was neither average nor a customer.
    My feet rasped on the cobbles that comprised much of the Menagerie’s walking ground. Although the area was less foggy than it should be, it was difficult to get plants to grow where the sunlight only weakly reached. That the Menagerie retained an entire army of groundskeepers was something, like the fogless air, I’d never managed to explain.
    The place was a carefully guarded mystery, top to bottom.
    I held my breath as I crouched by the bristled hedge wall. This was typical London fare, sturdy greenery that didn’t require much more sunlight than what generally made it through the English winters, anyway. Most of London below didn’t get foliage of any kind.
    Shrugging out of my coat, I folded it neatly and shoved it out of sight beneath the hedgerow. The twigs poked into my back as I leaned into it, carefully counting footsteps as they passed just beyond hearing.
    I counted silently again, and when no other footsteps reached my straining ears, I eased into the foliage. This was one of many reasons I knotted my hair so firmly in place. I could only imagine what would have happened to my ballroom finery had I attempted this earlier.
    The prickly hedge branches poked and prodded, and I had no choice but to move as slowly as possible. There was absolutely no way to do this silently. I was lucky that I could work my way through the foliage at all; a small bonus to being at least somewhat diminutive in stature.
    As soon as my hand speared through the other side, I waited. A twig jabbed into my cheek, and I knew I’d have sap clinging to my hands, but it was a small price to pay. Catching Hawke off guard would be worth every moment.
    Disentangling myself from the hedge took effort, as it attempted to cling to every hair, every fold of my shirt, even my trousers. I made more noise than I would have liked, even snapping a few determined branches, but there was no hue and cry around me.
    I doubt, honestly, that anyone thought anything of it. The private gardens had heard much stranger noises than rustling.
    The internal garden was a large courtyard, too big to see with a single lamp. Much like the greater Menagerie grounds, it was carefully maintained, and the hedges here were deliberately set in ways that provided the maximum amount of privacy with an occasional chance of discovery. Whispers and laughter drifted over the dark, cut by the murmuring trill of water fountains. Fires flickered here and there, carefully