My Favorite Thief by Karyn Monk Page A

Contable Wilkins, who had finally managed to make it past Oliver, looked utterly astonished.
    Annie stared at him incredulously. “Ye think my Jimmy is the Dark Shadow?” She exploded with laughter.
    â€œWho was in that carriage?” demanded Lewis.
    â€œThat was my Jimmy,” she managed, nearly breathless with hilarity. “Black Jimmy, they call him, on account of his black temper, and I’ve the marks to prove it—but Jimmy ain’t no Dark Shadow! If he was, he’d be drinkin’ in some gin palace in Oxford Street, not chokin’ on the piss they pour at the Rats’ Castle!”
    â€œIs everything all right, Annie?” Charlotte had donned a cloak to protect her from the rain and was now making her way down the front steps. “Oh, my, what happened to your face?”
    â€œMy Jimmy hit me,” she told her honestly, “an’ I know ye told me he was no good and I shouldn’t see him no more, but he came here tonight an’ said I had to go back with him, an’ when I told him no, he punched me, but these peelers here is goin’ to arrest him now, an’ make sure he learns the law says he can’t just pitch into me whenever he likes.” She looked at Lewis expectantly.
    â€œActually we are presently working on another case,” he told her, infuriated by the fact that he had already wasted so much time there.
    â€œYe men are all the same,” Annie observed acidly. “Ye talk the high and mighty when it suits you, but deep down ye all believe we women is good for nothin’ but beddin’ and beatin’—’specially a poor girl like me.”
    Lewis clenched his jaw, frustrated. What the hell did she expect him to do? he wondered angrily. Head down to some criminal-infested den in St. Giles and try to arrest every man who had ever laid a hand on his wife or girlfriend? The prisons of London would be overflowing before the hour was out. Even so, he felt strangely awkward as he stared into Annie’s pretty, battered face. The thought of some filthy bastard using the girl for his pleasure and then beating her filled him with impotent fury.
    â€œI can assure you that isn’t true,” he told her.
    Annie snorted contemptuously. “Course it is.”
    â€œCome inside out of the rain, Annie, and let’s get you warm and dry and see to that eye of yours.” Charlotte wrapped a protective arm around her. “I believe Inspector Turner and Constable Wilkins are finished with their questions.” She regarded him coolly, letting him know that she disapproved of his apparent lack of interest in what had befallen poor Annie. “Is there anything further you require, Inspector?”
    â€œI just wanted to have a word with your coachman, and take a look at your carriage.”
    â€œI’ll have Oliver meet you around the back so he can show you the carriage, and answer any further questions you may have.”
    â€œThank you, Miss Kent. My apologies for disturbing you. Good night.”
    Charlotte’s heart was pounding anxiously as she shepherded Annie back into the house. Once the door was closed behind her and she was certain Inspector Turner and Constable Wilkins were headed to the stable, she regarded her household of former thieves and prostitutes in confusion.
    â€œWhere is he?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
    â€œHe’s gone, lass,” Oliver told her, cramming an old battered hat on his head as he prepared to go outside to meet the inspector and Constable Wilkins.
    â€œOnce we knew the bobbies was fixin’ to search the house, we had to get him out of here right quick,” Ruby explained. “So while they was dawdlin’ in the kitchen an’ such, we woke the Shadow, threw a shirt an’ coat on him, plopped a hat on his head, an’ dragged him down the back stairs.”
    â€œThen we heaved him in a carriage an’ paid the driver to take him