Joanna Bourne: My Lord and Spymaster

“Why don’t we forget all that? Let me get you in out of the rain.” He hoped he sounded reassuring. What he sounded to himself was drunk. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’ll take you somewhere warm and safe. Will you come with me?”

No answer. Just that fathoms-deep, velvet fascination in her eyes. He left off tempting her mouth and nestled her chin in the palm of his hand and gave her a chance to collect herself. Rain fell on her face and rolled away across skin that was fine-grained and smooth as flower petals. She was lucky. The life she led hadn’t marked her yet.

After a moment, she blinked at him. “What?”

“You don’t have to be out here in the wet. Let’s go get under cover and talk for a while. Come with me.”

“With you?” He liked the way she sounded. Dazed. That was good for a man’s self-esteem. “You want me to come with you?” She bit her lip as if she were trying to bite away the feel of what he’d been doing. He wondered if it helped any.

“I’ll give you five shillings for the night. Think I have five shillings. M’friend does.”

Adrian would lend him the ready. Adrian walked around with lots of money in his pocket, and nobody ever picked it. Where the devil was Adrian, anyway? He should be here, playing the voice of reason, not leaving his drunk friend to be stupid about a pretty whore.

“You’d pay that much?” Laughter sparked in her eyes.

It was a ridiculous price for Katherine Lane. This was a woman worth being stupid over. He surprised himself with how much he wanted to take her away from this market for human meat and that brute of a pimp.

He’d better get her to Eunice before he forgot that he didn’t buy street whores. It was a sad, dishonorable business, using these poor, trapped girls, not to mention a fine way to catch crotch beasties.

This one was different. He looked at her and saw himself hurrying her down to the dock, leading her aboard the Flighty Dancer , and slamming the door to his cabin. He’d take those breasts in his mouth and open her thighs and slip inside where she’d be warm, even on a chilly day like this. She’d show him all the tricks she could do with those light, clever hands and that soft mouth.

Wasn’t going to happen. Instead, he’d bribe her with shillings and take her home with him. Aunt Eunice would know what to do with this bedraggled, larcenous ragamuffin. Eunice might get her off the streets for good. “Five shillings. And I’ll give you a meal. Get you warm and dry. I’ll take you to . . .” Damn it, he was too drunk and too stumble-tongued with lust to explain.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a street whore. This one was fresh as a daisy, clean and sweet. She smelled of soap and flowers and spices. Even her fingernails were clean.

Nobody on Katherine Lane smelled of soap and flowers.

Lies. She stank of lies.

Clean and lovely and talking like a lady . . . a woman like this sold herself in a snug brothel in St. John’s Wood. She didn’t come flying out of an alley in Katherine Lane. She’d been lying in wait—not just for any pigeon—for one man in particular. What did this skillful whore do besides picking pockets and telling lies with her eyes? Did she slip a knife between a man’s ribs with those deft hands of hers?

He locked hold of her wrists. “Who sent you?”

“What?” The gold-brown eyes went wide. That was fear. She’d known she might get caught.

She was right to be afraid of him. “Who paid you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

More lies. Somebody had set a trap with this pretty, laughing woman. Not a trap for him. Nobody gave a damn about one more merchant trader. It was Adrian they wanted. And Adrian was alone in one of those side alleys, prowling and poking into corners.

He lifted his head and yelled, “Adrian! Watch out! It’s a trap.”

That set everything off.

“Behind you! Sebastian!” Adrian’s shout.

He saw them then. Silent as beetles, two men scuttled toward him. More followed, slipping from doorways and corners. Under cover of the rain and fog, the pack had stalked in, unseen, converging from three directions. They were Irish, from the Gaelic they tossed back and forth. They carried knives and cudgels and chains. These were vermin from the dockside, deadly and cold as ice. They’d sent the girl as a honey-pot to hold him while the gang closed in. She’d smiled at him while she was planning to watch him die.

“Run from me.” He let her loose. “Run fast.”

But she backed away, wide-eyed, breathing hard. “How? Nobody knows I’m here.” That was shock in her voice, and fear. She turned in a circle, looking for a hole in the net closing round them. And he knew she was no part of this. No decoy.

“More of them down that way. A baker’s dozen.” Adrian dropped out of the fog into his usual place, taking the left.

Two of them against a gang. Long odds.

He picked a target—one in front, where his friends would see him die—and threw. The bravo collapsed with a sucking, bubbling neck wound. The familiar stink of death rose in the alley. He pulled his second knife.

The thugs hesitated, sending glances back and forth, fingering blade and cudgel. Attack or retreat. It could go either way.

Then one man broke ranks and lunged for the girl.

She was fast. Cat quick, writhing, she bit the filthy arm that held her and knocked a knife aside and wrenched loose. She skipped back, clutching a long, shallow cut on her forearm. “Not hurt. I’m not hurt.”

No tears, no screams. Pluck to the backbone. She was also damnably in his way. He shoved her behind him, between him and Adrian. Protected as she could be.

If this lasts long, she’ll get killed. “Mine on the right.” He threw, and his blade hit badly and glanced off a collarbone. One man down. One wounded. That would have been two dead if he’d had the sense to stay sober. “Waste of a knife. Damn.”

His last knife was in his boot. Not for throwing. This one was for killing up close.

He forced his mind to the pattern the attackers wove, trying to spot the leader. Kill the leader, and the others might scatter. Adrian danced a path through the bullyboys, breaking bones with that lead-weighted cane of his.

No way to get the woman to safety. She stayed in his shadow, using him as a shield, white-faced. She’s been in street fights before.

Then he didn’t think about her at all. Chain whistled past. He grabbed it and jerked the man off balance and drove his knife through a gap in the leather waistcoat, up under the breastbone, to the heart.

For an instant he stood locked, face-to-face, with the man he’d just killed, a redhead with pale skin and vicious, gleeful, mad blue eyes. Outrage and disbelief pulsed out at him . . . and drained away. The eyes went blank.

Then the dead bastard thrashed, rolled with the knife, and took it down with him as he fell.

No time to get it back. A crowbar cracked down on his shoulder with a bright, sour, copper pain. He fell, dodged a boot, and rolled away as Adrian took down his attacker.

The girl screamed.

Up. He had to get up. He was on his feet, shaking his head, trying to see through a black haze. The girl was stretched between two men, being dragged away. He staggered through madness and confusion, fog and pain. Adrian was swearing a blue streak.

Under the chaos he heard a monstrous racket of wheels on cobblestone. A goods wagon turned the corner.

The girl tore loose, leaving her cloak behind. She reeled straight into the path of the horses and slipped on wet cobbles. She had a split second to look up and see hooves. Her face was a mask of raw terror.

He launched himself toward her. Too late. He knew he’d be too late.