Chapter Six #2
“Sorry, pet. Had a night out wiv me fella. Took us down to the penny gaff, and we had such a row after, I don’t fink I’m in a mind to forgive ’im.” She batted her lashes at Ian.
“Was your colleague here?” Diana gestured toward the brawny barman at the other end of the bar.
“Aye, believe ’e was. You want a word?”
“That would be most gracious,” Ian replied. He squeezed Diana’s shoulder to root her to the floor while he leveled a charming smile at the barmaid. “You’ll keep an eye on my hen, won’t you?”
The maid winked. “’Course, luv.”
Diana forced a lethal smile. “I’m afraid—”
“Mind our drinks,” Ian interrupted. He tossed a parting grin at the barmaid.
Diana would have wiped it off his face, had the woman not clamped a hand on her arm.
“Oh, let ’im go see to ’is business, pet. ’E’s a fine specimen. You want to ’old on to ’im. Men like that need to feel needed.”
How Diana’s mother would have laughed at that.
Before absolutely eviscerating the woman for even thinking it.
“Stay and finish your drink, luv,” the maid insisted. “Let your man help a damsel in distress.”
Diana regarded her with the kind of stare that often made grown men cower. “I’m not that kind of a damsel.”
The maid released her arm as if it were a hot coal.
As she wove her way through the mob, Diana clutched her cloak to cover her skirts. She kept a careful eye on the silver-haired man. His attention was fixed on the sacks of hops in the corner.
Curious, that.
She risked a peek at Birdie, who scratched her nose and pointed a finger at the sacks, before slowly pulling on her right ear. It was a signal their crew used to convey an important transaction. Or a payment.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The sound of Ian’s rising voice pulled Diana’s focus back to the end of the bar. She firmly pushed her way in and found the barman leaning toward Ian in a much less friendly way than the serving maid.
“Fought I told ya to leave, before I make ya.”
“I just want to know what you saw,” Ian demanded.
“Is there a problem?” Diana asked insipidly, hoping to distract them, but both men continued staring daggers at each other until she reached for Ian’s jaw and pointed it toward her.
“Calm down,” she murmured as her hand dove into his coat in search of his coin purse.
He jerked at her touch and stepped neatly out of her reach. “What are you doing?”
“Buying us another drink to smooth the waters.”
“I ain’t taking no blunt from you,” the barman bellowed. “It’s a bloody shakedown.”
“Eh, Shep, this bloke boverin’ ya?” a muscled sailor asked.
“Oi, ’oo’s causing trouble?”
“Cagey bugger wiv the dark ’air,” another man chimed in. “Says that leary cove ’oo were in last night’s ’is brover.”
A chorus of rumbles echoed from the bar. Worried glances darted to the table at the center of the room.
Diana stared at the sacks along the wall that she was now certain did not contain hops.
“My mate got nicked today.” The barman pointed a meaty finger at Ian. “Because of the dodgy notes ’e got from this snide pitcher’s brover!”
Shouts broke out. The men at the center table were on their feet, staggering over each other in their effort to charge.
“On my count, you head to the back stairwell,” Ian rasped. “It should lead to the cellar. You can escape outside to the alley. Get a hack and get as far away as you can.”
Birdie intervened by darting past and spinning drunk men around. Diana hated leaving any of her crew on their own to handle cleanup from an altercation, but she had to get Ian out.
“I won’t make it across the room without a distraction,” she warned him.
“Diana, don’t you dare—”
She hopped up on a chair, placed her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, and peeled a whistle so loud, the man nearest them covered his ears.
The room went completely still.
Diana’s cloak fell from her shoulders to reveal her shimmering silk bridal gown.
The sight of it precipitated more than a few grunts of surprise.
It was, after all, a room populated mostly by men.
And she was, after all, the most drawn woman in London.
No one expected her to reach beneath her skirts for two daggers and throw one at the sacks in the corner.
Five-pound notes cascaded out.
With a collective roar, the mob scrambled for the money.
Ian threw Diana’s cloak at her. “Cellar. Go now.”
She hesitated. The knife she’d thrown was a particular favorite, and she hated losing it.
Nearly as much as she hated the idea of leaving Ian to fend for himself.
“Go, Diana. I’ll find you.”
The urgency in his voice forced her to hike up her skirts. She made it across the room and down the winding staircase to the cellar. There, she pried open the doors used to load casks and pulled herself out into the alley.
Years of disciplined training forced her to prop her back against the wall, as her eyes worked to adjust to the dark. The lane was small and she couldn’t see well enough to gauge where it led.
She counted her breaths. Then counted to a hundred while she willed Ian to emerge.
He’d never let her go far without him. Not while she still wore the emeralds around her neck.
Unless something had gone horribly wrong.
And today, very little had gone right.
He was so strong; she’d never considered he’d need her to extricate him.
The crunch of broken glass made her whip around and brandish her knife.
“I told you to run.” Ian grabbed her free hand and tugged her into the dark road.
“Are you all right?” she wheezed.
“No. I’m being chased by an angry mob, with my brother’s intended, and no protection.”
“Nonsense. I still have one knife. And you have your pistol. You just didn’t want to flash it in there.”
He acknowledged this with a garbled laugh as they emerged onto Russel Street.
“We’ll never find a hack at this hour,” he lamented breathlessly.
“There.” She pointed to the end of the street. “Looks like a boarding inn?”
“Or a cathouse.”
They never determined which of them was correct because a cab miraculously appeared and delivered a man to its door. Ian flung himself in its path and roared at the driver with a bellow so savage, the poor lad would have handed over the reins if Ian had asked.
His hands came around her waist. She had only a brief moment to appreciate their warmth and weight before he flung her inside the cab, pushed her skirts aside and pulled himself in next to her.
He mumbled an address she couldn’t hear and offered the driver double the fare if they were quick about it.
The carriage lurched, and Ian fell over beside her. She made no move to push him away. Her blood was singing from the way he’d roughly handed her into the coach and then commandeered the entire space.
When the hack evened out its course, he retreated to his side of the seat. “Forgive me.”
She made a cooing noise of acknowledgment and straightened her skirts. She kept her eyes on the road ahead and fought the urge to lean into the waves of heat coming from him as she asked, “Why did you take so long to follow me?”
“I needed to find this.”
His hand brushed against hers, and he placed the cold steel of her dagger in her palm.
“The police were on the way. They would have found it,” he said. “They’re custom-made and weighted to your grip. They would have traced it back to you.”
“Yes, of course.” He’d thought only of their survival, not that the knives were precious to her. “Thank you.”
They rode in silence for several minutes before he murmured, “They’re the same ones. From that night.”
“Yes.” She was elated he’d remembered. “I’m never without them.”
“Even on your wedding day.”
His voice was low and sardonic. It made her regret that she could no longer hide her duplicity. He wasn’t hiding his disdain for it.
“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go if you tell me everything,” he said.
She almost confessed that would happen no matter what she told him. She could not deviate from the course she had set. Too many lives were at stake.
Including his.