Chapter Twenty-Eight. After-Dinner Entertainment #2
Reaver’s focus drifted between me and Treadway. “I would appreciate you keeping your tongue firmly between your teeth before you further embarrass yourself.”
Jonathan swore, muttering to himself about ill-bred bullies.
He struggled to shed his threadbare jacket, hopping about.
The scene might have been comical were the situation not dire.
Frederick Reaver was built like a stevedore—muscled and strong from the rigors of fieldwork—whereas Jonathan Treadway looked as if he’d blow over in a stiff breeze.
I’d thought Treadway birdlike at first, but seeing the two men together truly underscored their differences.
“I’ll put something between your teeth.” Treadway strutted across the drawing room with the bravado of a fighting cock.
I darted between the two of them, extending my arms in each direction. “Gentlemen, perhaps we could—” A foolish attempt, for Reaver could toss me to the side without even a second thought if he aimed to do so. I was scrappy, yes, but the man had a good fifty pounds of muscle over me.
“I see no gentleman here! Only a murdering bastard masquerading as one.” Treadway pressed his bony chest into my outstretched palm. I curled my fingers into his soiled shirt, as he took me by the waist and shoved me aside. I stumbled backward, only to be steadied by a pair of unseen hands.
Ruan’s green scent invaded my senses as he leaned close to my ear, humor lacing his voice. “I cannot leave you in a drawing room for five seconds without a barroom brawl breaking out, can I?”
I remained transfixed by the veritable train wreck unfolding upon Lord Amberley’s Aubusson rug. “Do something,” I whispered.
I could feel his movement against me as he tapped his fingers slowly on my hip—the gesture intended to get my attention and have me watch the scene ahead, but it had an entirely different effect upon my poor body.
I swallowed hard.
Ruan lowered his head. “There’s something happening here…”
Treadway took a swing at Reaver, which the latter dodged.
“What do you mean, happening?”
I started forward, back to the fray, when Ruan’s hand drifted from my waist to the back of my hand, covering it slightly, his fingers lacing through my own as he held it there, closing his fist over mine.
Do you hear something?
“Mmm.” The confirmation was little more than a rumble from his chest. I caught the faintest scent of electricity in the air, as Treadway took another teetering swing.
Ruan was listening, or whatever it was he did.
Why was no one stopping them? Reaver was going to brutalize poor Treadway.
Yet everyone was rapt upon the two men dancing around on the rug like a pair of prizefighters.
A footman thundered down the hall, rousing another to try to control the fracas.
Behind us, the antiquarians began wagering on Reaver coming out the victor. It was the most excitement they’d had in years.
Poor Jonathan Treadway.
Treadway could hardly keep on his feet. His eyes wide and frenzied as he grabbed a bottle of brandy from a nearby table.
“Now, now, lad. It’s all right.” Lord Amberley’s expression sobered. Things were quickly getting out of hand. He reached for Treadway, who shrugged the old lord away.
Reaver had not even broken a sweat. Simply sidestepping the drunken man as one would when humoring a petulant child. “Don’t make a fool of yourself, Jonathan. You’ve more pride than that.” Reaver’s voice was far gentler than mine would have been in similar circumstances.
“Where is she?” Treadway took another swipe at Reaver. “I know you’ve done something to her. You’re the reason she’s gone.”
Ruan tapped my hip again with his thumb. This. This was what he’d heard.
Professor Laurent had joined the onlookers, taking a spot to the left of me, beside Ruan.
“Well, I’ll say this is not what I expected when I set out this evening.
” An edge of humor laced the old professor’s voice before his tone shifted to one of defeat.
“Always a loose cannon—Jonathan was. I thought he would grow out of it with time, but it seems not. Too much of his father in him, I suspect.”
Two of Lord Amberley’s footmen finally managed to subdue the raving Treadway, who continued to shout obscenities at Professor Reaver. The younger’s words slurred enough I could barely make them out.
“Something isn’t right,” I murmured over the rim of my glass.
“What do you think it means?” Ruan remained focused upon the footmen trundling poor Jonathan Treadway out the front door.
Professor Reaver plucked an imperceptible piece of lint from his woolen dinner jacket.
His calculating gaze met mine and his emotionless veneer dropped.
A flash of unbridled hatred shone in his eyes as he stared in my direction, and I knew in that moment that he was capable of anything. Anything at all.
Ruan saw it too. His hand gripped mine and he pulled me toward the door, forgoing even my coat. He simply shoved his own dinner jacket over my bare arms and tugged me out into the night.
Reaver was a danger.
I’d never seen such venom in a man before—and I’d gone to war, confronted murderers and angry mobs. All of which paled against the rage in Frederick Reaver’s eyes.