The Earl of Spades (A Lady to Suit #3)

Fear Not The Thorns

Someone was trying to kill him.

Either that or Miles had become the most unfortunate man in London.

For beneath the waning arc of silver that served for a moon tonight, two thugs stomped towards him, jeers of violent intent venting like wolves on the hunt.

Clenching his fists, Miles braced in his stance and called himself all types of bloody fool.

Thus far, his evening had been most pleasant: a botanical lecture at the Horticultural Society, followed by a few fine whiskies and a perusal of this month’s species introductions, before a members’ discussion on the proliferation of aphids this autumn, which had caused quite a rumpus amongst some.

Foregoing the carriage to clear his fuddled wits, he’d been marching home when a female cry of distress from this alleyway had prompted him to investigate.

A ruse, of course, as a grubby slattern had sidled past with a snigger and he’d heard the chink of pennies before this twosome had replaced her.

Miles glanced over his shoulder but the recesses of the alley melded into narrow hostile darkness so he stood his ground. “Want some coin, do you?” Not believing that would be the case, it would nevertheless give him time to prepare and consider his options.

He’d give himself a fair-to-good chance in a fistfight, even outnumbered as he was, but one of the thugs wielded a baleful blade, the romantic moonlight glinting from the sharp edge as it swung back and forth.

Which tipped the balance somewhat in their favour.

Miles hadn’t carried a blade since his return from the Peninsular War as he’d thought the life of a civilian earl in London would solely demand a gaming purse, unsullied handkerchief and a gilt-edged calling card. “If someone’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

Caught within the faint spill of moonlight, the thugs closed in, the taller knife-wielder with an ominous rasp, while the other, a squat bruiser with ham fists, sneered. “Mum yer dubber. All us wants is yer blood. Oozin’ on them cobbles, red and thick.”

That would be a no, then.

“Well, I…” Miles spread his hands, noted the knife-wielder favoured one leg in particular. The bruiser’s left arm appeared crooked. “I don’t suppose I could–”

Miles struck, kicking the knifeman in the unfavoured leg, milling a fist to the bruiser’s left shoulder.

Bellows ensued but his foes kept to their feet as the blade swept rather amateurishly.

Yet a knife was a knife and it caught Miles’ forearm while knuckles slammed his cheek.

He curled low, crashed a fistful to the bruiser’s gut and then spun him in a neck-hold so he was betwixt Miles and that damned blade.

“Ou’ the bloody way,” bawled the accomplice.

An inevitable elbow to his gizzards winded him so Miles was forced to shove the bruiser headfirst into the alley’s brick wall.

With blood dripping down his sleeve, Miles now gave no quarter, attacked the knifeman, scraping a boot down his unfavoured shin, grabbing his wrist and holding it high. The blade scythed the air as they grappled, before the two of them tumbled to the ground.

Miles slammed that wrist against the cobbles, once, twice, thrice, heard the clatter of blade and reared up. Smashed a fist down. Another. Not feeling the hit to his gut, the instinct of a soldier now claiming him.

But these two were as persistent as the French and a knee to Miles’ groin sent him rolling aside, the pain sharp and relentless, while the thug scrabbled to his feet.

A grimy boot struck out at Miles’ ribs, and so scowling, he hunched on the ground, readied himself to catch the boot when it next came at him, twist it and…

Except.

It didn’t.

He lifted his head and saw two further men prowling down the alley.

Bloody hell.

Two he had a chance but four?

Yet the tall thug’s lips now stretched in fear while the ham-fisted bruiser, dark blood matting his forehead, cursed low.

And swifter than demons at daybreak, they were gone, merging into those dark and hostile recesses of the alley.

Miles remained hunched on the ground, shrouded the recovered blade with his palm and then braced as the men neared.

A jacket of scarlet garbed the first, tendrils of moonlight slanting across a phantom’s visage of swarthy skin, pitch-black eyes, a scar to his cheek and a scowl that the devil would be envious of.

His companion wore funereal drear, even had some sort of black feather pinned to his lapel.

“Friend or foe?” demanded Miles as their boots halted.

Silence.

Before a scarlet sleeve and hand outstretched. “Neither.”

Crisscross scars upon the man’s knuckles resembled silvered nets in the moon’s lustre. A knife, Miles knew, had caused those. Slashes made in a frenzy of violence as he’d defended himself.

The scarred hand remained.

Then a voice seasoned with ash and stone. “But on this patch, the sole permit to murder is mine.”

Miles stared into those tomb-black eyes.

Then accepted the outstretched hand.

His gut spasmed in protest as he was hauled to his boots and regarded his…rescuers?

The scarlet-garbed man returned his regard as though a ghoul reckoning his worth in flesh. “You’re Miles Firth, Earl of Stonewold.”

“I am. And your name, Sir? I owe you much.”

The companion with the black feather in his lapel curled a lip.

“You do indeed owe me.” The words were spoken as though pried loose from a seam of flint. “But should you ever feel the need to double your debt, send word.” Scarlet swirled and he stalked off, his companion trailing like a morbid shadow.

“Perhaps if I knew who you were…” Miles called.

He dusted himself down and followed, tramping from the begrimed alley to the civility and refinement of the main thoroughfare.

Yet the street was deserted, other than a lone drunk and a lad collecting dung from the gutter. No one waited within the citrine globes of the streetlamps, no shadows slipped in retreat, the night having swallowed the two men whole.

Ghosts of London Town.

Miles held a hand to his sore guts and peered to the cloudless sky with that flagging arc of moon that had turned the city to a gauzy web of grey.

What the bloody hell was going on?

Soot-drenched shadows burdened eyes as grim and relentless as the war, green with steely strength but also bitter with the victory of a thousand battles fought, and a thousand souls lost.

The soldier kneeled, face lean and wearied as chaos raged around him, a blur of stampeding horses and cannon fire, smoke billowing across the seething mass of men as scarlet hues fought with the drear sky – soldiers’ coats and blood a grim illumination to the dark scape.

With care and a soft breath, Verity lifted her smallest finger to smudge a little more iron-grey shadow beneath the soldier’s eye.

No longer was this particular captain in the army and she hoped with all her being that at this very moment he was safely at his estate, listening to the hoot of owl while tending his collection of exotic plants.

Or perchance tucked up in bed, dreaming of rare flora wedged in impossible cliffs behind a romantic waterfall.

And perhaps, perhaps…a beloved lay at his side to keep him warm.

He’d wake and kiss her with those firm lips as though she were his very air and…

Verity snatched her hand back, swallowed.

Long ago, she’d vowed never to think on such kisses.

By day, she could succeed.

But by night, having woken from a nightmare of darkness and suffocation, they would besiege her… Unfulfilled dreams of sultry nights in lush climes, flowers burgeoning with scent, jade leaves caressed by argent moonlight.

Were they dreams when one’s eyes were open? When the heat of a man’s touch still lingered on the skin. When a long-ago kiss spun her senses within dawn’s insurgency of radiance and light.

Verity turned her gaze to the box of oils in glass phials: lamp black, iron grey, umber brown.

No radiance or light.

But her life was settled, bounded but good, and so with a determined nod, she grasped a wet cloth and commenced cleaning her fingers of paint.

No more thoughts of what might have been.

Through the eyes of others, all she could ever do was look on.

All she could ever be was The Witness.