Lorelie Brown (30 page)

He almost preferred that the bitch ran. Giving chase forced a rush of energy through his body and down his legs. It was an outlet.

They darted around and through the groups and to the back door. It banged behind her as a gentleman in a narrow-collared jacket stepped in front of him. “God damn it, move!” Ian barked.

“Now,” added Lottie.

He was startled to realize she was right behind him, but then he shouldn’t have been.

The man moved. The back door slammed shut. Ian ran for it, jerked it open.

There was no one there. “Blast it.”

“Down the stairs.” Lottie pointed at another door across the landing. “It’s the only way out.”

The stairs let out onto a narrow, stone-lined alley, but there was still no sight of Patricia. “Where the hell did she go?”

Lottie turned in a circle. Her hair fell around her shoulders from the dash down the stairs. The far end of the alley opened on the street. “The alley doesn’t end, it bends.”

He rather regretted not having Fletcher or one of his dense bullies when he turned the shallow corner.

Patricia wasn’t alone.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Of all the things she’d expected, it hadn’t been that Patricia would be aligned with such a proper-looking man. Patricia herself was blowsy. Though her dress was nicely made, it fit badly over her stomach and pulled tight. Her hair was well pinned but lank and greasy, as if she’d not washed. Over her whole face was a slight sheen of sweat and oily nerves.

The girls who’d attended Lottie’s school regularly knew better than to let their hygiene drop to such unappealing levels.

The man at her side was another matter. He was…normal. He had brown hair, a decently sewn suit of brown wool and was of middling height. His waistcoat was an inoffensive green that brought out flecks of color in otherwise brown eyes.

But those eyes were cold and empty of compassion.

Lottie’s stomach did a nifty little flip and landed somewhere around her throat. She tried vainly to swallow it down. “Patricia,” she said as calmly as she could. “You’ve not introduced me to your gentleman.”

“Are you mad?” The woman tipped her head. “It’s not as if this is some sort of tea party.”

The man stepped forward. “Do forgive my wife. She’s feeling a bit puckish lately. I’m Bertrand Heeler.”

“I couldn’t give a shit.” Ian tipped forward onto the balls of his feet. His shoulders snapped taut. “I want the certificate.”

“And I want a life of comfort.” He gave a rather suave shrug. “This means we must have the money you promised.”

“I haven’t got it.”

“That’s unacceptable. After the piss-worthy amount you sent last time, you’ll forgive me if I came prepared for more of the same.” Seemingly out of nowhere, a pistol appeared in the man’s hand. Lottie gasped. Ian yanked her to the side and pushed her behind himself for protection. His hand remained wrapped around her forearm. He gripped her too tight. A pinch of pain ran up her flesh.

She stayed where he’d put her. She liked it. Liked that he’d put himself before her. Maybe that was petty or childish. It most certainly wasn’t noble of her.

But it was what she’d wanted all along. On the most elemental level she’d craved a man willing to take care of her.

Only to push it away once she’d finally found what she needed.

What a great, bloody fool she was.

She stepped to the side so that she could see the desperate Mr. Heeler, though she didn’t try to pull her arm away from Ian. Let him hold on to her. She didn’t mind. “I’m sure you are unsurprised that we haven’t got it.”

“Bugger off, cunt,” Patricia screeched. “I need that money.”

“Such language,” she said in her most airy way. “You obviously should have come for many more classes. We could have found you a more long-term venture that would give you the life you’d like.”

“As a shop girl, married to a clerk?”

“Are you with child?” Lottie asked abruptly.

Patricia’s hand flew to her belly. The curve wasn’t pronounced until she drew the material taut. Then it became as clear as day. “That’s none of your business.”

Lottie sighed. “Is that why you resorted to blackmail? Your…husband couldn’t sustain you sufficiently?”

She shook her head and snapped her chin toward her husband. “I found me the right man.”

“You should have run off with him. You made a terrible mistake in coming after my family. Or in coming after Lottie,” Ian said. “I protect those who are mine.”

“And damn you for it.” Patricia sidled nearer to her husband, but he held her off.

“Got the pistol, lovey,” he said in a not-unkind voice. “Don’t break up my aim.”

She fluttered her lashes at him. The girl was pleasant-featured. How sad that she would fall to this level. “See?” she said to Lottie and Ian. “My man takes care of me. In return, I follow his ideas.”

“So that’s why you tried blackmail after a year of silence.” Ian shook his head. “I’d wondered. Put in a bad way by the blighter, were you? Does he gamble?”

“I’m a card player, not a gambler or blighter.” Heeler’s face turned red. “But I am getting damned irritated with this conversation. If you haven’t any money here, I know you’ve access to plenty.” He twitched the gaping barrel of the pistol. “Walk ahead of me. Down the alley. We’re going to take a trip.”

“To where?” Lottie asked, as kindly as she could manage. For what it was worth.

“You tell us,” Patricia snarled. “Where can you get the most funds in the shortest amount of time? I know you, Sir Ian. Arthur said you always had a bit of blunt in your study.”

Nudged by the invisible hand of the pistol’s aim into walking side by side, Lottie and Ian exchanged a look. It was a short one that lasted only a second, maybe less. In his eyes, Lottie saw more than she’d ever thought possible. Trust. Determination. Even the oddest hint of humor, at a time like this.

Her love.

She shuddered as she jerked her head back around. That was this never-ending pain, the feeling that she’d gone off the rails. Not madness. Not the edge of dropping into nothingness and her mother’s damnation.

It was love for Ian.

How insanely terrifying.

Her footsteps faltered. Something cold and hard poked her in the back. Terror skittered down her spine and turned her veins to shards of ice.

If they made it out of this alive, she’d never let fear manage her life again. Somehow. She’d figure it out.

With Ian. If he’d have her back, though maybe he’d be a fool to take that risk. Not like she’d proved herself particularly reliable.

The mouth of the alleyway opened before them. Night draped the street in shadows the streetlamps could barely push back. Lottie’s slippers crossed the threshold of the entryway and stopped.

“Move on,” Heeler said. He poked her with the barrel of the pistol. “Let’s keep on now.”

Slowly, so slowly, she shook her head. “No. I think not.”

And then she screamed.

Ian launched into immediate response. He spun, knocking a hard blow into Heeler’s chin. The other man flew backwards. His elbow landed in Patricia’s side, but the woman didn’t go down. She screeched.

Lottie kicked her. Really, she was aiming for the gun in Heeler’s hand, but that proved too fast of a target and limbs were flying and things happened. Her toe connected with Patricia’s ribs. The other woman flipped and scrabbled toward Lottie.

Ian wrestled with Heeler for the pistol. It exploded with a pop in the small alleyway. The rocks pinged with a sharp sound. The bullet, probably bouncing wherever it liked. Lottie flinched, narrowly avoiding Patricia’s nails across her cheek.

She kicked again, this time intentionally aiming for ribs. Patricia dropped to the flagstones. Her eyes pinched shut around fat, welling tears.

Ian punched Heeler. Harder. More. His fists flew into a blur and made raw meat of the other man’s face. His lip split, and Ian’s garnet ring cut his temple. Blood ran down his face like thin ribbons. He tried to fight back, but Ian gave him no quarter.

Eventually, Heeler was a writhing lump of man on the ground. Ian stood above. His chest heaved on heavy pants. His hands were still fists at his hips. He kept his eyes narrowed on the other man, as if watching—or hoping—for another attack. It didn’t come.

Heeler was a defeated, lost man.

Out of nowhere, three of Fletcher’s men arrived. Her screams had likely drawn them. “Thank God. Can you help us with cleanup?”

“Of course, Miss Vale. Mr. Fletcher told us to help you however you like.”

She said nothing in response because otherwise she’d cry. Too much. All of this was too much at once. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why did you have to go this route, Patricia? I’d have helped you if I could.”

“You don’t understand.” Patricia was curled onto her side, one arm over her stomach, but she pushed up to a seated position. Her shoulders were a downward slump that rivaled the droop of a sunflower without water. “In honesty, it had little to do with you.”

Lottie blew out an exasperated breath that sent the hair around her face bouncing. “Then what
did
it have to do with?”

“Henrietta.”

“You leave my sister out of this,” Ian growled. He was still visibly agitated in his harsh breaths and tense muscles. When she set a comforting hand on his arm, she found pure, hard muscle bunched tight. “You’re not fit to say her name.”

“Of course I’m not. I never have been. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be almost equal with someone and completely not at the same time. We were the same age, the same sort of pretty, had the same sort of friends. But just because she was a bit of the gentry, she got away with everything.” Patricia’s eyes blazed. “She got away with marrying my brother! And them’s none that should have sanctioned that. But they did.”

“I’ve met Miss Heald.” A bit of wry humor turned Lottie’s mouth into a smile, though it seemed nearly absurd considering the situation. “Only a handful of times, of course, but do you know what? I could hazard a guess why Miss Heald could get away with everything you couldn’t.”

“Could you now?” Patricia spat.

“Indeed. And it has nothing to do with her being gentry. In fact…she’s nice. That’s all. She’s nice and you’re not. I hope you enjoy thinking about that in the brig.”

Lottie waved in Fletcher’s assistants. Two of them hitched Heeler by the armpits. His head lolled. Completely out of it. Patricia screeched and tried to fight the third, but the burly man with cauliflower ears threw her over his shoulder.

They were carted away with surprising alacrity.

Then Lottie was alone. With Ian.

Alone with Ian, her love for him, and her fear. What an awful mess she’d made.

When he looked at her, she knew. She knew she’d do absolutely anything in her power to fix it no matter what.

She thought she might cast up her accounts from the excitement of the previous moments combined with her nerves.

This was no time for flagging courage.

Ian found it to be rather handy to have compatriots in less-than-savory circumstances. After only a couple brief words of assurance that they’d have the culprits on a boat to Australia, Fletcher’s hired men carted them off.

Leaving Ian alone with Lottie, who looked up at him as if he’d hung the sun, moon and stars in the heavens.

Naturally, he liked the feeling. “Let’s get you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“Sometimes we don’t always get what we want.” He knew that one completely. Invariably.

Her mouth tweaked up at the corners. “Come to think of it, yes. Let’s go home.”

He got her bundled into the carriage in less time than he might have expected, and then home again. The whole way there, he sat on the bench across from her and watched her watching him. They existed above the moment. Exhaustion sucked at his soul and yet he was refreshed and energized for having her to look upon.

He was an idiot. He pressed his hands flat against his thighs to withstand the urge to gather her close.

When they pulled up to the curb before her house, weariness had him nearly lethargic. “You’ll understand if I don’t see you up.”

In the darkness of the carriage, her eyes were wide, but he sensed a determined cant to her eyebrows that didn’t bode well for him. “I do not. Please. Come upstairs.”

“No.”

Never in a million years could he have guessed her reaction. She sank into the space between them, coming to her knees. With her fingers laced together in a supplicant’s position, she put her hands on his thighs. “Please. Come up. I beg of you.”

“Lottie…” He wasn’t sure why he warned her. Perhaps he warned her against getting his hopes up. She was damaged. Broken. He’d once thought their pieces fit together, but that was before she’d crushed new parts of him. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

“I shall.” She spoke with a determined resoluteness. “I’ll embarrass myself every moment of every day until you listen to me.”

He was shaking his head. There was no way…