No Place for a Dame (32 page)

Bill must have spied what she did in Giles’s face for his own went pasty white. “Lookit. You don’t want to do somethin’ that’ll see ye dancin’ at the end of rope.”

“Don’t I?” Giles’s voice was a lethal caress.

Nervously, Bill licked his lips. “We’ll give back everyt’ing we took. Swear it.”

Giles ignored him, speaking instead to her. “Are you badly hurt, Avery? Can you walk?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

She managed to stagger to her feet and stumble across the cramped room and to Giles’s side. He divided his gaze between Bill and Nan. A muscle bunched and released repeatedly in the corner of his jaw.

“Go into the hall. Wait outside the door. Don’t move. If anyone touches you, scream.”

“Neville…”

Neville had come round and rolled to his hands and knees. He lifted his head. “Wha’ ha’pened?” he asked blearily. “Where’s me trousers?”

“I’ve a mind to leave him for bringing you here.”

“You can’t.”

He spared her a brief glance. “As you will. Now, please, wait outside.”

Nan’s face twisted in fury. Bill looked belligerent but also, she thought, stoic. Like a dog thrown into a baiting box. “She hit me. The man told her not to,” Avery said and disappeared out the door.

Giles waited until he heard the door shut, then motioned with the barrel of his gun towards the slattern with the vicious eyes. The one that had hit Avery. Only the deeply ingrained lessons of a lifetime kept him from acting. A gentleman did not hit a woman, no matter how much she deserved it.

“Tear up one of those sheets and tie him up,” he ordered her, jerking his head at her companion.

With a sullen glance, the woman ripped a few strips off the bed linen and crossed to her companion, who stood mute and choleric.

“Turn him around so I can see. Now, tie his wrists behind his back.”

With a muttered curse, the woman did as he’d instructed. “What are these lads to you? More to the point, what’s that
boy
to you?” She sneered. “Is he yer fancy boy? You and this big cove share ’im? Shoulda guessed. Squealed like a little girl when I planted him a facer, he did.”

“Shut your mouth.” His hand trembled with his effort to keep from shooting. He was a stranger to himself.

She laughed. “Gor, handsome. Ye could do a sight better than that bloated little tick.” She finished tying the knots then stood back to admire her handiwork, her hands on her hips. “So. Whatcha gonna do wid me?”

Every fiber of his being urged him to take his revenge and make an example of them, to send out the clear and unambiguous message that anyone who harmed Avery Quinn would meet a similar fate.

It was a barbaric, primitive impulse. Nearly irresistible.

He forced himself to ignore it, reminded himself again that he had been raised to a strict code as a gentleman, one whose nearly every rule he had at one time or another broken. But not that one. Not yet.

“Bring me another strip of linen and turn around,” he said as he released the hammer on the pistol and tucked it beneath his waistband at the small of his back.

With a bizarre and repellant sauciness, the woman scooped up a piece of linen and came towards him, hips swinging. She had just about reached him when suddenly she plunged her hand into an unseen pocket and produced a blade. She flew at him, the knife flashing lethally.

Without a second’s hesitation, he drove his fist into her jaw. She collapsed in a senseless heap at his feet like a slaughterhouse beef.

Now, he’d broken all of them.

Bill jerked forward, impelled by some vestige of gentlemanliness that Giles apparently no longer retained. His face purpled with impotent rage.

Giles studied Bill narrowly. The man had threatened Avery. Had he discovered she was a woman, God knew what he would have done to her. The thought made Giles’s hands curl into fists at his sides.

But Avery had vouched for him.

“Don’t. Move.”

Bill took his advice, freezing in place and swallowing hard at the expression on Giles’s face.

Giles crossed the room and, taking hold of the back of Neville’s collar, hauled him to his feet. He swayed drunkenly, his shirt billowing about his knees. He’d never make it out of here under his own power and Giles wasn’t about to act as his valet. Neville could count himself fortunate to have only lost the price of his clothing.

Even though the bastard had put Avery in terrible danger and Giles was not feeling generous towards him, Avery wanted him saved so Giles bent down to hoist him over his shoulder. Demsforth took it in mind to protest. “I can walk. Don’t need yer help, thank ye very much,” he muttered. “Jes… lemme get me boots on.…”

Damn the boy. He started to shove Giles out of the way. Giles clipped him neatly on the jaw, catching him as he slumped and heaving him over his shoulder.

He smiled as he did so.

Chapter Thirty-Three

O
nce outside the room, Giles dumped Demsforth unceremoniously on the floor. Avery had grabbed hold of his arm as soon as he’d left the room and still clung to him like she was afraid she might lose him. She wouldn’t.

Gently, he clasped her chin, angling her face to see the cut on her scalp better. It was not deep, but still oozed blood. Somewhere, she’d lost the hideous fake brows. He reached inside his coat for his handkerchief and gently wiped the blood from her face and neck.

“How badly are you hurt? The truth now, Avery,” he said, working with brisk efficiency. “You’re shaking like you have palsy.”

“I’m all right,” she said. “It’s fear that has me quaking like this. Fear and the release from it. Oh, Giles, if you hadn’t come—”

“But I did.” He refused to entertain for a second the grim images of what might have happened if he’d arrived twenty minutes later. He bunched up his handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “Can you walk?”

She nodded. Luckily she hadn’t taken off her outer coat. It was cold outside. Neville would not fare so well. Giles didn’t much care.

“You’re certain?”

She gave a shaky laugh. “Well, I’d best better be able to walk, hadn’t I? I can’t see you toting both Neville and me—”

“Neville be damned.”

She swallowed at his tone, her eyes frightened. Damn it. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He hadn’t meant any of this to happen and he didn’t have time to apologize. Uttridge or Bill could appear at any second.

He brushed by her and dragged Demsforth more or less upright then went down on one knee and hooked his shoulder under the big lad’s arm. With a grunt, he lifted Demsforth back over his shoulder and stumbled upright.

“He weighs as much as a bloody ox.” He jerked his head towards the stairs. “Act as if you and Demsforth are jug-bitten. Stagger, stumble, mutter,” he said, grunting as he resettled Demsforth more comfortably.

“That won’t be a problem.”

She tried to smile but her lips trembled and the smile broke, tears welling in her beautiful blue eyes and trickling down her cheeks.

His throat tightened. She should never have known such fear.

He was to blame. He should never have agreed to her charade. He should have realized there would be consequences, but he’d never anticipated how dire they could be. Or that they would include mortal blows to his heart.

“Keep your head down, like you’re about to toss up your accounts. Your eyes will give you away.”

He gave her an encouraging smile, unbuttoned his waistcoat halfway down, and wrenched his cravat askew. Then he started down the stairs, a foolish, lopsided grin plastered on his face. “Lord love a Titan!” he roared good-humoredly. “’S good thing I come along when I did or young Hal here would be strolling home buck naked!”

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs where the patrons whooped at the sight of the big, half-clad lad draped unceremoniously over Giles’s shoulder.

“Now that’s a game I wish I’d been in!”

“Get on with you! What would you have done with that giant’s coat?”

“I’d a made me two coats!”

Riotous and bawdy comments marked their progress through the room. Giles nodded, shouted, and replied in kind: lewd, earthy, filled
with sloppy camaraderie. He even stopped long enough to take a swig out of some barmaid’s bottle while fervently hoping he’d struck Uttridge hard enough to keep him insensible long enough for them to make their escape.

And then they were through the door and heading down the street to where his carriage waited. Will’s head popped up over the top. As soon as he spied them he leapt to the ground and hurried to the carriage door, pulling it open in time for Giles to dump Demsforth’s body onto the floor.

Freed of fear, Avery’s limbs went liquid. She swayed where she stood, her eyes beseeching. Without hesitation, he caught her round the waist, not giving a tinker’s damn who was watching, and swung her up into his arms then ducked inside. He settled her beside him, snapping out an order to Will: “Have the driver take us to Lord Demsforth’s house. Then home. Tell him to hurry.”

“Aye, m’lord!”

He shut the door. In the dim interior with only the guttering light to illuminate them, Avery’s eyes looked huge and tragic. With a little sob, she leaned against him. His arms went round her, drawing her tightly into his embrace. She was terrified, trembling violently.

He reached for the thick lap rug on the seat across from them and snapped it open, settling it over her shoulders and tucking her close, hoping to share some of his warmth with her. The carriage jerked into motion.

“Shouldn’t we get Neville up off the floor?” she whispered against his chest after a moment.

“No.” He was still angry, still wishing someone would pay for the blow Avery had sustained. Demsforth was an excellent candidate.

He wanted to demand to know what perversity of reason had led her into following Demsforth to such a place but now was not the time. His temper was barely under control as it was. He did not want to compound her distress by shouting at her.

And he did not want her to draw away from him.

The feel of her small hand curled so confidingly over his heart was a benediction; her warm, light figure pressed so intimately to his side, an unlooked-for favor; and the gentle buffet of her breath against his neck, a sweet gift.

“But he’ll freeze.” Her voice was small but insistent.

Wordlessly, he reached beneath the seat and produced another blanket. He tossed it over to Demsforth. She leaned down and adjusted it, regarding Neville with concern. “I wonder that he hasn’t come around yet, don’t you?”

“No.” The bloody idiot. What had Demsworth been thinking? What had
she
been thinking?

She straightened, returning to the warm nest she’d made at his side. His breath quickened with gratitude. “You’re not worried about his condition?” she asked.

“No.”

“But he was coming around back at… at that place and now he’s lapsed into unconsciousness again. Don’t you find that worrisome?”

She wasted entirely too much concern on this worthless boy. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because I
caused
his relapse,” he said tightly, keeping his gaze fastened outside the window.

“Oh.” She didn’t speak again.

As the streets were mostly empty, they did not have long to travel before arriving at the Demsforths’ magnificent house. Will appeared at the carriage door, peering in curiously. “M’lord?”

“Fetch the footmen to carry his lordship inside and be sharp about it.”

“Right.”

A minute later a pair of bemused servants arrived and began maneuvering their young master out of the carriage. Demsforth was coming round again, peering owlishly about as he was being manhandled. “What’s happenin’? Where’m I?”

“Thank heaven, you’re sentient.” Avery sounded vastly relieved.

Demsforth squinted at her. “Who’re you?”

Too late, she realized her spectacles were missing. She flushed and looked away.

“Get him to bed,” Giles ordered and shut the carriage door, rapping on the ceiling. The carriage sprang forward.

“I’m sorry,” Avery said worriedly. “Do you think he realized I was a woman?”

“He’d have to be an even greater fool than I credit him not to.”

Once again, she fell silent and he cursed himself for the roughness of his tone. He, too, was still coming to grips with the events of the evening. His body was still tight with the last vestiges of fear. Fear? Terror. Pure, unadulterated terror. He had never been so
bloody
afraid in his life.