CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAMN. BARNABAS SWORE UNDER his breath. A vise tightened around his chest. He’d warned Henry not to get too close.
His mouth went dry.
The man’s blade pressed against her lovely neck. Her eyes were wide and panicked as she scrabbled at the arm around her shoulder and the hand holding the knife.
The companion she was so certain would protect her was of no use to her. If he had her damn gun, he might use it. He had to use every ounce of will to stop himself from pitching forward and tearing her free. That could get her cut if he didn’t do it with precision. He wouldn’t be able to live with her getting hurt.
“Let her go,” he said mildly, not letting his rising tension show. He inhaled and slowly exhaled to quiet his ragged breathing.
Henry gave him an incredulous look that almost made him want to laugh. Her already low opinion of him had probably dropped all the way to China. But Barnabas concentrated on the man. When he made his move, he’d likely only have one chance to get her away without injury.
The man dragged her backward.
A jolt hit Barnabas in the center of his chest. He was losing control. The dark alley would effectively blind him. As mealy mouthed as he could he said, “Please don’t take her. She doesn’t deserve that.”
As he spoke he fixed the position of the man’s hands, their surroundings, and watched for a break in the thug’s attention. The man’s eyes had gone wild. All the while the vise around Barnabas tightened. Could he get her away from this lunatic?
He had to. Images of her body, pale and slack, flooded his thoughts. His stab of fear stole his breath. He’d seen too many dead women. Picturing Henry that way didn’t tax his imagination. He couldn’t let her be killed. It would be unbearable.
Henry recovered her faculties enough to reach for her pocket.
The last thing Barnabas wanted was her gun ending up in the crazy man’s hands. He stepped closer and knocked her hand away. “I’m so sorry.”
The crazy man sneered, looked toward his captive, and it was all the break Barnabas needed. He grabbed the man’s wrist and yanked it from Henry’s throat at the same time he gave her a hard tug to free her.
She stumbled away and relief was like a heavy beam lifted off his shoulders. But he knew better than to let down his guard.
The man slashed out, but police instincts kicked in. Barnabas caught the thug by the shoulder. Twisting the assailant’s arm behind his back, Barnabas wrenched it upward. The knife clattered to the cobblestones. He kicked the knife away. He shoved the bastard into the nearest wall, while changing his grip and forcing the man’s thumb into a painful position.
He wanted to hurt the bastard. Torture him. Tear him limb from limb.
The click of a hammer being drawn back jolted him back to his senses. Wanting to harm the man was damn surprising since he’d never before taken a criminal’s actions personally. At least not to the point of wanting to be judge, jury, and punisher.
“Henry, don’t you dare shoot.” In any case he was between her and the man. He angled more to her side. He didn’t think she’d shoot him.
The man twisted to see her. Barnabas shoved the bastard harder against the wall. He yelped in pain.
“Now, where is Marigold Frampton?”
“Hampton,” corrected Henry. She stood a good five feet back. Now. “You’re blocking my shot.”
“I have him under control,” Barnabas said tightly. “If you don’t want to stay here overnight, you better not shoot him. But if you do, we shall be here quite a while. Days most like.” Or at least she would be.
“I should shoot him,” she said. “But I’m going to think on it.”
He couldn’t decide if he wanted to shake her or laugh at her. But he had a dangerous man he needed to control. “Just stand back and let me do my job.”
“Help!” The man cried.
“Good idea,” said Barnabas coldly. “Miss Brown, do see if you can locate a constable.”
She made a low growling noise. “I don’t know that I want to summon a constable in case I decide to shoot him.”
What a charmer she was. But for a second he was in perfect sympathy with her.
Still, that would produce a sticky wicket. He didn’t know if he could protect her if she shot the man. He was sworn to uphold the law and injuring the man now would be a violation of it. “He won’t answer questions if he’s dead.”
“Go on. Ask him questions. Unhelpful answers might influence my decision.”
Barnabas shook his head. There was persuasion and then there was terrorizing someone to the point they were incoherent. Holding the man with his face mashed into a brick wall and his arm twisted behind his back was more than enough persuasion, but he returned to the question they wanted answered. But Henry was glorious, nonetheless.
If he was reading the man right, he knew Marigold. “You know who she is, now tell me where she is,” he said to the man in a low voice.
“I don’t know.”
He pushed the man’s arm higher.
The attacker went up on his toes and his voice squeaked as he said, “I don’t know. I ain’t seen her. I ain’t her pimp.”
Barnabas eased up. “When is the last time you saw her?”
“Two days ago, maybe three.” The man struggled.
Barnabas increased the pressure on his thumb. “Where?”
“Hereabouts.”
“Where does she stay?”
“I don’t know. She ain’t out every night. She steals for her man more’en she whores.”
“Who is her procurer?”
“Jimmy. I don’t know his last name. Please, let me go, mister.”
Barnabas wasn’t done. “Your name?”
There was a hesitation before the man squawked, “Robert Couchman.”
That was a lie, but Barnabas was done asking questions. The man was too far removed from his investigation to be of any use to him. The tricky part would be letting go of him. But then there was Henry and he didn’t want to hear it if she thought things were left unasked. “Do you have any questions for him?”
“If you were to hazard a guess, Mr. Couchman, where do you think Marigold Hampton stays?” Henry asked.
“With Jimmy most like.”
“Where would I find him?”
“Try the rooming houses near the slaughter house or the stews by the docks on the river.” The man grunted in pain, but he’d stopped struggling.
Barnabas knew better than to ease the pressure. He did plan to walk Mr. Robert Couchman a few yards before releasing him.
“Have you ever heard Marigold mention Lord Coleraine?” Henry asked.
Robert—if that was his name—startled.
“Answer,” Barnabas growled.
“Once or twice,” Robert spit out. “Said she knew him. No one believed her.”
“What did she say about him?” Henry asked.
It wouldn’t matter. Hearsay wasn’t evidence and they were too far afield to help his investigation. Although clearly Marigold Hampton was no murder victim of Coleraine’s.
“Don’t know as I ever listened to her tales ’bout him.”
Barnabas gave the man’s thumb a squeeze just to see if he wanted to change his answer.
“Can’t say. I swear it,” he squealed.
“Thank you, Mr. Couchman,” Henry said sourly.
Barnabas wondered if her expression matched her tone, but he didn’t dare look. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his expression solemn.
Barnabas jerked Robert back from the wall and walked him several feet up the street. Then he pushed him forward so he’d be too off balance to turn around and attack. “Go on home, now.”
The man curled his arm around and massaged his bicep. He took a couple of steps,watching over his shoulder as if uncertain of his good fortune. “My knife, gov.”
“By all means retrieve it.” Henry had a wide stance with the gun held in both hands and trained on Robert. “I’d hate to shoot an unarmed man.”
“Uh, we’ll leave your knife with the constabulary,” said Barnabas. He would have to inform the authorities about the incident. It would be his duty as an officer.
He walked on jerky legs to where the knife lay in the middle of the street before Robert could decide whether or not to risk retrieving it. “Go on. Get out of here before she shoots you.”
The man scurried away, scowling over his shoulder.
Wanting to throttle her himself, Barnabas forced himself to stay alert. The danger wasn’t necessarily over. He swept the area. Not seeing anyone else, he bent and picked up the knife. In a low voice, he said, “Let’s go before we find out if he has any friends.”
After tucking away the knife, he caught Henry by the elbow. He would carry her somewhere safe if necessary. Then he’d yell at her.
She was trembling. Her wide eyes dominated her face. “I wouldn’t have shot him unless I needed to.”
“I should turn you over my knee.”
She didn’t even protest. She seemed more shaken by the incident than she’d shown during it. She must know how much danger she’d been in.
His anger burst like a bubble and left only his terror that she might have been harmed. Could still be. When they were safe, he would hold her. Tightly. Christ, he’d almost lost her. “We need to go.”
She gave a slow nod, but didn’t lower the gun or uncock it.
“Henry.”
Her arms dropped, but she still had both hands wrapped around the grip. “Oh my goodness.”
Feeling jittery, he slid his hand down her arm to the pistol and disengaged it from her hands. After releasing the hammer, he tucked it into his overcoat pocket. She didn’t resist, for once.
She covered her face with her hands. “Thank you for saving me,” she mumbled.
“Yes, that is what I do, prevent crime and disorder,” he said dryly. Robert Peel’s first rule of policing. He had to get her walking. He’d berate her later. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he propelled her forward. He really didn’t want to linger here in the dark. But the stew of pent up energy after surviving a dangerous situation had to be worse for her. He’d at least been through hairy arrests back in his patrol days.
“I am grateful. Truly I am.” She grasped his lapel as if it were a lifeline. She wobbled.
“Don’t fall apart now.” He caught her under the armpit in case she did faint. How many men would have managed to act so courageously in a situation like that? Not many, he thought.
“I didn’t think I was standing too close.”
“You couldn’t have known he’d attack like that,” he said gently. To give Henry her due, the man had moved like a striking cobra. When she stepped to the walkway, she’d still been more than an arm’s length away. Even he had been taken by surprise, but his attention had been more on her than on the man.
“But you knew there was reason to be concerned. How did you know?”
“Police instinct.” There was far more to it than that. “Years of experience.” Experience that went far beyond his time as an inspector, not that she needed to know. He pushed her forward.
Her steps were wooden without the determination and bounce he’d come to like in them, but at least she was walking. “I’ve never been threatened like that.”
He pulled her tighter against him, but stopped short of reassuring her that it was over. Until they were on the train, it wasn’t over. Even then, his investigation might lead him into dark corners and tight spots again, but she wouldn’t be with him. “Questioning people can get dangerous.”
“For a second there I thought I really might have to shoot him.” Her voice wavered as if the enormity of shooting a man weighed on her.
Really he hoped he’d never have to make that kind of choice.
He took a deep breath and congratulated himself on keeping his own counsel about the matter. She needed a stern talking to, but it seemed unsporting to do it now.
“How did you know he was lying about knowing Marigold?” She sounded more like her determined self.
Barnabas shrugged. “He bought himself some time to decide how to answer. If he hadn’t known her, he wouldn’t have hesitated.”
“You don’t always know when someone is lying?” Her voice was higher than normal.
“Not always,” he agreed. “I just read the clues.” One of which was a false pitch.
He looked down on the woman snuggled against him. He wasn’t entirely certain she was telling him the truth all the time. Of course, her occasional breathlessness could be due to attraction, not lies. Her tone being off was likely due to the shock of realizing she’d had a knife to her throat seconds ago.
She stopped walking, when all he wanted was to get her to safety. “Next time, I’ll make certain I am at least six feet away.”
“There won’t be a next time,” he said, almost under his breath.
“Crikey. I wanted to be here. Don’t get all noble on me and thinking I’m a lofty lady that needs to be coddled and protected.” She pivoted and strode ahead.
His cheeks pulled back in a grin he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. He caught up to her quickly. “You’re too short to be called lofty.”
“You know what I meant,” she accused. Her stride was once again determined.
He knew. She was as different from the highborn women he’d been raised around as the moon was from the stars. She was brighter and bolder and brimming with energy, which made ladies seem like tiny specks of pale imitation.
Thank God for that. He liked her far better than most gentlewomen. And try as he might, he couldn’t imagine either of his sisters, his mother, or any proper young miss holding a gun on a man with enough steel in her threats to worry him. There was probably something wrong with him that he found that attractive. But with a woman like her, he’d always know what she was thinking. She wore her emotions like a brightly painted signboard, and that was damn refreshing.
*~*~*
Henry wanted to leave. They’d spent forever talking to the local constabulary, repeating the story half a dozen times. Reiterating that they didn’t want to swear out a warrant. Telling them they’d come to investigate Lord Coleraine and people who’d known him. Now they were left sitting in a small bare room with scuffed floors, a scarred table, and four scratched wooden chairs. Two were empty.
Henry had gone from terror, to anger, to a belated shaky relief as she replayed what had happened.
Barnabas had saved her. He’d done it with a cool calculation and skill that took her breath away every time she thought of the moment when the knife had been against her throat, the cold steel chilling her bones. Then she’d been stumbling to the side and Barnabas had control of her attacker.
She saw Barnabas differently. Not that he’d been unattractive to her before, but now she couldn’t look at him without her heart gushing. So she was trying to not look at him any more than necessary.
He’d been calm in the face of danger and effective. He’d saved her from having to try and shoot the man in such close quarters that if she couldn’t get a good shot, he might have used the knife or worse—fought her for the gun.
Barnabas probably thought her a complete nincompoop.
In the moments after the attack, she’d been certain he had wanted to scold her. But he hadn’t. In the interim she’d done enough mental lashing of her foolishness for the both of them.
She looked at the door. “We could just leave.”
“I might need their help one day,” gritted out Barnabas.
They had to leave soon or they would miss the last train back to London. “If they don’t let us leave soon, I’m going to scream.”
“Now and not when you’re under attack?” He quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I didn’t think of it then,” she answered. “I wasn’t thinking at all.” How little she’d thought at the moment she’d been grabbed surprised her. She’d always believed she would be collected in a crisis, but she hadn’t been. Thank goodness Barnabas had been there.
After a few seconds of silence, she couldn’t stand it. “Why are they keeping us here? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It could be any number of reasons.” Barnabas glanced behind him at a poster size listing of solved crimes. His lips tightened at the corners for just a tiny second before his face went back to an inscrutable expression.
“You’re with the Metropolitan Police. You must know why they are keeping us.”
Barnabas exhaled through his nose. “First of all, for saying the mayor of Bedford attacked you.”
“You told them you didn’t think that was his real name.” The more she saw, the more competent Barnabas seemed. She shouldn’t have passed judgement on him so quickly at the Willingham estate. “Although, I don’t know how you could possibly have known that.”
“Most people don’t hesitate when giving their name. It isn’t something one has to work at remembering.”
She shook her head. Barnabas was much better at judging the quality of what people were saying. As a reporter, her job was to report what people said, not mine it for truth. Interview enough witnesses, you could get a consensus about what had occurred and that was good enough for a newspaper, but his standards were higher. “But why do you think they won’t let us go?”
“They could be confirming the mayor is safe. They could have wired the police commissioner in London to verify my identity and are waiting on a response. They could have the man who accosted you in another room telling them a completely different version of events.” Obviously, Barnabas had far more patience than she did, since he seemed willing to wait out the constables.
“We’re going to miss the last train back to London if they don’t let us go soon.”
Barnabas pulled out his watch, checked it, then gave her a cool look. “We’ve already missed the last train. We’ll have to stay here tonight.”
Her heart gave an awkward thump. Bloody hell. Would he insist she’d made difficulties? Her bones went limp. If he did, no one could fault her for allowing him liberties.
The thought shocked her.
“If he had just answered my questions, we wouldn’t be stuck here,” she protested.
Barnabas gave her a steady stare. “Miss Brown, just be quiet.”
Before when they were alone, he called her by her given name.
“You’re angry at me,” she blurted.
He closed his eyes for a second.
Her stomach churned. He had every right to be angry with her. He’d tried to stop her from questioning the man who’d borrowed the name of Bedford’s mayor to use as an alias. “I’m sorry. I know this is my fault. I really wasn’t trying to make difficulties. Or at least not so much we’d miss the last train.” Her eyes stung. “I just wanted answers.”
“I know,” he answered, but he put a finger to his lips.
“I’m sorry for everything I said earlier. I was wrong about you. I know you said if I made difficulties, we’d have to share a—”
“Shut up!” he hissed in an undertone, but the words were harsh, for all he lowered his voice to a whisper.
This time she listened. But she wouldn’t have felt more pain if he let her attacker slice her throat. Barnabas probably didn’t want to share a room with her now. Which should have made her happy or at least relieved. Instead she had to blink away moisture from her eyes and stared at the door willing it to open.
*~*~*
Barnabas woke in a cold sweat. His heart pounded. He stared at the unfamiliar surroundings trying to shed the residual terror of a nightmare. He’d been dreaming of examining Jane Redding’s body after it was pulled from the sewer. He took in the mottled skin, the abrasion by her mouth, the gaping wound in her neck. Only when he looked again at her face, it had been Henry staring at him with sightless eyes.
His breathing was ragged and loud in the darkness. As he marked a bureau, a writing desk, and a chair, he remembered he was in a hotel room. How many years had it been since he’d had a nightmare? Lying back down, he tried to will himself back to sleep.
It wasn’t working.
His thoughts went to Henry. How was she dealing with the aftermath of the attack? He propped himself up on his elbows.
A strip of light shown under the connecting door between their rooms. A connecting door he hadn’t asked for or expected in spite of her accusatory look when the attendant unlocked her door and handed her the key to her room.
Had she left a lamp burning?
Or was she awake?
Suddenly he needed to see her to make certain she was all right.
It was a stupid thought. He tried to talk himself out of it. Staring at the stamped tin ceiling, he couldn’t stop himself. He eased from the bed, grabbed his trousers and shoved his bare feet in each leg. Crossing to the door between their adjoining rooms, he cursed himself for a fool.
He leaned against the door listening.
If he heard the heavy breathing of sleep he wouldn’t say anything. He would be content with knowing she was all right. She probably had been smart enough to leave a light burning to ward off nightmares.
Instead of deep breathing or the squeak of a bed with a turn, a faint scratching noise came through. What was that? His pulse kicked. A clinking tap that followed a break in the scratching sent a jolt running through him.
“Henry?” he whispered against the door jamb. “Are you awake?”
A faint clatter, then the scrape of a chair, followed by footsteps through her room. Time stretched out until he wondered if she was ignoring him. The door clicked open and Henry stood in front of him, the bedspread wrapped toga-style around her. Relief melted through him, and then a different sort of energy.
Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him. Seeing her stirred everything. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to scold her, and he wanted to have his way with her.
He leaned toward her. “Can’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
He’d been treated to silence since the police station, although she could express plenty with her eyes. “You can talk. No one is listening now.”
Her features contorted through a mulish expression to a flash of surprise, and then consternation. “That’s why you told me to shut up?”
“Yes.” Not so much that he cared if she talked about the crime, but with Henry it always was a mix of personal, too.
She scowled. “They were eavesdropping?”
Somehow he wondered if she found that on par with holding a knife to her throat. She seemed to reach outrage much faster about their conversation possibly being overheard. But he loved watching the play of emotions on her adorable little face, and more and more he wanted to prompt her smiles and the sparkles in her eyes—like she’d had when she told the constables that he’d saved her.
He touched her smooth cheek. Her skin was soft as down. “Possibly. You can’t count on anything being private in a station.”
She let out a deep breath. “I thought you hated me.”
“No. I couldn’t hate you.”
She stepped forward into his arms.
God help him, he wrapped her up and pulled her tight. Now that he knew she was all right, he should send her back into her room and close the door. But he didn’t want to. He wanted her in his arms until dawn. He wanted to celebrate life in the oldest way. “What were you doing?”
“Writing.” She turned her face into his chest. The scratching and the tap of a pen on the edge of an ink bottle explained the noises he’d heard. “Writing that list of names you asked for.”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. Her hair was still braided and coiled into a low bun, but her dress and jacket were laid out over the dresser. She’d opened the door to him undressed. A spike of wanting stabbed low in him.
He needed her in his room, in his arms, in his life forever.
It was foolish to make a monumental decision on such short acquaintance, but he doubted anything would change his mind about her. Earlier, when he’d seen that madman with a knife at her throat, he’d known losing her would be more than he could bear. She was the one. Now, he just needed to convince her. He bent and scooped his arm under her knees. “You’re sleeping with me tonight.”