“What do you expect me to do? Poke my head out and ask them nicely if they would stop shooting at me? I don’t think that informing them that it isn’t good sport to shoot at anybody is going to work, do you?” he snorted in disgust.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” Marguerite huffed. “I was only asking.”
As if to prove just how nonsensical her question was, a loud crack sounded directly over their heads. She instinctively screame
d and ducked.
Joe shook his head in disgust.
What in Hell’s name is it about women that makes them want to scream so damned much?
Disgusted, he poked his head back out of the carriage window in search of someone to shoot. If he didn’t there was no telling what he might do because his patience was wearing thin with the woman behind him. She screeched like a banshee, argued far too much for any sane man to comprehend, and asked stupid questions even a blind man would be able to see the answer too. As far as he was concerned, the quicker he could off-load her, the better it would be for both of them.
He fervently ignored a slightly worrying voice in the back of his mind that warned him he wanted-needed-to off-load her because she was starting to matter to him. It was ridiculous because he had only met her a couple of hours ago. Still, he couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that handing her over to one of his colleagues to babysit was more of a benefit to him than her.
“Maybe I should have left her to Sayers,” he muttered.
“I heard that,” she snapped.
“Who is Sayers?” she demanded after a momentary pause.
Joe sighed and leaned back to look at her. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
Marguerite frowned at him, desperately relieved now that the booms had stopped.
“I have no idea who you are talking about,” she snapped.
She felt as though she had been dropped into someone else’s life, and had no idea what she should be doing, or what the rules were. It was odd because Jeremy seemed to know what to expect, but didn’t seem inclined to want to tell her. He appeared her to know instinctively who he was talking about, and what everybody was doing. It was odd. It was frightening. It made her realise just how vulnerable she was, and that while Jeremy had, sort of, saved her, she was not really any better off than she had been back at the Carmichael’s house.
Joe looked at her slumped on the floor. Her hair was a tangled mess. There were dark smudges on her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, yet she still looked beautiful.
“How long have you known him?” He demanded.
While he knew he should wait until they reached the safe house, with Sayers still giving chase he knew they might not even get there. He had to find out as much as he could from her now while the opportunity was still there.
“Who? The Count?” She frowned.
“The Count. Sayers. Call him whatever you want to call him. I will call him Sayers,” Joe replied.
“Why?”
“Because that is his name,” he replied dryly.
“The Count is called Sayers?” She thought about that and recalled the Count’s accidental slip earlier. “I think he is from the East End.”
Joe’s gaze sharpened. Something deep inside him he didn’t want to acknowledge suddenly felt disheartened when he heard that.
“You met him in the East End?”
“Who?” Marguerite put aside her memories of the bizarre encounter in the Carmichael’s study and turned her attention back to the man seated opposite.
Even though she was sitting on the floor with him towering over her, he was a powerful force indeed. Just being pinned beneath that penetrating stare made her feel uneasy, as though she was being inspected, assessed, judged, and deemed wanting. She wanted to poke at her hair. She wanted to sit on the seat, but she daren’t move. Not least because he still had his gun dangling from his fingertips.
“Can you put that away?” she whispered.
Joe shook his head. “I need it in case your lover arrives.”
“He isn’t my lover,” she whispered. “I don’t know why you keep saying that he is. If this Sayers is truly this Count person, then I have only met the man this evening. I have no idea who he is.”