“What guarantee does Lady Hamilton have that you won’t publish the remaining letters?” inquired Annabelle coldly.
“You’ll just have to trust me, now won’t you?” Annabelle wanted to take a horse brush and wipe the malicious grin right off the evil man’s face. She would sooner trust a snake. Diana opened her reticule and Annabelle sent a silent signal for her to wait. Diana looked at her questioningly, but redid the drawstring on her bag.
“I am afraid that we need a little more assurance.” Annabelle fought to keep the contempt she felt for Thorn from her voice.
He glared at her. “You ain’t getting’ it. Now, where’s my blunt?” Diana again opened her bag and withdrew the money. “Here is the hundred pounds.” She handed Thorn a pile of banknotes. “When can I expect delivery of the other letters?”
“I’m thinking I need two hundred pounds for this letter.” Diana’s eyes took on a desperate quality. “I only received two hundred pounds all together for my wedding pearls. How am I to pay for the next letter if I give it all to you now?”
“That’s not my worry, cousin.”
When Thorn emphasized the word cousin, Annabelle had to take a deep breath and let it out slowly or she would have put her parasol to good use over the man’s head.
Annabelle laid a calming hand on her sister-in-law’s clutched fingers. She gave her a reassuring squeeze before turning to confront Thorn. “If you want to see one more pound out of Lady Hamilton then you will keep to the original agreement. If you do not, I will tell my brother about the letters and let him deal with you.”
Thorn squirmed in his seat. “Here now, you wouldn’t do that. It would upset your friend here and your brother wouldn’t thank you none either.” Annabelle let all the disdain she felt for the odious man show in her face. “I have only refrained from telling my brother because of a promise I made to Lady Hamilton. If, however, you change the terms of your agreement, I will consider my promise null and void.”
“There’s no reason to get hasty now. I was just trying to get a little for meself.” Thorns voice took on a whining quality.
His words didn’t make any sense. “Don’t try to convince me that you are giving the proceeds of your little scheme to an ailing mother, or any such thing. Every guinea is going into your greedy pockets.”
A look of fear suffused Thorns features. “Just give me the hundred and be done with it. I’m in this alone, I am.”
Diana did as he asked and Thorn jumped from the table. He headed toward the door like all the demons of hell were after him. What had gotten into the man?
“I don’t see Ian. Do you think he is waiting outside?” Diana asked.
Annabelle stood up. “I don’t know. We’ll have to go outside and see.” When they came out of Gunther’s, they saw nothing of Ian. Thorn got into a hansom cab.
“We’ll lose him if we don’t do something quickly,” Annabelle exclaimed.
Diana twisted her hands together. “I don’t know what we could do. He’ll recognize us if we try to follow him and it might make him angry enough to publish the letters.” A gentleman alighted from a hansom cab in front of the ladies, almost blocking their view of Thorn. Annabelle jumped into the cab.
“Annabelle, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to follow Thorn. Find Ian and tell him that I will meet him at Aunt Griselda’s.” She tapped on the roof of the cab. “Follow the cab that has just pulled into the street. There’s an extra guinea for you if you don’t lose him.” The cabbie took her at her word and lurched into the horse and carriage traffic on the street. Annabelle waved at Diana from the window before turning her attention to the direction they were going. She had to brace her feet against the bench opposite to stop herself from ending up a heap on the floor as the cab lurched from side to side.
After what seemed like an interminable time in the swaying conveyance, Annabelle perceived a change in the sounds and sights around her. She could hear the loud calls of street vendors selling meat pies amidst the piercing call of gulls. Strong odors wafted in through the cab window. They must be near the docks.
The carriage came to an abrupt halt. Annabelle peeked her head out the window in time to see Thorn walking up the street. She recognized the area as one she had been to once to meet with some women concerning her cause. Jumping down from the carriage, she paid the driver and offered to double his wages to wait for her.
Following Thorn up the busy street, she thought the area looked rougher than she remembered. Women stood leaning against the buildings and called to the passing men, offering things that made Annabelle’s ears burn.
Thorn turned up an alley and Annabelle followed. The buildings on her right and left blocked the light, casting things into sinister shadows. She wondered at the wisdom of following Thorn on foot. In his hurry, he did not notice Annabelle or anyone else for that matter. Annabelle heaved a sigh of relief when he led her out of the alley and she once again was bathed in daylight.
Oh no. Thorn was meeting someone. He went to a closed carriage and climbed inside. The curtains were drawn so Annabelle could not see if it was occupied. Intuition told her that it was. It was not the sort of conveyance that Thorn would be using.
Knowing that she could not possibly follow the carriage on foot, she headed back toward her waiting cab. When she came to the alley, she had to force herself to go inside.
The relief she felt when she came out on the side where she had left her cab was short lived.
Two rogues blocked her way almost immediately.
“Olly, looks like we’ve got ourselves a new bird. What do you say, ducks, you want to play wiv’ me and Olly?”
The man speaking was short and so thick with muscle that he looked fat. Olly, a tall man with more than one day’s stubble on his unwashed face, greeted the suggestion with a leer. The sight of his thin lips open over brown and decaying teeth sickened Annabelle.
Her stomach lurched at the thought of “playing with” the pockmarked and greasy-haired man. Her knees grew weak with fear. She darted a glance to where her cab was waiting and felt her first tremors of terror. It was gone. She turned to run back the way she had come, but got no more than a step before Olly’s friend grabbed her from behind.
Chapter Thirteen
Ian heard Belle’s scream before he saw her. His insides, already tight as the spring on a wrist-clock, went cold with fear. He kneed his horse to a gallop and sped toward her defiant cries. Whoever had her didn’t know what they were getting into, he thought with grim satisfaction as the sound of scuffling and men’s curses reached his ear.
The scene he came upon turned his insides to water.
Belle was caught between two men. The first had her arms in his mangy grip and the other, a short powerfully built man, was fighting to control her legs. The fury that had been eating Ian since he found Diana outside Gunther’s and she had told him about Annabelle following Thorn raged out of
control now.
The tall, ugly man yanked on Belle’s arms and Ian vowed that was the last thing the ugly rotter was going to do. He swung off his horse and commanded the animal to stay.
Knowing Nightsong would not move until he gave the signal again, Ian stormed over to the bastards with their hands all over Belle.
He took great satisfaction at the sound of bone crunching as he planted his fist in the jaw of the man holding Belle’s arms. The miscreant howled in anguish and dropped his hold on Belle. Gripping Annabelle’s torso with his left hand, Ian let his right elbow fly back and connect with the face of the shorter man.
The bastard didn’t fall, but did grunt and let go of Belle. Ian scooped her up and headed back to his horse. Belle clutched at his shoulders, her face pressed against his neck. The trembling in her body infuriated him. Ian swung her up onto his horse and made sure she had a firm hold on the saddle before turning to finish the work with the two bastards who had dared to touch his fiancée.
The ugly one was standing again, but he swayed on his feet. Ian ignored him. One good blow and he would be history. The short man was smiling at Ian, clearly every bit as stupid as he looked. Ian moved forward with sure deliberation. The short man bellowed as Ian picked him up and tossed him against the wall of the building. A demi-
rep who had been watching the entire exchange with interest screeched as the man rolled off the wall and landed on her feet. He did not move again.
Ian turned his attention to the one with a broken jaw. He must have been smarter than he looked because he was already running down the street. Two short whistles brought Nightsong near. Swinging up behind Belle, Ian kneed the horse into a gallop.
They had to get out of there before more of the blackguards’ friends showed up.
“You know, if you had gotten here just a few minutes before, I would not have lost Mr. Thorn. What took you so long? Did you not get my note?” Ian thought he had been angry before, but that was nothing compared to how he felt when Belle took him to task for his lack of timeliness. “And if I had come five minutes later, you would be lying on some bug-infested cot with one of those bastards buried between your legs.”