“Last week ye met with Mags. She were arrested the followin’ morn. Word is she’s likely to ’ang for the farmin’ she done,” the bulky one said.
Which meant, in all likelihood, the authorities had somehow managed to already discern that she’d murdered at least one of the children who’d been placed in her care.
“I don’t know any Mags.” She knew them only by initials. Was Mags the M. K. who’d handed over three little ones to her last week in exchange for the five quid Lavinia offered her? Most farmers were paid in full when the by-blows were dropped off by a parent or someone close to the mother who sought to spare her shame. Oh, a few paid in weekly installments—those who had an interest in the child’s welfare—but many simply disbursed the higher one-time fee and walked away expecting—wanting—to never encounter or be bothered with the child again. Since no more money was to be had after that, those infants were often neglected and then perished, buried without ceremony in unmarked graves so no one would suspect those caring for them of nefarious deeds. To many, one babe looked like another. Who bothered to keep tally of the number in a particular household, especially when there was soon another to replace the one lost? “I certainly didn’t report her to the authorities. I’m interested only in the babes and their welfare.”
“So ye say.”
“I’m not one to lie. Am I speaking with D. B.?”
“Even yer small words sound posh. But they ain’t gonna save ye. We can’t ’ave ye ruinin’ our business.”
Business. Her stomach roiled with the confirmation these women viewed children as products, produced by women they didn’t know, to be sold away to women who had no love for them. “I don’t care about you, I don’t care what you do.” Which wasn’t entirely true. She did care; otherwise, she wouldn’t be here. “I simply want the children, and I’ll pay to take them off your hands.”
“We’ll take yer coins... after we take yer life.”
Swiftly she unsheathed the rapier and brandished it so the steel blade reflected off the distant streetlamp and was visible to them. “Stay back.”
The bulky woman smiled, revealing dark caverns where teeth should have been. “Ever wielded a sword before, lass? Ever felt the way it slides into skin and muscle, sinkin’ deeper and deeper till it ’its bone, the manner in which the quiverin’ of the wounded flesh slithers up yer arm as it gives way to steel?”
“Come at me and discover the truth of things.” Taking a ready stance, still clutching the wooden scabbard to use as an additional weapon if needed, with the rapier, she sliced a swift X through the air, loving the way the whooshing filled the silence with menace. Although she’d never cut into flesh, she wouldn’t hesitate to bring pain to these creatures who fed on the desperation of others. “Only you won’t, will you? Because I’m not helpless or vulnerable or afraid. I’m nothing at all like the sort to whom you usually deliver death.”
The bulky one looked at her comrades, then unexpectedly rushed forward while they stepped back. She doubted their actions were spurred by a desire for fairness but rather were prompted by spinelessness. She didn’t want to deliver a killing blow if it wasn’t needed—she wasn’t a barbarian after all—so she made an upward swipe across the woman’s face where no cloth protected it, cutting into her cheek, knocking off her hat. With a shriek, the noxious trader in misery reeled back, slapped a hand to her wound, and glared. “Come on, gels. We can take ’er if we all strike at once.”
“Not without sustaining a few more wounds, I’d wager,” a deep voice said from within the blackness that hovered at the edge of the light.
Lavinia stiffened but didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare take her eyes off the women before her.
“Who ye be?” the leader asked, narrowing her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t like the odds. And I daresay, theladyand I could dispatch the three of you in a thrice. She seems rather skilled.”
His emphasis on the wordladyalerted her that he wasn’t using it without purpose, but to refer to her station, to acknowledge the fact she was indeed nobility. His tone also alerted her that he didn’t think much of it. How had he discerned who she was? Was he one of the men her brother had hired to find her and escort her home? Something about his voice was familiar, and yet—
“Yer a cocky one,” the beefy one said.
“Not without justification. Ask any man who’s crossed me. Now then, I have a use for her, so off with you.”
The woman sneered. “Then take ’er. Enjoy ’er. But if she continues to put ’er nose where it don’t belong, she’ll find she ain’t got one no more.”
As she watched in stunned fascination, the women scattered, neither gracefully nor quietly, unlike the fellow in the shadows who approached on silent feet and relieved her of the rapier as smoothly and easily as she might a spoon from a distracted child.
She swung around. “See—” The remaining words of reprimand died in her suddenly knotted throat as the distant light revealed what shadows had held secret.
As though he were the lord of the underworld, hard and unforgiving, filled with malice, ready to mete out justice, the man stood there decked out in clothing so dark it blended in with the night, the hem of his greatcoat swirling about his calves in the slight breeze that also worked to tangle the strands of his long blond hair, left free as he wore no hat—strands she’d once knotted her fingers around and found joy in so doing.
He was tall, looming. Little wonder they’d run. She remembered how she’d had to stand on the tips of her toes to wind her arms around his neck, how his would come around her and he would lift her with such ease, as though she weighed no more than a billowy cloud in the summer sky. How he had made her believe herself... treasured.
She resented it now, the way he had made her feel, that she had ever given him leave to touch her.
While she knew she should be grateful for his arrival, it was his departure from her life—or more specifically, his failure to show—eight years earlier that had her fuming with incensed outrage, shaking with fury, needing to lash out at the injustice of it all, especially the way her long-dead heart at that very moment seemed to come alive with his presence. Damn the thing for being as traitorous as he was.
He tossed the rapier slightly, and she knew he was testing its balance, weight, craftsmanship, and that he’d not find it lacking in any regard. “Not very practical. A sword, knife, pistol—they can all be taken from you, used against you. Better to learn how to wield your fists as weapons.”
Oh, the gall of him, speaking to her in the tone one used when addressing a recalcitrant child. “What makes you think I haven’t?”
Then she took her tightly balledfistand delivered an uppercut blow to that well-defined jaw she’d once peppered with kisses that had him dropping her rapier and reeling back two steps. She was rather certain the punch would have felled any other man, but he was all sinew, muscle, height, and breadth. However, her actions had momentarily stunned him, which provided all the distraction she needed to swiftly snatch up her weapon and close her fingers securely around it. Before he fully recovered, she lunged forward and pressed the tip of the blade between the part of his coat, against the linen of his shirt. She took immense satisfaction in how still he went, how he barely breathed, watching her, waiting. The temptation to skewer him had her fairly trembling with the possibility of gaining retribution against him. He deserved it for proving himself a scoundrel of the first water by stealing her heart and then crushing it beneath his boot heel once he’d gained what he wanted, what she’d willingly surrendered to him because she’d loved him so madly.
Tightening her hold on the weapon, she fought the memories bombarding her, memories of the kind and gentle fellow she’d once known, the one with whom she’d begun falling in love when she was a mere fifteen.
