“Yes, my lady. At your service, my lady,” the Runner said, looking steadily at her, not making any obeisance.
Jocelyn had been wrong, then. He had not succeeded in lifting the watch on her house. He had described the Runner as shrewd, but he had not guessed that the man was too shrewd to allow himself to be ordered away from his prey when he knew she was close.
“I will make your task easy,” she said, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. Indeed, it was amazing how terror receded once one had faced it head-on. “I am on the way to the Pulteney Hotel to call upon the Earl of Durbury. You may escort me there and claim all the glory of having apprehended me, if you wish. But you will not come closer or touch me. If you do, I shall squawk very loudly—there are any number of carriages and pedestrians in sight. I shall make up every story I can think of to convince my audience that you are stalking and harassing me. Do we have an agreement?”
“It is like this, my lady.” The Runner’s voice sounded pleasantly regretful. “Mick Boden does not let criminals escape him once he has them in his sights. I don’t foolishly let them off the leash just because they are ladies and know how to talk sweet. And I don’t make bargains with them. You come quiet after I have tied your hands behind you under your cloak, and you will not embarrass yourself. I do know that ladies don’t like to be embarrassed in public.”
The man might be shrewd, but he certainly was not wise. He took a purposeful step toward Jane, one hand disappearing inside a deep pocket. She opened her mouth and screamed—and screamed. She startled even herself. She had never been a screamer, even as a child. The Runner looked both startled and aghast. His hand jerked out of his pocket, clutching a length of rope.
“Now, there is no need to take on so,” he said sharply. “I’m not going to—”
But Jane never did discover what it was he was not going to do. Two gentlemen rode up at a smart trot and proceeded to dismount from their horses. A hackney coach stopped abruptly on the other side of the street, and its burly driver jumped down from the box while shouting directions to a young sweeper to hold the horses’ heads. An elderly couple of respectable middle-class demeanor, who had passed Jane a few moments before, turned and hurried back. And a giant of an individual, who looked as if he might well be a pugilist, had materialized seemingly from nowhere and hugged Mick Boden from behind, pinioning his arms to his sides. It was this action that cut the Runner’s sentence in half.
“He accosted me,” Jane informed her gathering rescuers. “He was going to tie me up withthat”—she pointed one genuinely shaking finger at the rope—“and abduct me.”
Everyone spoke up at once. The pugilist offered to squeeze harder until the villain’s stomach came spurting out his mouth. The coachman suggested taking him in the hackney to the nearest magistrate, where he would surely be sentenced to hang. One of the gentlemen riders gave it as his opinion that it would be a shame for such a slimy toad to swing before his facial features had been rearranged. The elderly gentleman did not know why such a villainous-looking thug should be allowed to roam the streets of a civilized city, terrorizing its womenfolk. His wife set a motherly arm about Jane’s shoulders and clucked and tutted with mingled concern and outrage.
Mick Boden had recovered his composure even though he could not free himself. “I am a Bow Street Runner,” he announced in a voice of authority. “I am engaged in apprehending a notorious thief and murderess and would advise you all not to interfere in the workings of justice.”
Jane lifted her chin. “I am Lady Sara Illingsworth,” she said indignantly, hoping that none of the gathered spectators had heard of her. “I am on my way to visit my cousin and guardian, the Earl of Durbury, at the Pulteney Hotel. He will be very vexed with me when I confess that I came out without my maid. The poor girl is nursing a chill. I should have brought a footman instead, of course, but I did not understand that desperate men will accost ladies even in broad daylight.” She drew a handkerchief from the pocket of her cloak and held it to her mouth.
Mick Boden looked reproachfully at her. “Now, there was no need of all this,” he said.
“Come, my dear,” the elderly lady said, linking her arm through Jane’s. “We will see you safely to the Pulteney Hotel, will we not, Vernon? It is not far out of our way.”
“You go on, my lady,” one of the riders told her. “We know where to find you if you are needed as a witness. But I’ve a mind to do the law’s work for it without bothering any magistrate. You go on.”
“Now see here,” Mick Boden was saying as Jane took the offered arm of the elderly gentleman and proceeded along the street, protectively flanked by him and his wife. Under other circumstances she might have been amused. As it was, she felt a mingling of boldness—now at last she wasdoingsomething—and apprehension. He had been going totieher hands.
She thanked her escort most profusely when they arrived before the doors of the Pulteney, and promised that never again would she be foolish enough to step out alone onto the streets of London. They had been so kind to her that she felt guilt at the way she had deceived them. Although she was, of course, no thief and no murderer. She stepped inside the hotel.
A few minutes later, she was knocking on the door of the Earl of Durbury’s suite, having declined the offer to have his lordship informed of her arrival while she waited in a lounge downstairs. She recognized her cousin’s valet, Parkins, who answered her knock, and he recognized her. His jaw dropped inelegantly. Jane stepped forward without a word for him, and he jumped smartly to one side.
She found herself in a spacious and elegant private sitting room. The earl was seated at a desk, his back to the door. Despite herself, her heart was thumping in her chest, in her throat, in her ears.
“Who was it, Parkins?” he asked without turning.
“Hello, Cousin Harold,” Jane said.
JOCELYN INTENDED TO WASTEno time in taking Jane to Lady Webb’s. It really would not do for her to remain where she was for a moment longer than necessary. He would have Mrs. Jacobs accompany her in his carriage.
But getting his carriage necessitated riding through Hyde Park. And in riding through the park he came quite coincidentally upon an interesting scene. There was a largish group of gentlemen on horseback some distance from the path along which he rode, several of them talking and gesticulating excitedly.
Some quarrel was brewing, he thought. Normally he would not have hesitated to ride closer and discover what was going on, but today he had more important matters to attend to and would have continued onward if he had not suddenly recognized one of the loudly gesturing gentlemen as his brother.
Ferdinand quarreling? Perhaps getting himself into deep waters from which his Dudley nature would not permit him to withdraw until he was in over his head? Well, the least he himself could do, Jocelyn decided with a resigned sigh, was go and lend some moral support.
His approach was noted, first by those who were not themselves involved in the loud altercation that was proceeding, but then even by its participants. The crowd turned as one man to watch him come and a curious hush descended on them.
The reason for it all was almost instantly apparent to Jocelyn. There they were at last, all five of them in a body together—the Forbes brothers. Terrified, no doubt, to show their individual faces anywhere in London, they were presenting a collective front to the world today.
“Tresham!” Ferdinand exclaimed. He looked about at the brothers in some triumph. “Now we will see who is a cowardly bastard!”
“Dear me.” Jocelyn raised his eyebrows. “Has anyone here been using such shockingly vulgar language, Ferdinand? I am vastly relieved I was not present to hear it. And who, pray, was the recipient of such an uncharitable description?”
Although he was a prosy bore in a pulpit, the Reverend Josiah Forbes, to give him his due, was no sniveling, sneaky knave. He rode forward without any hesitation until he was almost knee to knee with Jocelyn, made a grand production of taking off his right glove, and then spoke.
“You were, Tresham,” he said. “Cowardly bastardanddebaucher of wedded virtue. You will meet me, sir, if you wish to dispute either of these accusations.”
