“Your manager seems a wee bit puritanical.” Pulling a small flask from an inside pocket, Dunkeld took a swig and handed it over to Max. “I don’t think she’d be the type to play. Perhaps you should look for a more hospitable lass.”
Max grabbed the flask and resisted the urge to chuck it at his friend’s head. “I’m cutting you off. Your civilized accent is slipping.”
Dunkeld made a rude gesture, and Max bit back a smile. He knew the Scotsman meant well. He and his friends wanted more from a lover than just a willing lay. Why choose a woman who couldn’t fulfill all one’s needs? It was only setting oneself up for disappointment.
But Colleen had responded to his play. Had arched her body into the flame. Max tipped the flask to his lips, felt the whiskey burn a path down his throat. And he’d killed her husband.
Why the fuck had he told her? If he was only to have a brief affair with her, there was no reason to confess. But she was so forthright and honest. She deserved to know who she was giving her body to.
Not like that would be an issue anymore. He and his big mouth had guaranteed the end of playtime with Colleen.
“I told her what I did.”
Dunkeld was silent for a weighted moment. “You told who, exactly what?”
Max tore his gaze off the storefront. “I told Colleen. Mrs. Bonner. And you know what.”
Dunkeld cursed, loudly and for a long time. His brogue became thick the more heated he became until Max could only understand one word in two. The horse in the phaeton’s harness skittered uneasily.
“Are you a bloody, feckin’ eejit?” Dunkeld thumped Max in the chest. “Do ya know the trouble she could cause?”
Rubbing his breastbone, Max scowled. “She isn’t like that.” He paused. That wasn’t quite true. Colleen was loyal and steadfast, yes. But she also believed in consequences for one’s actions. And her loyalty had been to her husband. Why wouldn’t she go to the authorities? He’d confessed to killing her husband. It was her logical next step.
Max’s shoulders rounded. Even though the sun shone brightly, the afternoon air was chilled, and he tucked his hands up under his armpits. “Even if she did speak, it wouldn’t matter,” he said woodenly. “I’m a member of the House of Lords and she runs a Venus club. Who do you think the courts would believe?”
His friend grumbled but settled back into his seat. “There is that. Liverpool wouldn’t like hearing the name of one of his men bandied about in the streets, but there wouldn’t be any legal consequences.”
Pinkerton emerged from the haberdasher’s. A crisp new top hat sat at a jaunty angle on his head. The American looked at his reflection in the mirror, fingered the brim, and turned up the street.
“We shouldn’t have given him any coin until after we catch Zed.” Flicking his wrist, Max turned the phaeton into the street at a slow plod. “He shops like a woman.” Not like Colleen, though, who turned up her nose at the idea of buying new clothes. She was far too practical for such rubbish. Max hadn’t missed the lustful gaze when she’d examined her new boots, however, or the way her fingers had returned again and again to the velvet trim of the spencer he’d put her in. When he returned to the club, would he find the new wardrobe nothing but a pile of ashes? He couldn’t imagine she’d want to see anything from Max again.
He snorted. Of everything he’d ruined by confessing his guilt, the fact that Colleen wouldn’t wear the clothes he’d bought her was the stupidest loss of all to mourn. He truly was an eejit.
Dunkeld elbowed him. “There,” he said, his voice quiet and deadly. He nodded across the street at a man dressed in rags. The other pedestrians veered away to avoid the man stumbling like a drunkard. For a moment, Max wondered what had caught his friend’s attention. But then he saw it. For an ape-drunk, the man was able to catch himself neatly before actually falling, and for all the zigs and zags, was walking an amazingly straight path. Right towards Pinkerton.
“Ha!” Max sent the horse galloping into motion. The phaeton zipped around a hackney and darted ahead of a carriage. “Now you see why I rented a phaeton?” The miscreant was ten feet from Pinkerton, and nobody knew better than Max how quickly a knife could be thrust between a man’s ribs, puncturing his heart. In two seconds, the assassin could have finished his job and be back on his way. The speed and maneuverability of a phaeton became important factors when a man’s life hung in the balance.
Pinkerton paused on the sidewalk, shifting one of his purchases to the other arm, oblivious to the danger bearing down on him.
Lining the chaise next to the fake drunkard, Max tossed the reins to his friend and leapt. He hit the man’s back and took him down five feet from the American. The man bounced on the dirt, his squawk of surprise cut off in a hiss of air when Max landed on his back.
A grim smile tugged at Max’s lips. Finally, something he could pound. Prey to take down. Ever since Colleen had fled his house last night, an itch had settled under his skin. An itch he couldn’t scratch. He dug his fingers into the back of the man’s neck, just until the point where he could feel the fine bones of the spine start to shift.
“Who the fuck,” he ground out, “is Zed?” Max was sure three of his friends would roll their eyes at the inelegance of his interrogation technique. Luckily, those three weren’t here. Dunkeld liked to bust heads as much as Max did. And Max was getting tired of this fuckwit Zed. The criminal mastermind was leading them on a merry chase, and it was time that came to an end.
“I think it usually works better if you give a man space to draw breath.” Dunkeld’s boots came into Max’s view, and his friend rocked onto his heels. “The man’s face is purple. I don’t think he could answer you if he wanted.”
Max grunted. But what his friend said was true, so he sat back, careful to keep his knee in the small of the assassin’s back and the man’s hands in sight.
Pinkerton stepped forward, his face pale. “That man was going to kill me?”
Max hadn’t forgotten that the American had threatened to do the same to Colleen, so felt little sympathy.
The man beneath Max shook his head, his face scaping across the dirt. He squeaked, cleared his throat, and tried again.
Nudging the man with the toe of his boot, Dunkeld sniffed. “I think he’s trying to deny that accusation.” A crowd began to form around them, and the burly Scotsman clenched his fists and glared. The lookie-loos dispersed.
“I’m not trying to kill anyone!” The man tried pushing to his hands and knees, and Max put more weight onto his back. The miscreant flopped to the ground. “I swear. I would never hurt anyone.”
