“No?” the ruffian said, mocking, mistaking her head gesture. He twisted the blade again, and Netta fell a step back with a cry.
He followed, keeping up the pressure.
“No. I mean yes. Yes, I’ll go with you.” She’d go with him until they were further down the hall, away from the immediate threat to Catherine. Then she’d scream and fight and hope those burly servants of the club were useful for something more than serving drinks and looking pretty.
She turned, the relief at having the knife no longer pressed into her belly quickly evaporating when she felt the point at her side. She looked around as she glided out of the backstage area, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon or a distraction.
Nothing readily presented itself.
The back hall was dim, lit only by one gas lamp by the far door. The door that exited onto a back alley. One she couldn’t leave from, not if she expected to live.
“How did you find me?” Perhaps if she flung herself into one of the rooms they passed she’d have time to lock the door before he followed.
“We’ve been watching you since the masquerade ball.”
She pretended to stumble. “There’s a pebble in my slipper.” She braced a hand on the wall and made to bend down, “If I could just—”
He knocked her arm off the wall, and she stumbled in earnest. He straightened her shoulders and pushed her down the hall. “Deal with it.”
“Why does Sudworth want me?” She hated the tremor in her voice. But it made no sense. “I am past the age of consent. He and my father can no longer force me to marry. What good am I to him?” Even as she said it, she knew her words were foolish. To a man such as Sudworth, a woman made helpless in his presence offered a great deal.
A broom leaned next to the exit door. She set her shoulders. When he opened the door, she would grab it and crush his bloody windpipe with the tip of the handle.
“You broke a contract of his.” He prodded her with the blade again. “He doesn’t take kindly to interferences in his business matters.”
Netta clenched her hand. She wasn’t a business matter. Her sister wasn’t a business matter. And she would make him pay for thinking of them as nothing more than property.
Five steps away. Her palms tingled. She could do this.
“There’s also the matter of my missing brother.” The ruffian removed the blade from her back.
Netta frowned, the focus she had on the broom breaking. “What? Who’s your brother?” she asked, turning to look over her shoulder.
It was too quick. He’d already started to bring his arm down. She had time only to loose a startled shriek before the thick handle of the blade struck her temple.
She crumpled to the floor, the back of her hand smacking the bristles of the broom. Her finger twitched, her fuzzy mind thinking to stick to her plan, pull the broom towards her. She fought against the blackness, but it closed tight about her, wrapping her in its senseless embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A trickle of sweat rolled from John’s nape down under his collar. He rolled the dice, gritting his teeth as they tumbled over the table.
Deuce-aces. Sodding hell.
Sudworth grinned broadly. “It doesn’t appear to be your night, Summerset.”
Elsbeth, the charming woman they’d employed to entice Sudworth, settled on the man’s lap and clapped her hands. “You win again!”
Sudworth slid his hand up her side and gave her breast a squeeze, but didn’t take his eyes off John.
They were in an upper room of The Black Rose, the rest of the club empty. Three cut-throats, ostensibly Sudworth’s servants, held up the back wall, one of them cleaning his nails with his knife. Sutton had brought them drinks when the game began and then disappeared.
“My luck will change.” John grabbed the onyx nob of his walking stick leaning on the table and ground the tip into the carpet. “It’s bound to.”
“Now you sound like your brother.” Sudworth plucked up a die and rolled it over his knuckles.
John gritted his teeth. The night was not going as planned. First, the man who’d partnered with Elsbeth in the humiliation scene had been late to work. Giving Sudworth much too much time to examine the altered documents John had delivered to him.
To the credit of John’s forgery skills, Sudworth hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss. He also hadn’t seemed overly impressed with the bait John had dangled. He’d been inattentive during Elsbeth’s scene, had shown no interest in engaging with her further, and seemed eager to leave The Black Rose.
