“Do not think to lecture me, missy!” He rapped the cane sharply against the rug. “You have no idea what it is to grow up in a workhouse.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Lifting her chin, she stared down her nose at him. “I didn’t have the luxury of a roof while living on the streets.”
Air hissed through his teeth. “The chief inspector married a guttersnipe?”
“Clearly you didn’t do your research.” She smiled, a nearly impossible feat when everything inside her ached to gather Bella in her arms.
Child shrugged. “You have to admit I was pressed for time.”
Pah! She’d sooner take a brick to the head than sympathize with this villain. “Tell me, Mr. Child, how did Mr. Willis and Mr. Percival exile your family to such a harsh existence?”
“Mmm. Well. I suppose we have time.” He wrapped his hands around the cane as if it were a neck to be choked. “I was a healthy, strapping boy until the current Mr. Percival’s father ousted my own father from a partnership position with old man Willis, and the only way he could do it was through slander. Percival senior smeared my father’s name with so much excrement, no one would hire him for the stink of his reputation. My father lost everything, our home, my mother—God rest her—and the health of his only son…me.”
Well. That explained a lot. She might actually be inclined to extend him some grace were Bella not dampening the rug with the tears raining from her face. “I am sorry,” she ground out, “but you are not the only one who has ever suffered so unjustly. I am living proof that mean childhood circumstances do not have to define who you are now.”
“A pretty speech, Mrs. Forge, but it falls on deaf ears.” His jaw stiffened.
So did Kit’s. Trying to reason with the man would get her nowhere. Quickly, she shuffled through a dozen escape scenarios—bolt for the window, the door, the blackguard’s neck who held Bella—yet each one fell flat. There was no simple way to make sure Bella didn’t get hurt.
She looked daggers at the man defiling her sofa. “What do you intend to do with me and my baby?”
“The answer to that, my dear, hinges entirely on what your husband decides.”
Jackson exited the carriage, annoyed with Child for rescheduling, with Shivaji for demanding to be paid at such a ridiculous hour instead of waiting till later, and especially with the sleek carriage parked in front of his house so that he’d have to walk extra steps to get to his door. Deep down he knew he was being petty, and yet he nursed the irritation with some satisfaction. It was always hard to be primed for a fight only to have the thing postponed. Blast that Child!
He tipped his head up at the big Punjabi hunched on the driver’s seat. “Give me a moment.”
Then he strode down the pavement and paused at the next carriage. “You there!” he hollered up at the driver. “Park this rig across the road in front of the pub instead of loitering in front of a residence…myresidence.”
The man nodded, his face hidden by the wide brim of a black hat.
That settled, Jackson turned to his home, not really surprised to see the sitting room light glowing behind the curtains. Though the little sprite had said otherwise, Kit was clearly waiting up for him instead of snuggled in bed with a book. He set his key in the lock but a click didn’t follow. And his annoyance once again flared. He shoved open the door with a frown. “Kit! You should have bolted the door.”
He pulled off his hat, which admittedly was quite the oddity in his Indian garb, but hanged if he didn’t feel naked without his trusty old bowler atop his head. Pitiful wails—albeit muffled—pealed out from the sitting room. “Kit?” he hollered as he hung up his hat. “What’s wrong with Bella?”
Down the corridor, Kit stepped one foot past the threshold, half in and half out of the sitting room. “I—em—I actually could use your help in here.”
“Give me a moment. I first must pay—” He narrowed his eyes as he strode towards her. “Why is there blood on your mouth? What happened?”
“I…took a tumble.”
The hairs at the back of his neck stood out like wires. This cat always landed on her feet. He pulled his gun from the holster.
Kit stiffened, a slight wince tightening her lips. “I’m fine, really. Come into the sitting room, darling, and I shall tell you all about the silly little mishap.”
He paused, straining to decipher such mixed messages. Was something wrong, or had she truly taken a tumble and was trying to hide her hurt?
And suddenly she was yanked backwards.
He cocked the hammer as he stormed into the room, his heart stopping before his feet did. Child sat like a smug son-of-a-bullfrog on the sofa. To his left, a muscleman clutched Kit to his chest with an arm around her throat and a knifepoint to the side of her belly. And to his right—dear God! To Child’s right stood the man he’d bested on the pavement in front of the bank, gripping Bella beneath his arm, a cloth poking out of her mouth. White-hot rage burned through Jackson’s veins.
Child picked at one of the scabs on his cheek. “About time you arrived, Chief Inspector.”
Thunderation! He knew. Half-blind with fury, Jackson sighted down the muzzle straight at Child’s heart.
“Tut, tut.” Child waggled his finger in the air. “Is my life worth that of your wife and daughter?”
“Do what you must to save Bella,” Kit whispered.
