“I’d like to see you try,” Billy’s rough voice was like the purr of a savage tiger. “You and me’ve a long history, one that needs to come to a close. I’ve waited long enough.”
“Get out of here, Billy,” Martina said. “You don’t want to make a scene, now do you? Particularly when you know if it comes to a one-on-one fight, Rafferty would win.”
“You mind your own business, you bloody little catamite. I’m a dangerous man when crossed.”
“Are you?” Rafferty said mildly enough.
“You’re forgetting my bad temper,” Stiles said in a deceptively amiable voice. “I might just have to do something about our good friend Martin here. He wouldn’t like what I have in mind.”
“And you’re forgetting me, Billy,” Rafferty drawled. “He’s under my protection.”
Even someone as brutal as Billy Stiles reacted when he spoke like that, but he wasn’t cowed for long.
“We don’t need to fight about it,” he said in what he obviously hoped was a pleasing voice. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. What’s taking you so bloody long?”
“I don’t work for you. We’ve got an agreement and you can bloody well keep it. You’ll know when it’s done.” He kept his voice calm and level, at odds with the murderous rage that filled him. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t kill Stiles in a public place and get away with it. He could disappear before anyone would notice.
But he didn’t want to do it in front of Georgie. And the bloody bastard knew it.
“And what about this pretty little girl, then?” He nodded toward Georgie. Rafferty followed his gaze and cursed inwardly. She was looking dazed; of course she was.
“She’s nobody.”
“Seems to me you wouldn’t ’ave come running to the rescue for just nobody, and Martin can take of hisself. Seems to me she’s someone who matters to you.”
“I told you, she’s simply the daughter of the people I’m working for. She means nothing to me.”
“Well, true and all she’s not your type, boyo. I could almost believe that. Georgiana Manning, Martin said.” He turned and leaned over the table. “Well, Miss Georgiana Manning, you might be seeing me again soon, unless your friend here gets a move on things. He may not appreciate a pretty little morsel like yourself, but I’m a man to notice things.”
Georgie simply stared up at him, and Rafferty wondered if she were going to cry. Most gently bred young women would after being threatened by a murderous bully.
But Georgie was made of sterner stuff. She rose then, and he made no attempt to stop her this time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Stiles, but I assure you that Rafferty is our butler, nothing more, and he has no special affection for any of us—we’re simply his employers.”
Once more they got the full effect of Stiles’s teeth. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you sometime soon, then, Rafferty,” he said smoothly, ignoring Georgie.
“When the business is done,” he said obscurely. If Georgie knew he was in her household to find a lost treasure, she’d tell her father. No, she wouldn’t, she’d probably want to help him find it.
Once more, Billy smiled. “And don’t be thinking you could do a bunk and disappear. I can always find Miss Manning.”
And with that, he turned and left, leaving a cloud of cheap scent behind him.
Rafferty could feel the tension vibrating through Georgie’s body, and he took her arm. “Come along,” he said grimly.
She pulled away from him, her face blank and unreadable, and started from the tearoom. They’d gathered a fair amount of attention, and eyes followed her as they left. By the time they reached the sidewalk the bright sunlight was gone, but the hackney he’d hired was still waiting.
She allowed him to help her in, but she felt cold and stiff under his touch. Martina followed, a worried expression on her face, and Rafferty wondered how long it would take him to cut Billy Stiles’s throat.
Closing the door after them, he stepped back, watching as they drove away, Georgie’s pale face averted. Well, at least that particular problem was solved, trifling as it was. She would no longer moon over the inappropriate butler.
He should be delighted.
She means nothing to me. Those words were swimming around in Georgie’s brain as she stared blindly out the window of the hackney. She’d never thought she was particularly stupid, but so many odd things had been said that she was at a loss to understand anything. Anything but she means nothing to me.
“Don’t believe everything that man says,” came Martina’s low contralto, and Georgie turned to look at her.
“Which man?”
“Either of them, for that matter,” Martina said, a worried expression in her warm brown eyes. “Best not get between two fighting dogs—you’re bound to get savaged yourself. They’ll work it out.”
