“Then two it is.”
“Two’s one too many, I’m thinking.” This from a brawny sailor who had stood up and was now blocking their path to the door.
Georgina groaned inwardly. This really was a bruiser, as Boyd, who was an admirer of pugilists, would have called him. And although the brick wallwasa brick wall, she hadn’t really gotten a look at him, didn’t know if he might be much smaller than this sailor. But she was forgetting the other lord who had called him brother.
He came up to stand next to them now, and she heard his sigh before he said, “I don’t suppose you’d care to put her down and take care of this, James.”
“Not particularly.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Stay out of this, mate,” the sailor warned the brother. “He’s got no right coming in here and stealing not one but two of our women.”
“Two? Is this little ragamuffin yours?” The brother glanced at Georgina, who was looking back with murder in her eyes. Perhaps that was why he hesitated before asking, “Are you his, sweetheart?”
Oh, how she’d like to say yes. If she thought she could escape while the two arrogant lords were being pulverized, she would. But she couldn’t take that kind of chance. She might be furious at these two interfering aristocrats, and especially with the one called James who was manhandling her, but she was forced by circumstance to tamp down her anger and give a negative shake of her head.
“I believe that settles it, doesn’t it.” It was not a question by any means. “Now be a good chap and move out of the way.”
Surprisingly, the sailor stood firm. “He’s not taking her out of here.”
“Oh, bloody hell,” the lord said wearily just before his fist flattened on the fellow’s jaw.
The sailor landed several feet away from them, out cold. The man he had been sitting with rose from their table with a growl, but not soon enough. A short jab, and he fell back in his chair, his hand flying up to staunch the blood now seeping from his nose.
The lord turned around slowly, one black brow arched questioningly. “Any more comers?”
Mac was grinning behind him, realizing now how fortunate he had been not to take on the Englishman. Not another man in the room made a move to accept the challenge. It had happened too quickly. They recognized a skilled pugilist when they saw one.
“Very nicely done, dear boy,” James congratulated his brother. “Now can we quit this place?”
Anthony bowed low, coming up with a grin. “After you, old man.”
Outside, James set the girl on her feet in front of him. She got her first good look at him then in the glow of the tavern lamp above the door, enough to make her hesitate a hairbreadth before she kicked him in the shin and bolted down the street. He swore violently and started after her, but stopped after a few feet, seeing that it was useless. She was already out of sight on the darkened street.
He turned back, swearing again when he saw that MacDonell had disappeared as well. “Now where the bloody hell did the Scot go?”
Anthony was too busy laughing to have heard him. “What’s that?”
James smiled tightly. “The Scot. He’s gone.”
Anthony sobered, turning around. “Well, that’s gratitude for you. I wanted to ask him why they both turned when they heard the name Cameron.”
“To hell with that,” James snapped. “How am I going to find her again when I don’t know who she is?”
“Find her?” Anthony was chuckling once more. “Gad, you’re a glutton for punishment, brother. What do you want with a wench who insists on damaging your person when you have another one counting the minutes until you return?”
The barmaid James had arranged to meet much later when she finished work no longer interested him quite so much. “She intrigued me,” James replied simply, then shrugged. “But I suppose you’re right. The little barmaid will do just as well even though she spent nearly as much time on your lap as she did on mine.” Yet he glanced down the empty street again before they headed toward the waiting carriage.
Chapter Four
Georgina sat shivering at the bottom of a stairway that led down to someone’s basement. No light penetrated the deep shadows on the last few steps where she hid. The building, whatever it was, was quiet and dark. Quiet, too, was the street this far away from the tavern.
She wasn’t exactly cold. It was summer after all, and the weather here was very like that of her own New England. The shivering must be from shock, delayed reaction—a result of too much anger all at once, too much fear, and one too many surprises. But who would have thought the brick wall would have looked like that?
She could still see his eyes staring down at her from that patrician face, hard eyes, curious, crystal clear, and the color was green, not dark, not pale, but brilliant all the same, and so…so…Intimidating was the word that came to mind, though she wasn’t sure why. They were the kind of eyes that could strike fear in a man, let alone a woman. Direct, fearless, ruthless. She shivered again.
She was letting her imagination run away with her. His eyes had only been curious as he looked at her…No, not only that. There had been something else there that she wasn’t familiar with, or experienced enough to name, something undeniably disturbing. What?
