“Listen to them whine, Sam, you’d think the poor watchmen didn’t need help with their street fights.” She could barely concentrate enough to see the leader in blue say that to a crony over his shoulder.
The leader in green visibly bristled, his shoulders coming up and flaring out. He took a step forward. “As if you helped in that scuffle. You were in the way. Davey and the boys had it under control. You just made it worse.”
The other man stepped closer as well, putting their noses inches apart. “Dangerously close to Holborn territory. You know that’s our jurisdiction.”
“As if we’d forget, what with you whining about it all the time, as if you miss your mummy and she’s nesting on the line.” A nasty smirk appeared.
“You keep believing you are capable and we’ll keep being amused.” The sentence was delivered calmly, but the man’s knotted fists said otherwise.
“Problem?” A new voice entered the fray, and Marietta got a reprieve as Noble’s lips moved from her neck. A lock of his hair tickled her chin as he stole a glance at the newcomer.
The man was of average height, but the way he carried himself made him seem taller. He stood next to a few of the more hulking men, and even though he was shorter, there was something distinctive about him. Not something necessarily nice, but dignified all the same.
“Here we go,” the man in green groaned, lifting his pint and tapping it against the side of a fellow watchman’s.
“No wonder the crime in Middlesex is so high. Too busy drinking your pints to patrol,” the new man said.
“Here now, the murderer’s been caught. And by one of our own. Didn’t see you catching him, and wasn’t that your job, Runner? Didn’t see you collecting the reward.” The green watchman leaned back, physically taunting the man as well.
Marietta tightened her grip on Noble’s hand and he gave her a comforting squeeze back. They were in the midst of a tavern filled with watchmen, magistrate appointed patrollers, and a Bow Street Runner. And all of them were jockeying for position.
Noble moved so he was near her ear again. “This is exactly what we want. Relax.”
“He was lucky. If Penner hadn’t needed to piss himself so badly, he never would have found him.”
“Call it luck all you want, Runner. But it’s not you that gets the glory. And the patrollers have to continue licking the magistrates’ ballocks just a few days more.”
The man in blue and his fellow patrollers bristled.
“You think that stopping one man, one murderer, is enough to put you on top? To stop the might of Bow Street?”
The Runner had dignity, yes. But it was aforceddignity. Like that of a competent man who always felt the need to prove himself.
“Oh, la, la. The might of Bow Street. Hear that patrolman Joe? We are facing the might of Bow Street.” The watchman in green smirked at his counterpart in blue.
“I’m shaking in me boots.”
“You would be wise not to incur our wrath.” The Runner was either an idiot or dangerous. She wasn’t sure which yet.
“Always apleasureto have such an educated gentleman in our midst, eh, boys?”
The tide had turned from the two groups fighting one another to showing a united front. She would bet a pound though that as soon as the Runner left, they would be back at each others’ throats.
“Look around Runner. These are pleasures you’ll never have. A fine ale, a fine woman.” She saw the man point to the couple in the corner and then straight to them.
The Runner locked eyes with her, and his narrowed. Noble hooked his fingers around her thigh, brushing against her again at the same time he pulled her ear-lobe in between his lips.
She arched back and gasped. The Runner’s lip curled and he turned away.
“You can have your weak drink and pox-ridden prostitutes.”
Marietta felt a slice of outrage pierce her haze. She was neither a prostitute nor pox-ridden. The green man with his comment of “a fine woman” rose through the roof in her esteem, while the Runner buried himself six feet below.
The Runner sneered at the serving gal, and all hell broke loose.
“Don’t you sneer at Betsy!”
She felt Noble chuckle against her throat, warm puffs of air hitting her skin and then skittering away. He looked up and sat back to watch the fray. She grabbed her ale and took a few quick gulps.
