A man, reedy with menace, hit a woman. It was obviously not the first strike—the right side of her face was swollen and cracked in the faint gaslight.
She felt Noble move. A sickening crunch echoed in the alley, and the reedy man howled.
Noble stood to the side, wiping his hands on his trousers as if the mere touch to the other man’s arm had left him with the plague. “Shame about that arm.”
The man charged him.
Marietta winced as another crack sounded, unnatural and loud.
“Do try that again. It would be a pleasure to watch you eat without the use of your hands for the next three months.” He leaned down to the man, not close enough to be struck, but enough so the man shrunk toward the wall. “I will find your address and happilyfeedyou every bite.”
The man gripped his arm and stumbled from the alley. His beating footsteps retreated, leaving the lane in silence.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the woman said. “Eugene will be real mad once he stops being piss scared.” Her chin trembled.
Noble flicked out two fingers holding a card. “Go here. Ask for Peg. She will help you.”
The woman grabbed the card, eyes weighing, no trust in sight, then turned and disappeared the same way the man had gone.
“Will she go?” Marietta asked, shock still holding her immobile but something in the woman’s eyes prompting the question.
“Perhaps. Some do, some don’t. One has to want to be helped. Come.”
Gabriel Noble stretched out a hand to her. She took it.
Chapter 9
He stared challengingly at her across the table a week later.
“I don’t trust you with it,” she said.
“I’m hurt. Really, you don’t think I can do this simple task after all we’ve done together. After all of the places I’ve opened that you thought could never be unlocked?”
They had spent another week visiting Clerkenwell and the surrounding areas. Questioning people. Calling in favors. Making another visit to Cold Bath and Kenny.
Her brother had looked even worse than before, despair turning down his eyes and sagging his jaw.
Casenton, Alcroft’s contact and favor, had come through and the trial had been delayed two weeks. They had one week remaining. Time was dwindling.
“Gaining us access to Cold Bath is one thing,” she said. “This is something entirely different.”
She was pleased to see the amusement in his eyes. He hadn’t been nearly so jovial earlier when they’d run into Arthur Dresden, the Runner, again. “How do you think I get by without servants, Marietta?”
“Well,Gabriel.”It seemed silly to keep calling him Noble after having her lips locked to his for most of the previous nights this week when they were out and in costume. “I think you get by because your dear Clarisse and Mrs. Rosaire organize things so that you can.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is.”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily. “Would you like to make a bet, then?”
The challenge was too good. And she desperately needed to continue the lighthearted banter after their trying day. After seeing Kenny looking so poorly. “Yes, I suddenly find myself curious to see what you can burn over the fire.”
“Burn? I see.”
“Come now,” she scoffed. “You eat terribly. I’ve seen you ingest pints of tea and that awful coffee you enjoy instead of having a full, hearty meal. If it weren’t for Mrs. Rosaire’s soups and stews, delicious as they are, I think you might have withered away to a coffee bean by now.”
“Is that so?”
