“Now!” Robert barked.
The man scurried out of his coat, handing it to Robert without a word of protest. Everything seemed to happen in a blur as carriages rambled past, people in drab clothes walked along, and then before Louisa could even think, Robert had slipped into the jacket and backed her up against the wall of a building. His arm came above her head, blocking her with his body.
“What are you doing?” she hissed. Her chest rapidly rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath.
“I am hoping to hide in plain sight.” He leaned his head against his hand on the wall, closing his eyes.
“And what if it doesn’t work?”
“Then I am going to receive the beating of a lifetime and you are going to run and hail a hackney cab.”
“I can’t leave you to be beaten!”
“Yes, you can. And you will.” He opened his eyes, gazing down at her. “Do you see them?”
Louisa peered over his shoulder toward the alley they had emerged from. Five men were standing at the entrance, looking up and down the street. “Yes. They are looking for us.”
“Are they looking this way?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Try not to move. The less attention we draw, the better.”
“Wait,” she muttered. One of the men’s attention snagged on them, reaching out to another of his comrades. “I think one is suspicious.”
Another oath slipped from Robert’s lips as he grimaced. He took a deep breath and then paused. “Are they still looking?”
Louisa flicked her eyes over to the men again. “Only two. They seem unsure.”
“We need to make them more unsure.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Robert brought his face lower. His nose lightly brushed her jaw, and he dragged it along until it tickled the hollow behind her ear. She rolled her shoulder as a tingle ran down her neck. “Goodness. You don’t think this will draw more attention?”
“No. They will do their best to pretend they do not see us, which should work to our benefit.” He spoke as if he had all the time in the world and there weren’t five men chasing them down in the streets.
His lower lip gently skimmed the lobe of her right ear, and her eyes fluttered closed. “Have you done this before?” She inhaled a shaky breath. “You seem quite adept at it.”
“Not once. I must be a natural.”
She would have laughed, but she was only hanging on to her sanity by a thread, and laughing seemed impossible at the moment.
“Are they still there?” he whispered, his voice gruff in her ear.
She forced her eyes open, attempting to nonchalantly glance toward the alleyway. “They are looking around but not at us.” Louisa glanced back just in time to see him swallow, and her eyes traced the motion down his throat.
“Very well. I could think of worse ways to spend an afternoon. But you would do better to seem a more willing participant in our endeavor.”
She looked up to find him smiling down at her—but words wouldn’t come. Since when washeable to tease while she remained mute?
“No retort?” He quirked a brow. “That is most unlike you. Are you unsettled?” He leaned down again, his lips teasing herjaw until they paused just below her mouth. “Tell me to stop, Duchess.”
Louisa was completely, utterly, irrevocably undone. She could tell him no such thing, because she did not want him to.
But then sense crept in once more. She tore her eyes away from him and glanced back toward the alley. “I think they are gone,” she whispered.
It was true. The men had moved on.
