Confusion etched a line along the young man’s brow. “My madam can go hang?”
“You heard me. Madam Dequenne sold the girls. They’re mine to do with as I please.” Jasper eased his grip. “You can’t enjoy working for—”
Hooves clattered nearby. Jasper stole a quick glance. Several streets up, a half squadron of the watch turned onto the street. It galled him that they would patrol near the docks when he needed them least, yet they allowed young women to be plucked from carriage stops the moment they arrived in London.
The fist Jasper clutched twisted free. The young man danced away, dipping down to snatch up his pistol as he passed. He slipped it into a holster. Jasper belatedly noted a second pistol and what appeared to be knife hilts. In moments, the lad’s back came to rest against one of the dark, squat buildings that lined the street.
“This isn’t over, Mclintock,” he warned in a low, menacing voice.
“Somehow, I thought not,” Jasper replied, tone deliberately uninterested.
The lad shimmied up the building’s rough siding like a squirrel and swung onto the rooftop. Ducking low, he ran.
Jasper shook his head. London grew odder every day. He turned and climbed up the carriage to inspect his driver. One of the watchmen called out to his companions, obviously drawn by the movement. As a group, they clattered forward.
Jasper’s man was out cold. He hoped the young fool hadn’t inflicted any lasting harm. Jasper had hired his driver, an older gentleman he’d discovered begging and possessed of a lame leg, to better his conditions, not to see his skull bashed in.
“Who goes there?” one of the watchmen called as they neared.
Jasper probed his driver’s head with light fingers. He didn’t feel any bumps. What had the lad hit him with? The hilt of his pistol?
The city watch encircled his carriage. Jasper’s team snorted. Hooves stomped on the worn cobbles. Well trained as they were, his horses gave no additional evidence of agitation.
“I said, who goes there?” the watchman repeated.
Jasper straightened, standing beside his slumped driver. “Mister Jasper Mclintock,” he called. “My driver seems to be unconscious.”
The front two men exchanged looks. “How do we know you’re Mister Mclintock and not some robber?”
Jasper let out a long, pained sigh and mustered his most cultured, condescending tone, “I am Jasper Arthur Wendell Mclintock, son of the former Duke of Aspen and brother of the current duke, as well as proprietor of The Black Aspen, of which I am certain you have heard, and…”—he looked them over scathingly—“equally certain you have not, nor ever will, enter.”
Even in the dark, he saw the first man color. Horses shifted. One of the men cleared his throat. “And your man just up and went to sleep while driving?”
“I did not say he went to sleep,” Jasper corrected. “I said he’s unconscious. We were set upon by some sort of masked hooligan wielding a pistol.”
“Lord Lefthook?” one of the men suggested, tone eager.
Jasper shook his head. “Certainly not. Lord Lefthook doesn’t incapacitate innocent drivers or threaten with pistols. Also, this man seemed hardly more than a boy. Perhaps sixteen.”
“How do you know his age?” the first watchman asked, still suspicious. “You said he had a mask on.”
Jasper considered a second condescending sigh, generally the best way to fulfill men’s images of how a duke’s son should behave but discarded the notion. “Our would-be robber had a slender build and a light voice, though he’s tall and lithe. Obviously, a youth.”
“So now we have a Little Lefthook running about,” one of the men muttered. “We can’t even catch the first Lefthook.”
“I told you, he was nothing like Lord Lefthook,” Jasper said, offended on Lefthook’s behalf. From the brief encounters he’d had with the man, Lord Lefthook was no hooligan. In truth, Jasper would be surprised if he wasn’t a gentleman.
“Don’t worry, sir, we’ll find this Little Hook,” the foremost watchman said. “Did you see where he went?”
Jasper’s driver let out a groan.
Forgoing more attempts to correct the watchmen, Jasper gestured vaguely over his shoulder as he turned to his man. “He shimmied up that wall and ran off across the roof when he heard you coming.”
“Afraid of us, is he?” The watchman sounded pleased. “He should be. We’ve no place for his kind in London.”
Jasper put a hand on his driver’s shoulder as the man groaned again and blinked.
“Sir?” his man queried, looking up.
