Dorian knew he must be patient, but he was no fool. When the truth was that the investigators were no further from where they’d started, Dorian had cut them off. He’d then gone and done what he should have done in the first place: find someone who had their nose to the ground.
“I hope Crawley has something for me,” he murmured as the carriage sprinted through the streets.
Whitechapel was one of the slums he knew very well, having cleaned chimneys for years and playing a poor urchin begging for scraps while really spying on competing gangs for Sterling.
He winced while passing a corner, the memory of his sixteen-year-old head getting slammed on bricks during a fight. When the phantom pain hit, he reflexively touched two inches over his left ear to caress the scar under his hair.
When the hackney halted down the road from the tavern, Dorian stepped out and fixed the faded cloak over his shoulders. His workaday plain trousers, shirt, and worn boots would not draw attention from the people inside.
The tavern was packed with the usual crowd of working men and riff-raff, the air ripe with the unwashed bodies, blue ruin, cheap tobacco smoke, and sweat. Pushing his way through the rowdy main room, he went to the very back, where Crawley preferred to drink.
He spotted Crawley—moments before a drunkard planted a fist in his face.
Dorian wanted to leap in, but he stayed a safe distance behind, aware that there would be no place to hide should he be spotted. He kept his hand in his pocket, next to the solid handle of the pistol he carried.
It was a habit to enter the stews armed—he had lived in the stews long enough to know anyone who did not, hardly came out unharmed. Habit, again.
Crawley shoved back, flinging his punch out, and the two scrabbled into a drunken brawl. The crowd behind him got tight, and a body propelled from the side, slamming into him.
Dorian held onto his balance, stumbling backward as another body followed the first. He stepped out of harm’s way as a second set of fists began to fly. There was shouting and the crack of glass against stone.
Pressing his back to a wall, he watched in thick worry as Crawley and the other man held broken bottles in hand while a crowd of onlookers gathered around like sharks waiting for blood to flow.
When it became clear that Crawley was too drunk to defend himself, Dorian sprang in and yanked the attacker away from Crawley, delivering an elbow strike to his gut and an uppercut to the man’s head to send him to the floor.
A wave of dissatisfied boos and hisses met his ears, but Dorian ignored them; he needed Crawley alive. He turned to find his party in a headlock from another man—who, with a swift grin, slit Crawley’s throat.
Dorian lurched forward but knew it was too late.
The murderer darted through the door behind him, and Dorian followed at a dead run through the rookery’s twisted maze with agility, dashing through dark alleyways and twisting streets, pushing through the midnight crowds spilling out of other taverns.
He turned left and saw immediately that it was a dead end, and spun around before a blast tore through the night. The bullet hit the stone an inch from his head.
“He knew you would be chasing me,” the man muttered, coming from the gloom.
“He,who?” Dorian asked calmly.
“Don’t play dumb,Your Grace,” the man sneered. “The ghost from your past is telling you to stop chasing him, or the worst is yet to come. Stop searching for him, you will not like the results.”
“Tell my traitorous uncle I will find him,” Dorian snarled. “And he will pay.”
“Not in this lifetime, guv’.” The man fired another shot, and the bullet slammed into Dorian’s arm—the pain was ungodly. “That was a warning.Heed to it.”
CHAPTER 5
It was well past midnight, but Ellie had not been able to catch a wink of sleep—the sole reason,Dorian Beaumont.
The night air brushed against her cheeks, cool and somewhat soothing after the hour she’d spent tossing in her bed. She hadn’t been able to sleep. The moment her eyes closed, she thought of the aggravating man.
“ADuke,” she muttered tiredly. “He claims he is a Duke, but he wants to be the lord of criminals. It is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.”
Shifting, she punched her pillow into shape and then pressed her cheek on it. “The man is truly an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and cloaked in an obscurity.”
The grating screech of a doorway had her jerking up in fear; had Carrington found her? Darting up, she considered hiding in thewashing room—when she heard Dorian’s guttural curse and a horrendous crash.
Rushing into the main room, her eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness, but she spotted Dorian staggering to the other end of the room, clutching his left arm.
“Dorian,” she rushed to him. “Are you—”
