“Is that to cover the smell?” he asked as he rounded the corner. “Or quiet yer breathing?” He let his accent roughen up to match the tone of this bastard. That wasn’t an insult, but the literal truth by accident of birth. He knew this man and thought him a decent man for a Bow Street Runner.
“Jesus, Reuben, why didn’t you say it was you? Would have saved me from running halfway round London.”
“It was less than ten blocks, you fat bastard. Millie’s cooking’s got you slow.”
“Aye,” he said, patting his belly. “She’s a right good cook.”
She was also the best childhood friend of Reuben’s second cousin. The runner’s name was Sammy Watts, and he was a close enough to be considered family. Distant family, perhaps, but in London that meant he lived a mile away.
“What’s got you out here this time of night?” Reuben asked.
The man flashed a grin. “Besides the babe squalling at all hours?”
The child was a healthy little boy with lungs that could and had kept the neighbors awake. “Aye.”
Sammy moved away from the pile of rubbish and Reuben matched his pace. “Three Scottish gents came to t’ office a few days ago. Said they were looking for a girl named Iseabail Spalding. Paid me to find her.”
The baron, no doubt, looking for his charge. “Did they say why they wanted her?”
“Said she’s a runaway bride.” He snorted. “Can’t say I blame her. The man’s an ugly brute.”
“The husband-to-be came here?”
“Not to-be. Says they’re married in the Scottish way. No idea what that’s to mean, but I can tell he means to whip her for his troubles.”
“You mean beat her.”
“Nah. Said he’s got a riding crop with her name on it.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t give a mangy dog to ’im, but that’s the law. If they’re wed—”
“There’s naught to be done fer ’er.”
They walked in silence for a bit. Reuben knew where they were going. After all, they lived within a few blocks of each other, and he allowed that they could travel that way together. Reuben kept quiet knowing that Sammy would start speaking eventually. He was one who had to talk his thoughts through before he decided on an action.
“Didn’t take me long to find ’er. Only delay was on account of me not thinking she’d be with the nobs. But then I heard about these Scottish ladies causing a stir. One of them was accused of killing a lord.”
“That was Sadie Allen, not Iseabail Spalding.”
“Aye. But it was enough to find out who they were.” He shrugged. “And since the babe was squalling fit to wake the dead, I thought I’d come by the house. Talk to the servants and the like. Didn’t think to see her standing bold as brass with her bubbies out.” Sammy cast a sidelong look at Reuben. “I wanted to see who her lover was. Didn’t think it would be you.”
That’s why Sammy had stepped out. He’d been trying to see who stood under the streetlight.
“It’s not me. I’m not her lover.”
“Sure looked like ye were what with bowing before her like some Frenchie courtier.”
Reuben shot him an irritated glare. “I’m not her lover. I don’t think she has one.”
“Sure, she don’t.” Sarcasm lay thick in his voice. “All them Scots stand naked beneath the moonlight. It’s a national pastime.”
“Could be,” Reuben answered. “There’s different and then there’s—”
“Scottish different?” Sammy elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t be daft. She was calling to someone an’ you know it.”
He didn’t know it. Her gaze hadn’t been out on the street. She’d been looking up at the moon and lifting her face to the breeze. And the moment she looked down to see him, she’d dropped out of sight as if she’d been felled. For all he knew, she’d been doing some spell taught to her by her witch mother or grandmother.
“She’s not the type,” Reuben said.
“Yer thinking with yer prick. Ye saw her bubbies and now you want to worship at her cunny, not thinking about who else might have seen—”
