A second later, blood oozed from his nose.
Her first thought—God help her—was that it would be remarkably difficult to get blood out of the carpet.
Brinker moaned, and his hand twitched.
“Oh, you’rethatCaptain Hardy,” he murmured.
Delilah stared at Tristan. What on earth didthatmean?
But Tristan was a blur again. He caught hold of the big rectangular Brinker by his arm and yanked all thousand stone of him to his feet. The man slumped like a marionette from Tristan’s grip before he somewhat found his footing.
“Wait here for me, Delilah,” he commanded her.
They disappeared from view.
She heard the door open and close.
She wouldn’t think of countermanding his order to wait. She sank down onto the settee. She wrapped her arms around her torso as if they were chains that could protect her, but she couldn’t seem to stop the sudden, violent shaking.
The blindingly swift, preternaturally confident, skillful violence: she could hardly believe this man was the same one who read every night, an island of calm.
What did Brinker mean...thatCaptain Hardy?
Chapter Eighteen
Tristan stepped outside with his sagging, moaning, bleeding cargo and whistled softly.
A moment later, Morgan and Halligan, who happened to be watching The Grand Palace on the Thames at the moment, emerged from the shadows. He gave them hurried instructions to get Brinker as far away from the building as quickly as possible without killing him.
His heart in his throat, he returned moments later and sat down next to Delilah on the settee.
She didn’t lift her face from her hands. She was visibly trembling.
He laid his locked pistol carefully on the table. He shook out of his coat.
Then very gently settled it over her shoulders.
She didn’t look up then, either. But she took a long breath and sighed.
The trembling eased.
And something eased in him, too, to the point of being exulting.
“Delilah...” he said softly. Neither of them noticed he’d used the name he called when he was alone in bed, watching the ceiling, but never aloud to her. “Are you unharmed?”
She nodded without lifting her head.
“Would you like some brandy, some sherry, some tea, some—”
She shook her head vigorously. “What did you do with him?”
“I put him in a hack and paid them to drive him to the opposite side of London.” It was a slight adulteration of the truth.
She didn’t acknowledge this information with so much as a sound.
“It isn’t fair,” she said finally. The words were somewhat muffled, as she’d yet to take her face from her hands, as if to blot out the scene of assault and violence.
“What isn’t fair?”
