She remained silent.
She desperately and swiftly tried to draw a few conclusions from what she could see. She didn’t suppose his clothes were fine, but neither were they not fine. His coat was blue and his buttons were brass and his trousers were pressed. His boots were polished, if creased. His face was friendly, and reminded her a bit of a hound’s, with brown eyes flanking a pointed nose and deep grooves about his mouth. His smile was very broad.
Aurelie kept her own smile in place, but it felt stiff. “Has my brother told you very much about me, then?”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Gallagher—wink!—I do wonder at your alias! But I so hoped you would be so kind as to take a brief walk with me? I should like to buy you the nicest ice in London so we can have a chat, but I’ve to bring these books to a fellow down the street before his shop closes. He was promised them earlier in the day but we had a bit of trouble with the press.”
He gestured with a little bundle under his arm: he was indeed carrying books.
Regardless, he was already walking away from herat a very brisk pace, threading through the crowd. And this struck her as ungentlemanly, indeed.
Her choice was to hover there in front of the shop, board the nearest hack, or to chase him, something no lady would ever likely do.
Her rapid internal coin toss decided it. She found herself walking alongside him, struggling to match his speed.
“What is it you would like to sell?” he asked cheerily. “I surmised that ‘dispose of personal property’ was a fancy way of saying ‘sell something,’ am I right? I’ve many friends among the merchants here and I can probably help easily with anything you need to convert into good English currency.”
“I don’t know if I should...”
And now she was nearly panting to keep up. His long-legged stride seemed astonishingly rude, even if he had a very good reason to hurry, but his vigorous cheer was so at odds with this she simply could not decide what do to.
“Oh, come now,” he said jocularly. “You can tell me. We might even be able to sell it tonight!”
“I’ve a necklace,” she said shortly.
She regretted it at once.
She turned to look behind her. She saw no hacks on the street, and none ahead of her either.
“Is it a very fine one?” He didn’t sound unduly interested. “Must be, if it’s important to sell it.”
That’s when she realized two things at once.
They’d come abreast of a little alley, into which he swiftly turned.
And sunset was officially over, the sky was dim, and that alley was filled with shadows.
She came to an abrupt halt and turned back toward the street.
Whereupon he swiveled so that he stood in front of her, herding her into the alley, while his tall, broad self blocked her view of the street. And the street’s view of her.
She spun to flee; the shadows only seemed deeper at the other end of the alley. There appeared to be only one way in and one way out.
Mother of God. She was trapped.
“You’re not Erasmus Monroe,” she hissed.
He laughed, almost ruefully. “My dear friend handed your message over to me, as he knew precisely what I would do with it. Nowyouhand over the necklace—there’s a good girl,” he said briskly, “and everything else you have in your dainty bag without a fuss. A scream might get the attention of a Charlie, but then it will all come out that you’re the kind of woman who goes unattended to an unmarried man’s house during the day, and for a stroll with another strange man down this alley, well, I don’t think that will go well for you at all. Why don’t you do the sensible thing, so I won’t have to hurt you.”
She was shocked to find that her rage was stronger than fear. It was just that she was really very, very weary of being afraid. For a mad moment she was almost glad she’d been herded into an alley. Because he might very well bloody kill her, and it might partially be her own fault if he did, but she was going to jam a foot in his baubles first. She was going to kick and scream and scratch. She was going to do some damage.
She raised her knee to do that.
“I’ve not got all evening, Mrs. Gallagher,” he said impatiently. His hand reached toward her. “Give it—”
“Choose where you’d like the bullet to end you. Your head or your heart. It’s all the same to me.”
Like the proverbial ghost who was not there oneminute and there the next, Hawkes had somehow materialized. And he, terrifyingly, had a pistol aimed right at the back of the man’s head.
