“Idiot,” Lord Sinclair muttered, his eyes on the fight. “Move your feet, Talbot!” he then bellowed.
“Hello, Tilly.”
“Lord Seddon. I’m sorry, it is my fault that Lord Talbot is fighting, but I should be extremely grateful if you would help stop that man from hurting him.”
“Knowing Talbot as I do, Tilly—and my name is Leo, as I believe I have already told you—I doubt anyone could make him do anything.”
“Talbot can hold his own,” Mr. Sinclair said. “Fret not, Miss Wilson.” He then produced something from his pocket that looked like a half-eaten pie and took a large bite.
“Move faster!” Lord Sinclair roared. “Don’t give him a target, Talbot!”
Ambrose took a punch to the stomach and returned it with a left and then a right to Dill’s jaw. The man stumbled but stayed upright.
“It will take more than that, Ambrose. Do as we taught you!” Leo bellowed. He himself was now eating something minty. He held the paper out to her, and as she was feeling light-headed, she took a sweet seeing as Barnaby had eaten hers.
“Look for weakness!” Mr. Sinclair called over the roar of the crowd now gathered.
Ambrose dodged and weaved, and Dill kept coming, although his nose was now bleeding and his jaw swelling.
“Finish him, Dill!” another roared, “Or we’ll have to step in.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Lord Sinclair said loudly, his voice carrying to everyone in the circle. “We may be noblemen, but we can fight, I assure you.”
That caused a few murmurs, but no one moved to intervene.
Leo leaned down to whisper words in her ear. “Do you carry something with a thimble attached to it, Tilly?”
“I-I—yes,” she said, unsure how anyone could know that. She opened her reticule and found the small chain she’d attached the thimble to and showed Leo.
“Ah, well then, it makes perfect sense that I needed to find it and that the search led me to you.”
“And away from the pie cart,” Mr. Sinclair said.
“We had concluded our business, Cam,” Leo said. “I only came with you Sinclairs for the food because I thought we were going to a tavern, not a cart.”
“They are spectacular pies.”
She wanted to yell at the men to be quiet, as Ambrose was fighting, but of course she would never do such a thing. Instead, Tilly watched him shift his weight to the right and then to the left.
“Watch now,” Leo whispered in her ear.
She did, and Ambrose kicked out and caught Dill in the chest. He stumbled back. Ambrose followed and punched him hard in the jaw. The man fell to the ground, where he stayed.
Tilly then watched as Ambrose hauled in a deep breath. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession as he regained his breath before moving to stand over the man.
“You will never touch Miss Little again—or any woman. Do you understand?”
Dill didn’t reply fast enough to that question, so Ambrose bent and grabbed the man’s shirt front, then hauled him off the ground. “Do you understand?”
“Y-yes,” Dill stammered.
Ambrose dropped him, and the man’s head thunked on the ground.
“Well done, Ambrose,” Leo said when he reached them.
“Nothing more to see here. Get about your day,” Lord Sinclair said, dispersing the crowd. “Who does this man belong to?” he added. “Remove him at once.”
Dill was hauled away by two men, his feet dragging on the ground.
