“Can I help you?” she asked getting to her feet.
“Not at all,” he said, not bothering to give her a second look. Instead, he looked straight at Beau.
“Would you be Mr. da Silva?” the porter asked.
Beau had already lowered his paper and looked up at the porter with undisguised curiosity. “Who is asking?”
“Just checking the passenger list,” the porter replied.
Maddy gripped the book in her hands. She’d bought two second class tickets. She’d given no names.
“Look,” Beau said, “I don’t know who you’re looking for, but if it’s a reward you’re trying to collect, you’re about eight hours too?—”
Beau’s protest was interrupted when the man grabbed him and pulled him to his feet. The attacker pulled back a fist, ready to plant it into Beau’s jaw, no doubt to make it easier to subdue him.
He never got the chance.
Maddy’s fist connected with the man’s ribs where he’d raised his arm to throw a punch. The force of the blow caused him to contort his body in pain. Maddy lunged at him, preparing to spin him around and incapacitate him when a second person grabbed her from behind. She sensed he was shorter than her, and using her size to her advantage, threw herself backward against the wood-panelled walls of the compartment. She heard the heavy thud of his head against the wall, along with a loud oomph, but he still had her, one his hands pressed hard against her throat. Unable to pry his fingers off her neck, she reached for the small stiletto blade sheathed on the inside of her wrist and drove it into the man’s arm. He released her amidst a sharp cry of pain and a string of curses.
Pushing herself away from her attacker, she turned around and knocked him out cold with a strong upper cut to his jaw before turning her attention back to the man who’d charged at Beau.
For his part, Beau was struggling with his assailant, but seemed to have the upper hand until the man pulled a knife from his jacket, swinging it close to Beau’s face.
Maddy wasted no time. She picked up her book from where she’d dropped it and hurled it at the man’s head. He dropped the knife, and Beau grabbed him by the shoulders and pressed him up against the wall.
“Who sent you?” Beau asked.
“No one,” came the dazed reply, before he started to blubber. Maddy almost felt sorry for him. There were a dozen of reasons why these men thought going after Beau was a good idea, and some of them would have been desperation. But given the angry red mark on Beau’s face, and the fact this attacker had tried to use a weapon, left Maddy with little sympathy for either of them at the moment.
She spotted a thick, folded sheet of paper bulging in the man’s coat pocket. She reached inside and pulled out the page. It was one of the public notices about Beau.
“Idiot,” Beau said, his voice haggard from the fight. “You’re about eight hours too late to make your money.” The porter—if he was in fact a porter—was a clean-shaven man in his mid-twenties with a nasty mark on his cheek that was already forming a welt.
The fracas had already brought a handful of onlookers to the door, and one of them must have gone to fetch train staff, for before Maddy could contemplate their next move, the head steward was already present.
“What’s going on here?”
Maddy and Beau exchanged a glance before Beau spoke up—the first since they’d left The Grove. While it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to get into a public brawl, the potential consequences for Maddy, who had two knives hidden on her body, would have meant some fast talking to keep her out of trouble. Luckily for her, Beau was excellent at fast talking.
“An excellent question,” he began, turning from his attacker who slumped to the floor, the fight in him long gone. “Get these two out of here and I’ll explain everything.”
In a fury of male chin rubbing, hard stares, shared in-jokes about fighting styles or lack thereof, and a more serious threat of legal action, the two men were picked up and pulled away, leaving Beau alone with Maddy once more.
“You were fantastic,” Beau said, turning to her, speaking quietly as the hum of the mess being cleared up went on behind them. The warmth in his expression melted away the dull throbbing in her head, twisting the pain back into something tantalizingly like happiness. A happiness she’d rejected last evening.
“Just finally getting to do what you’re paying Everwell for,” she said, unable to help the smile that came to her mouth when she looked at him.
The smile ran away from his lips then. But she needed to remind him, and herself, that whatever had been between them had to end. He had a life to go back to, and so did she. The contract between The Everwell Society and the Turnbulls had been fulfilled.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. How could she sit across from him and not show him that her heart was breaking just to look at him?
“You’re hurt,” she said, gesturing to his cheek. “I should see about getting you some iodine. I’ll be right back.”
“There’s no need,” he protested, but Maddy was already at the door.
* * *
Beau sat in his seat as the clacking of the train over the rails gently rocked him. Instead of looking out over the countryside, however, he found himself staring at the door, waiting for Madeline’s return.
