Page 7 of A Story of Love

She scrabbled at the windowsill for purchase, but her thick leather gloves skittered uselessly across the rough windowsill. Time seemed to stand still as the precarious pillar of pallets swayed from side to side.

And then the claws in her back scaled up her neck and Lori screamed again and thrashed her arms, trying to dislodge her tormentor.

Down the tower went, both Lori and her squirming passenger screeching the entire way to the ground.

The journey was short, but still long enough for Lori to be grateful that she’d had the foresight to empty several crates’ worth of softwood shavings at the base of her platform. But even with that to break her fall, Lori hit the cobbles hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.

The cat suffered no such loss of wind thanks to having Lori’s body as a cushion. It screeched loudly in her ear, used her back as a mounting block to push off, and disappeared into the moonless night with a final feline yowl.

Panic seized her when she couldn’t breathe, but without any air in her lungs, Lori was at least spared the mortification of howling like the cat.

It felt like a lifetime but was probably less than a minute before she could finally inhale. The first thing she did after drawing a thin stream of air into her starved lungs was make sure she could still move her arms and legs.

Her legs felt undamaged, but a sharp pain shot from her right wrist when she tried to rotate it. It didn’t hurt enough to be broken, but it was a painful sprain. Lori grimaced. Wonderful; she needed her right hand to write.

Not if you don’t get this story.

That was true.

Something fluttered far above her and Lori squinted. “Oh, bother!” she hissed when she recognized her cloak; somehow it had become snagged on the brickwork just beneath the window.

It wasn’t just her cloak that was lost; her money was in the hidden pocket of the heavy wool garment.

“Drat, drat, drat,” she muttered. If this wasn’t the most humiliating night of her life, it was certainly close.

Lori tried to look for a silver lining in the situation. At least she was alone and nobody except the cat had witnes—

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” a deep, cultured voice demanded from the darkness.

Lori uttered a shriek and scrambled to stand. An ominous riiiiip accompanied her hasty movement and cool night air whispered along bare skin that should not have felt it. She hastily pulled up her torn bodice and held it closed while she pushed up onto her knees.

Or at least she tried to do so, but her skirt held her back, evidently snagged on something.

Lovely. Just lovely.

“Is this tattered look the new fashion for ladies in London?” the same male voice as before asked. “I would have returned to England decades earlier if I had but known.”

Male laughter filled the air and three—no, four—men materialized from the gloom. One of the men was huge—even bigger than Lord Severn—and all four of them loomed over her.

“Very droll,” she retorted, pleased when her voice didn’t shake. At least not much. “I don’t suppose one of you gentlemen would help me up?”

“Allow me.” The owner of the voice came closer. Lori recognized him as one of the men she had seen with Lord Severn in the past. He was garbed in far nicer clothing than his three cohorts—snug buckskins, a neatly tied cravat, and a well-fitted clawhammer coat—and wouldn’t have been out of place riding in Hyde Park. He smirked down at her, his sharp featured face devilish in the low light, and held out a hand. “Up you get, miss.”

Lori reluctantly set her hand in his, and then yelped as a piece of rough, splintered lumber scraped across her bare bottom when she began to stand.

“Do stop yanking on my arm,” she demanded, rather unfairly as the man hadn’t been pulling at all.

He immediately released her. “Sorry, love,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. Certainly not looking sorry.

“My skirt is still caught on something,” she said, pulling on the fabric, which stubbornly refused to budge. “I need help to get it loose,” she added, when the obtuse fool refused to see that she only had one hand available as the other was needed to hold her torn bodice closed.

“By all means use both hands. You needn’t bother yourself about modesty. It’s nothing we’ve not seen before.”

“I beg to differ, you—you cad. I am very much something you’ve never seen before.”

The men hooted, causing Lori to feel as if she had her very own Greek chorus.

“That’s enough, lads,” the leader chided smilingly. He gestured to the mountain of a man. “Help the lady, Barker.”