Page 72 of Thief Taker

Pushing back to his feet, Elias spun on shaky legs and stopped dead. A huge man, wearing Salter’s livery and a surly smile, had Kit shoved face-first against the wall with one arm bent painfully behind his back.

“Let him go!” Heart thundering, Elias raised his good hand. “He ain’t part of this.”

Salter’s man snorted. “Mind your manners, mate, or I’ll break his bloody arm.” He yanked hard on Kit’s wrist, making him hiss through his teeth.

Elias surged forward but didn’t see the man behind him, and when the cudgel struck for a second time the world went black before he hit the floor.

Chapter 25

Rigid with shock, Kit watched as the man who’d struck Elias crouched at his side and rolled him onto his back.

There was no blood, but he was very pale. Please. Please let him be all right…

Finally, after an agonising wait, Elias’s eyelids fluttered open.

Thank God.

His attacker nodded at the man holding Kit. “Mr. Salter wants to see that one in his office. Soon as you like.”

There was a grunt of agreement from his captor, and then Kit was hauled away from the wall and shoved towards the door. He got one last glimpse of Elias, lifting a shaky hand to his head, before he was bundled out into the corridor.

Setting aside his concern for Elias, Kit started to pay attention to where he was being taken. One arm was still wrenched behind his back, the brute’s massive hand holding it there while he pushed Kit forward. “You can let me go,” he snapped. “I won’t run.”

He wouldn’t leave Elias.

“That you won’t,” the brute agreed, and didn’t let go.

At the end of the corridor a door stood open and Kit was pushed through. He found himself in a room dominated by a large desk, almost empty save an oil lamp and a neat stack of papers, with a newly lit fire crackling in the grate. The office would have been welcoming in different circumstances.

“Sit,” the man holding him said, giving him a shove towards a chair set before the desk.

Rubbing his wrist, Kit turned a baleful eye on his gaoler. He was ostensibly a footman, judging by the livery, but that was clearly just for show; this man was nothing but a ruffian. He stood blocking the doorway with his bulk, arms crossed over his chest and a look in his eye that invited a fight.

Kit wasn’t fool enough to give him the satisfaction. He refused to sit, though. Turning his back on the bully, he stood facing the desk and waited for what came next.

When Elias returned to his senses, he found himself sprawled on the floor of a small room containing a cold fireplace, a card table, and a couple of armchairs. There was no sign of Kit.

Groggy, he pushed himself to his feet and stood there swaying until the dizziness faded. A narrow window let in a little light and he went to it first, shaking his head to clear the daze. He thought better of that when a nasty pounding kicked off in the back of his skull. He touched his head tentatively, found a sizeable lump, but his fingers didn’t come away bloody.

Outside, there was nothing to see beyond the misty wall of the building next door. He shook the sash, but it wouldn’t budge. Next, he tried the door, also locked. “Damn and bugger it,” he muttered to himself and thumped, once, on the door. There was no response.

With nothing else to do but wait, he dropped into one of the chairs next to the cold fireplace. With any luck, Kit was already on his way home. His status should surely protect him from a man like Salter.

Unless, of course, Marlborough was here…

The prospect of that man getting his hands on Kit made him sick. Closing his eyes, he took a breath, but it didn’t help; all he could see was Kit looking back at him, warm and full of affection.

God, he could lose himself in those soft eyes.

A small voice whispered that he already had. And the worst of it was that the feeling wasn’t desire. Well, not only desire. It was something else, something that made his blood prickle to the tips of his fingers, and he wasn’t sure whether that feeling was dread or anticipation.

Not that any of it would matter if he met his end here, basted and dropped out of a window into the filth below. Or, worse, if Kit did—and because of him. Because he’d used Kit to pursue Rowsley.

Elias’s stomach clenched and he shifted in his chair. After a moment he got up and prowled back to the window, then to the door. He listened, heard nothing.

Damn them, how long must he wait?

After some time, Kit heard quick footsteps in the corridor and turned around.