Page 53

Night had already fallen, the streetlamps sending a fitful light to guide him.

Neddy and Martina had headed toward the parks, though the thought of Georgie alone in a park after dark terrified him.

She was so bloody fearless, and too innocent to realize her danger.

Her being anywhere after dark, alone, without him to protect her, was enough to send cold shivers through him, and he moved faster.

He had people he could ask, down by the docks, and he pushed through the thinning crowds, heading toward the slums, when a carriage pulled up beside him.

“Rafferty, me boy,” came Billy Stiles’s jovial voice. “Out on the town, I see, when you ought to be home searching for my money.”

Rafferty stopped in his tracks. “What do you want, Billy?” He didn’t make the mistake of thinking this was a coincidence.

“The question, my boy, is what do you want? I have a young lady here who is most anxious to return home.”

Ice formed in his veins. “Let her go, Billy.”

“Oh, I think not. I’m tired of waiting—I told you that. It’s time for you to bring me my money.”

“I haven’t got your money. I’ve got money of my own, I can give you that...”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Belding had a fortune tucked away in that house—your paltry money couldn’t touch it. I want the money that’s owed me. If you don’t want your throat cut in an alleyway, you’ll get it for me.”

“First give me Miss Manning.”

“She’s fine where she is, ain’t you, darling?”

He could see her then in the dark confines of the coach, and if she’d looked terrified he would have lost his mind. Instead, her eyes met his, and there was no missing the anger in them. For Stiles, or for him? For both of them, he suspected. It would be no more than he deserved.

“I’d like to go home,” she said politely enough.

“And so you shall, me darling, if your lover would just take care of business.”

“He’s not my lover,” she said in an icy voice.

“I’ll bring you the money tonight,” Rafferty said rashly. “Where do you want me to come? Your house?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Too many people about—if my men knew I’d found Belding’s pot, they’d want a piece of it.”

“I thought you were planning on sharing it,” Rafferty shot back.

“Now why would I do that? Meet me by Landon Bridge and I’ll bring you the girl.

But no tricks. I can slice her throat faster than you can stop me.

” He leaned over and caught Georgie’s chin in his hand.

“Though I’d like to have a taste of her before I do it.

See what you find so exciting about the other half. ”

“Get your hands off her.”

Stiles released her with a little laugh. “Shall we say midnight, then? Why not be melodramatic with our little play?”

Rafferty wracked his brain. It would take time to get the money together, and too much of it was in land, but no one knew for sure how big Belding’s cache was, and in the darkness he could fool Stiles long enough to kill him.

“Ten o’clock,” he said recklessly. He didn’t want Georgie in his hands for a minute longer than necessary.

“Too many witnesses. Midnight, at Landon Bridge. And I don’t need to warn you to come alone.”

“I’ll bring Martin.”

Stiles snorted. “Fat lot of good he’d do. Certainly, bring your catamite. But since you two are so close, I wonder you‘d want to bother with this young lady.”

“Touch her again and I’ll cut off your hands.”

Stiles merely laughed, and his teeth shone in the gaslight. “Midnight.”

She was going to die, Georgie thought. She was sitting in a room full of noisy men and women, and no one was paying any attention to her, thank God, but the ropes around her wrists and ankles were too tight, and the strip of cloth wrapped around her face was cutting into her mouth.

All she could use was her eyes, and she didn’t want to be seeing half of what she was seeing.

Where was Rafferty? She had no idea of the time, but he would be there, she knew he would.

By Landon Bridge, wherever that was, carrying a fortune’s ransom.

Billy Stiles wasn’t going to let them go.

Why should he, and risk retribution? Her ears were working too, for all that everyone seemed to have forgotten about her, and she heard Billy quite clearly.

“You stay in the shadows, and when I give the signal you shoot him. I’ll cut the girl’s throat and we’ll be gone before you can say Bob’s your uncle. ”

“Why don’t I shoot her too?” the man had demanded.

“Because you won’t have time to reload,” Stiles said patiently.

“I could bring two guns.”

“Because I want to see if the upper classes bleed blue.”

“Do they?” the first man said in wonder.

“No, you fool. Because two guns would make you clumsy, and I don’t want any mistakes. I want this over and done with.”

“But what if he really can’t find the money? Won’t killing him mean he’ll never find it?”

“Jonesy, when I want to explain my thinking to you, I’ll let you know,” Stiles said. “Go and bother someone else—I’ve got some drinking to do.”

She watched as the heavyset man walked away. Of course Stiles had set a trap—she should have expected it. And Rafferty would expect it as well—he knew Stiles of old. He wouldn’t just walk into the night to be shot. Maybe he wouldn’t come at all, leaving her to her fate.

It would simplify his life, after all. She was just a tedious responsibility, one he was tired of.

He was sick of her following him around and looking at him with calf’s eyes.

Martina had had it right—“he doesn’t want you,” she’d said, and those words had been a death knell in her heart.

Maybe she didn’t care if Stiles cut her throat after all.

Yes, she did. Because Martina was wrong.

When it came right down to it, and she was staring death in the face, she couldn’t believe that he didn’t want her.

Oh, he might not love her—she was inconvenient, silly, smitten.

But as for not wanting her, that was blatantly untrue.

He wouldn’t have kissed her. He wouldn’t have.

.. She blushed at the memory, feeling it warm her cramped body.

His hands on her—she could still feel them.

The feel of him inside her, his mouth on hers, the wall of the pantry against her back.

He would rescue her, and he would fall in love with her.

She would make it happen. At least if she was going to her death, she was going to believe that with all her heart.

The hours passed in a blur of pain and misery, but she didn’t cry, tempted though she was.

Now was not the time for despair. She had to keep her wits about her if she was going to survive the night and not get in Rafferty’s way.

When they finally cut the ropes that were binding her ankles and pulled her to her feet, she fell, collapsing to the floor to the great merriment of those around. Stiles hauled her up again.

“Time to go, missy. Your lover awaits.”

Her feet felt numb, her ankles screamed with pain, but she had no choice. With her hands still bound in front of her, she stumbled after him, his hand heavy on her arm, out into the midnight air, the hulking man beside him.

It was a good thing he was too greedy to share the money—the two of them would make better odds for Rafferty.

Unless the man did as Stiles told him and shot from the shadows.

She still had the gag around her mouth, but she suspected she could scream anyway, make some kind of warning noise.

The smartest thing she could probably do was trip and go flat on the filthy street.

Unless she was going to be a true heroine and leap in front of the gun, exchanging her life for Rafferty’s.

It was a lovely thought for a brief moment.

He would weep over her body, in despair that he hadn’t realized how much he loved her and now she had died for him, but she dismissed the idea.

Touching though it was, she wouldn’t be around to enjoy his remorse, and she staggered after Stiles in the cold night air, trying to think of some other way to warn him.

The night was still and quiet, and they passed few people as they made their way through the filthy neighborhoods.

That, or everyone gave them a wide berth.

She had no idea which was Landon Bridge, but it turned out to be a small bridge crossing an offshoot of the Thames, and he placed her in the shadows.

“You’ll be a good girl, now, won’t you?” he said cheerfully, a light in his eyes.

“I’m looking forward to this. Oh, not the money, though I’ve waited long enough for that.

No, Rafferty’s been an itch on my arse for too long now, and I’m finally getting rid of him.

As for you, I’ll give you your choice. You can join my girls, or I can cut your throat.

I’ll make it fast if I can—no one ever said Billy Stiles wasn’t a thoughtful bloke. ”

There was no way she could answer him. She really didn’t want to bleed to death on a filthy London street, but at the moment she was more worried about Rafferty.

She didn’t see him, but Stiles knew when he was there. “That you, Rafferty, my boy?” he called into the darkness. “Aren’t you going to show yourself?”

“And give you a perfect target? What kind of fool do you think I am?” came his disembodied voice.

It happened so fast she didn’t have time to fight. Billy grabbed her and pulled her against his stocky body, and she felt the sting of the knife against her throat. “I can finish her in a trice, Rafferty, if you don’t show that pretty face of yours. And you’d best have my money.”

“I’ve got it,” came a familiar voice, but the young man who stepped into the small pool of light was a stranger. He was carrying a heavy box and he set it down on the ground where he stood.

“It’s my old friend Martin,” Billy cooed. “Should have known he’d bring you into it. Bring the box over here, there’s a good lad.”

“Let her go, Billy,” came Rafferty’s voice from the darkness.

“Not a chance. You’d shoot me as soon as look at me. Don’t you trust me, Rafferty, my boy? After all we’ve been together?”

“Let her go,” he said again, his voice like steel.

“I don’t think—” An explosion rent the night air, and fire spat out from beneath the bridge as Billy’s accomplice shot into the dark. She tried to pull away, but Stiles held her tight.

“That Jonesy?” Rafferty’s voice came floating back. “He never could hit the broadside of a barn. See to him, Martin.”

The young man headed for the bridge, a small gun in his hand, and in the still night air, Georgie could hear footsteps as Jonesy ran away.

“That just leaves you and me, Billy,” Rafferty said in an amiable voice. “Why don’t we end this now?”

“You’re forgetting I have the lady.”

“I’m not forgetting. Let her go and you can have the money.”

“But we both know that’s not Belding’s cache. He would have at least twice as much money tucked away there, which you should have been able to find.”

“It’s not there,” Rafferty said flatly.

“Then whose money is this?”

“Mine.”

“Not enough.”

“It’ll have to do.”

Stiles suddenly ripped off the enveloping gag, freeing Georgie’s voice. “Want to tell him goodbye?” The knife pressed against her throat.

She was going to die. It didn’t seem real, but it was happening, and she could think of only one thing to say. “I love you, Jamie,” she said in a choked voice, and closed her eyes.

The explosion was deafening, the fire burned her, and she fell to her knees, then her stomach in the filthy street as she was flattened beneath Billy Stiles’s body. He didn’t move.

She couldn’t hear a thing, she couldn’t breathe, and she closed her eyes, struggling uselessly against the heavy weight.

A moment later, she was free, and Rafferty was there, pulling her into his arms, holding her so tightly she would have protested if she hadn’t liked it so much.

He was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear a word, she just put her arms around him and clung tight, safe and loved, if for only that moment.

He reached down and cradled her face, and there was blood on his fingertips as he brushed her skin, and some of his words began to penetrate the blank fog. “You’re...bleeding,” he said, pushing her loose hair away from her face. “I was afraid...hurt you...love...”

He said “love” but she couldn’t hear the rest of his muffled words. She put up her hand to her face and it came away smoky and bloody. A moment later, he’d scooped her up in his arms, holding her tightly.

“Is...hurt?” came the truncated words of the young man, and Georgie turned her face to look into Martina’s dark brown eyes. She stared in wonder, and the young man smiled wryly. “You’ll...be...fine,” he said. “Just let...Rafferty...care of you.”

It was too much. She closed her eyes and fainted.