by Riley Cole
There was no chance he’d survive.
But getting Ramsay to fire might save Meena.
A heartbeat later, he was preparing to push off when a loud rumbling came from his right. He couldn’t quite place it. A thick miasma of rotting garbage assaulted him. The urge to grin almost overwhelmed him, but he beat it back. He didn’t smile, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He couldn’t alert Ramsay to the coming danger.
He tensed, watching for the exact instant when Ramsay’s attention would waver. The moment the other man’s gaze flickered, Spencer threw himself in the opposite direction.
White smoke swirled above him as Sweet’s rubbish cart barreled into Ramsay’s side, shoving him down the grassy slope into the water. The man and the cart tumbled into the pond with an impressive splash.
“Oh Lord! Someone help that man.” Screeching like an empty-headed school girl, Meena appeared above him, her starched maid’s cap dangling off the side of her head. “Somebody do something.”
Spencer jumped to his feet. Ramsay was thrashing about in the knee-deep water, trying to wrestle the refuse cart off him. The two bobbies chasing Spencer dove into the water after him.
Unfortunately, the plain clothes officers converging from the other side of the park did not. Stony-faced, they advanced, their focus unaffected by the shenanigans playing out in the pond.
Spencer swiped at the water dripping from his chin. That presented a problem.
Before he could fashion a plan, Briar materialized through the smoke and maneuvered herself next to them. “How distressing. Oh, my.” She raised a hand to her head and fainted, draping herself over both of the officers like a discarded coat.
Spencer grabbed Meena’s arm and took off running. “Well done,” he observed as they sprinted toward the far corner of the park.
He had a nice little escape route planned out. Still, it wouldn’t do to dawdle. He glanced behind him. It didn’t appear that there were any other men following them, but if the police had led Ramsay to the meeting, his boss could have more men in the area.
He pulled Meena around the corner and forced himself to slow. Ever bit of him yearned to dash onward, but running now, through a quiet neighborhood, would only attract attention. His back prickled as he and Meena strolled down the path between the sedate homes and the quiet street.
Any moment, he expected to feel the barrel of a gun pressed to his spine. Spencer shrugged off the anxiety. Nothing he could do about it now. The way forward required razor focus.
Meena disengaged herself from his grip to fix her cap. Once she’d straightened it, she gave him a questioning look. “Better?”
He trailed a finger down the side of her cheek. “Perfect.”
He expected her to shrug off his compliment, but instead she took his arm, and pressed herself close, until the edge of her breast rubbed against him.
The saucy grin on her face made his breath hitch in his throat.
He wanted to believe it was the fear, or the adrenaline coursing through him, that gave her such power over his emotions. Almost being shot could be expected to put a man off course.
But that wasn’t it.
It wasn’t worry. It wasn’t adrenaline or anxiety or any other such fool construction that made his heart jump.
He very much feared it might be something closer to love. And that seemed about as brilliant as training dragons for house pets.
Only far more dangerous.
“Keep moving,” Spencer ordered.
Meena gave him a sharp look, but she didn’t waste an instant—or a precious bit of breath—protesting. Whatever had gotten into the man, now wasn’t the time to discuss it.
A good thing as it turned out.
They hadn’t made it three houses further down before their pursuers sighted them. “That’s him! That’s the one the inspector wants.”
Spencer took her hand. She grabbed a handful of skirt in the other, and they tore off at an even faster pace. “You did plan out an escape route, I hope?” she asked between breaths.
“I did. You must be rubbing off on me.”
Meena huffed, breathing hard. “I trust that’s a good thing?”
“…like to think.” At the speed they were running, it wasn’t a wonder Spencer couldn’t spare the breath to respond.
Two story homes, each one a mirror image of its neighbor, rose up straight ahead, no street between them. A dead end.
Meena put a hand to her heaving chest. Damn Crane and his lack of preparation. Panic seeped into her bloodstream, making her breath come in choppy gasps.
She slowed, studying the row houses lining each side of the street. Could she climb to safety? Sneak through a bedroom window before the police caught sight? If only she had her picks. Surely at least one of the houses would be unoccupied. But without her picks, she’d never—
“This way.” Spencer dove down a narrow alleyway.
At the far end of the first house, the alley branched off in several directions. He turned again. As they rounded the corner, he tore off her cap.
“Ouch.” Eyes watering, Meena clapped her hands to her head. No reason he had to take her hair with it. She wanted to kick him, but there wasn’t time.
“Apologies.” He tossed the scrap of starched linen toward the alleyway at the far left, then urged her down the center path.
Alley was a generous description. It was more like a footpath behind two rows of large homes. Some homes pushed all the way out into the alley while others retained their original footprint. It made for a crooked and uneven path.
While the facades of the homes they rushed past were brightened by wide, white trim and tall, sparkling windows, the rear entrances were uniformly brown. Reddish brown brick the color of kidney beans pressed in from both sides of the narrow street. Stolid. Weighty. Sinister. Mops, slop pails, and rugs hung to air, cluttered many of the porches. Not even those small signs of life relieved the gloom.
The entire alley brought to mind dried blood.
Meena shook her head and almost stumbled. Spencer threw her a concerned look, but kept up the pace. The chase had drained any humor, any passion or playfulness from his countenance. A second’s look showed only determination, determination and an intensity of focus she’d never seen before.
She rather liked the change.
Spencer pulled up short. He put a finger to his lips and waited.
The steep walls magnified the slightest sounds. Their breaths sounded harsh as the exhales of a great steam engine as they ricocheted off the unrelieved brick. Meena endeavored to breathe through her nose, but her lungs demanded too much air. She settled for gasping as quietly as she was able.
In the dim light, Spencer’s cheeks glowed red. His chest heaved. Even without a corset to hamper him, he was having the same struggle.
It didn’t take but a moment for their pursuers’ voices to float down the pathway. “Robinson, Jenkins, take the left,” a male voice commanded. “Edwards and Palmer, right.”
Meena itched to flee. Surely they could make it to the next set of alleyways, surely they could—?
Spencer pulled her into a deep doorway, and wrapped his arms around her so they stood chest to chest, hip to hip, knee to knee. He was still breathing hard, his chest expanding and contracting with each sharp inhale. Meena felt the contractions even through all the layers of dress, corset, and chemise. Her own heart thumped so loudly, she was sure it could be heard at the far end of the street.
And even wrung out from their flight, she ached to run. They still had the advantage. If any of the officers chose their particular alley, their only hope would be to beat them with sheer speed. Not, she admitted, her strong suit.
Meena wriggled her hands between them and pushed against his chest, trying to get free. “We can’t stop now.”
Spencer tightened his embrace, making her squeak as he squeezed the breath from her. “Be still. They’re not heading this way.”
“Yet.”
“Can’t outrun them
forever.”
“We could try.”
With her face buried in his shirtfront, she could only guess that the upward movement she felt was a shrug. Meena pulled back far enough to see up into his face. “This is your plan? Hiding?”
He stared out over the top of her head. “Part of it.”
“Unbelievable.” She butted his breastbone with her forehead. His devil-may-care attitude was sailing ever closer to idiotic territory. She thumped him again.
Spencer set her further back toward the rear door of the residence and poked his head out of the doorway as far as he dared. “See? All clear.”
Meena shoved him to the side and started back out into the lane. Am arm shot out, barring her way. “We should wait. Give them time to move on.”
Or give him time to think about the plan he should have considered days ago. Meena set her hands on her hips. “Oh, by all means, let’s do… nothing. How long did it take you to mastermind that strategy?”
The muscles in his jaw tensed. “Are you trying to start an argument?”
“I’m merely pointing out that your so-called plan seems to be somewhat lacking.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
Meena blinked up at him. “Wouldn’t what?”
“Point things out. It’s less than helpful.”
She peered cautiously past the doorway. The shouting and the footsteps were definitely fading. “Well if you’d do some proper planning.”
“Perhaps less talking.”
It took all her will not to flinch, not to let on how deeply his rebuke stung. “Fine.” She clamped her mouth shut.
Her shoulders hunched. It shouldn’t have stung, shouldn’t have bothered her any more than the bite of the smallest mosquito.
It most definitely shouldn’t have brought her so close to tears.
Slowly, as if she hadn’t even heard, she turned her head away. She wrapped her arms around her waist as if she’d taken a sudden chill. She wasn’t about to cry, but what if he mistook a sudden moistness of the eyes for tears?
That would not stand.
“I’m sorry.” His sigh gusted across the space between them, blowing loose strands of hair against her neck. “I didn’t mean that.”
The words bloomed inside her, melting the icy pain. An apology? From Spencer Crane? Now she knew the world had gone topsy turvy. Because suddenly she wasn’t so certain she was in the right.
“No.” She shook her head. “I am too critical.”
“That is true.” His hands gentle, Spencer gripped her upper arms and turned her toward him. “But it’s not the point.” His teeth flashed in a warm smile. “I made a plan, but I should have made three.”
His grin was like a heated balm, soothing away the hurt. The stiffness in her shoulders melted. “Four. A situation like this clearly requires four plans.”
He gathered her to him. His large hands moved over her back, massaging away the last of the tension there. “Of course. Next time, I’ll design five.”
She leaned into him. “No need to go to excessive lengths.”
“I insist.” Spencer brought her hand to his lips, pressing a soft, slow kiss to the center of her palm. “Excessive lengths are my speciality.”
She giggled.
He stared down into her eyes for a long moment while their hearts beat together. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted it so badly, she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t have come up with a plan for the life of her.
He took her face in his hands and lowered his lips to meet hers.
As it seemed to do with a disconcerting frequency, the heat between them burst into full flames. Meena responded eagerly to his kiss, reaching her hands up behind his neck to draw him closer.
It didn’t take much experience to realize the man was a masterful kisser. A masterful kisser. A masterful lover. A dangerous, delicious, delightful man, with a supernatural ability to sweep her off her feet at the strangest possible times.
“I do quite favor this sort of plan,” she said when they came up for air.
Spencer caressed her cheek. “I was hoping you might.”
She leaned into his touch, turning to plant a soft kiss in the center of his palm.
He gasped.
Laughter bubbled up inside her, bright and light as summer sun. It appeared she may have mastered some techniques of her own. Never would she have suspected that plain, serious, Philomena Sweet could affect a man so. A tiny, troublesome part of her did worry that it wasn’t really her after all. “It must be the strain.”
Spencer lifted his head from the ear he was nibbling. “The what?”
“The strain,” she repeated. “All this… this passion we seem to generate. It must be because of the…”
Teeth grazed the lobe of her ear, making her shudder.
“You were saying?” he prompted.
“I…” She swallowed. Whatever had been on her mind couldn’t have been in the least important.
“Exactly.” Spencer’s smile was so wicked, it set her toes alight.
He laughed and bent his head to claim her lips. This time, he wasn’t gentle. Wasn’t soft, slow, or seeking.
Nor was she.
With a moan, Meena leaned into him, wanting every inch of her touching every inch of his long, hard form. He stumbled back, pulling her with him as they continued the kiss. He turned her about as if they were waltzing. Her back collided with solid wood. A door, she surmised, once she realized the hard object poking into her back must be a doorknob.
Then it opened, confirming her suspicions, and sending her reeling backward.
Spencer grabbed at the doorjamb, stopping both of them from falling through the doorway. “What the—”
Two large, solemn eyes staring up at them from inside the hallway.
“Hello again, Cap’n. There’s a wicked lot of peelers swarming about. Not saying they’re looking for you or anything, but you and the lady might want to get inside for a tic.”
Meena felt as if she’d been dumped into some absurdist play. All the other actors had scripts, but she’d been left to improvise. She looked from Spencer to the little maid and back again, willing one of them to explain.
Crane seemed torn between shock and laughter. Quite an odd combination.
Head cocked like a small bird, the maid eyed her back. “Forgive me for sayin’ so, but you look about as much like a maid as this one here looks like a sea captain.”
Spencer laughed. He gestured to the small girl. “Miss Sweet, I’d like to present my friend…” He winced. However their paths had crossed, he hadn’t gotten around to introductions.
The girl dropped a curtsy. “Nelly Tremaine. Pleased to meet you.”
Meena smiled at the girl and hurried through the doorway after her. “The pleasure is mine, Miss Tremaine.”
The girl giggled behind a work worn hand. “It’s plain Nelly, miss. I’m just a scullery maid.”
“And how do you know the captain?”
“Met at the greengrocer’s stall. We like to talk about rutabagas and cabbages and such on occasion.”
“Do you?” She shot Spencer a look. “I had no idea the captain had such an interest in produce.”
He shrugged most unhelpfully.
“Cook’s down at the market, and the family’s off visiting. It’s only me and the upstairs maid home. I can put on some tea if you like?”
“We wouldn’t refuse.” Spencer grinned at Meena. “I told you I had a plan.”
She snorted. Luck. Luck was his plan. How fortunate he seemed to have an over abundance of that particular commodity.
They followed the girl into the kitchen. By the time they’d entered the cozy room, Meena had straightened her own uniform, erasing most of the evidence of their kiss.
She hoped. One look at Spencer’s reddened lips and the unholy twinkle in his eye made her reassess that conclusion.
The heat coming off him could have set her alight right where she stood.
Someday, she vo
wed, as she basked in the heat of his desire, she really should find a way to shield herself from all that power.
Jamison Ramsay knocked back the last of his watery beer and slammed the mug down on the tabletop. A whiff of stale perfume was the first signal that he was no longer alone.
Flabby arms reached around from behind and pulled him back against equally flabby breasts. “Don’t it look like someone needs cheering up then?” The old whore’s foul breath caressed his ear.
Ramsay jumped to his feet. Christ in a bucket, but he couldn’t catch a break.
The woman scrambled backwards. “Oi, Love, you’re soaking wet.”
He shoved his damp hair out of his eyes and aimed his glare like a weapon. “I’m not looking for company.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and she backed away more quickly than she had approached.
Ramsay wiggled his legs, trying to keep the wet wool from sticking to his skin. God’s balls, he would enjoy watching Crane suffer.
He hobbled painfully toward the door. That cart had come out of nowhere, smashing into his hip and tearing a chunk of skin from his ankle.
He couldn’t prove it, but he knew Crane and that interfering Philomena Sweet had something to do with the accident. He would’ve bet his last farthing on it.
Which reminded him. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers, only to pull them out in disgust. Still dripping wet, even after he’d had to walk miles from that damned park.
Nothing for it but to head back to his lodgings and change his clothes. Then he could head to his own tavern for a proper pint that wasn’t watered halfway to nothing.
The sun blinded him as he moved from the dark of the pub out into the sunlit street. Which was why he failed to notice the large enforcer standing straight in front of him.
Before he could protest, the big man forced him into the blacked-out carriage blocking the doorway.
“Afternoon, Mr. Ramsay.” The mellifluous voice carried from the far corner of the dark space.
Ramsay’s breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t need to see the man’s face to sense the danger in that greeting.
His employer lounged against the leather cushions at his back. His black eyes carried all the threat of a loaded pistol. “I understand the meeting did not go as planned.”