by Wendy Vella
“Oliver!” Thea cried as she ran toward the stairs and hurried down. Her flight was so fast she nearly missed a step, but she jumped the last three and ran for the door, which she burst through, screaming.
“Oliver, he has a gun!”
She saw Luke pick Bella up as she flew past the carriage and throw her inside before he followed her.
“Stop, Thea!”
Ignoring Luke’s words, Thea picked up her skirts and hurried toward Oliver.
“Oliver!” He heard her and turned. “Get down!” He didn’t, instead running toward her. “Down, I said!” She launched herself at him when he did not comply. He caught her and then they were both falling, Thea taking him with her to the ground as the gun fired. He twisted as they were about to connect, placing her beneath him.
Fear had Thea trying to wriggle free, her hands searching his back to see if the bullet had found him.
“Dear God, Thea, tell me you are unhurt.” She heard the desperation in his words as his hands journeyed over her body.
If he could talk then surely he was unharmed. She tried to inhale deeply, but found it impossible with his large body blanketing hers, but she did not want him to move—if he was here with her he was safe.
“I am unhurt, Oliver,” she whispered.
“Luke, are you unhurt?” Oliver then called to his friend.
“Yes.” The word came from over her left shoulder and Thea closed her eyes in relief. Both men were unharmed.
“What were you thinking, putting yourself in danger like that to rescue me, Thea?” The words were whispered into her ear. “You could have been hurt, and I…” He didn’t seem able to continue.
“I had to alert you. Surely you can see that, Oliver?”
“Had something happened to you,” he kissed her neck and Thea shivered, “I could not have borne it.” He inhaled a deep, shuddering breath.
“Oliver—”
“Sssh now, it’s all right.” His lips touched her throat this time.
“He’s gone, and my guess is he’d hoped to get you closer before he took that shot,” Luke’s words were softly spoken, but carried to Thea, who still laid pinned beneath Oliver. “I think it’s safe to say that earlier conversation we had is now true. You’re definitely being followed and someone is trying to kill you.”
“Someone has been trying to kill you, Oliver?” Thea questioned him.
He lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes traveling over her face, their expression fierce with the emotions that raged inside him.
“Yes, and that is just another reason why I must keep my distance from you, Thea. You must see that now.”
“I don’t want to keep my distance from you.” Thea touched his face, running a finger down his cheek. His eyes closed briefly and leaned into her hand.
“You should not have risked your life for me.”
“I would do so again in a heartbeat,” she whispered.
“No.” He shook his head. “It can never happen again.”
“Oliver, please—”
He cut her words off by climbing to his feet and taking Thea with him.
“Luke, take the front. Lady Althea, press to his back, and I shall take the rear.”
“But it is you who are in danger—”
Thea’s protest was cut off as Oliver simply lifted her in front of him.
“Do as I tell you,” Oliver added. “Please, Thea.” He leant forward and whispered the words so Luke could not hear.
Thea did as he asked, because her knees were shaking and she wanted to reach the carriage as soon as she could. Then Oliver and Luke would both be safe. She was wedged between them. Luke reached behind him and squeezed her hand and she gripped his fingers tight as he led her toward the carriage. Oliver had a hand in her back and she felt steadier because of it. If he was touching her, he was unhurt.
“It’s all right, Thea. Everything is all right now,” Luke said.
She was shaking, but it was anger this time, unlike when that man had attacked her. This was anger that someone was trying to kill Oliver.
They made a strange procession as they walked as one toward the carriage. Once there, Luke reached a hand inside and touched his wife, murmuring a few comforting words, before standing aside. Oliver picked Thea up and placed her inside before she could step into the carriage, and once there, Bella’s arms wrapped around her. Leaning into her friend, she held her tight.
“Dear Lord, I did not want to call out, but I was so scared,” Bella said. “I did not know if that gunshot I heard had hit any of you, and dared not look.”
“Take them home now, Luke. I can no longer leave the investigation to others. I must find who did this myself, and to do that I must make contact with people from my past.”
“No!” Thea pulled out of Bella’s arms and tried to get back out the doorway after Oliver spoke, but he stopped her by stepping into it.
“Stay in that carriage, my lady.” His eyes were cold and clear as he looked up at her. “Luke will see you home now.”
“How can you think of doing that, going out there,” Thea pointed over his shoulder toward the alleyway, “without any men or weapons? Tell him, Luke.” She looked at her friend.
“She’s right, Ace. You have no idea who that was or why he is intent on taking your life. Let us leave here, and then we will make a plan.”
“No, I must do this before he hurts someone I care about. Take them home, Luke,” Oliver said, looking at her one last time before turning away.
Thea then watched in horror as Oliver stepped back from the carriage. “I shall contact you tomorrow, Luke.”
Oliver!” Thea called his name, but he turned from her and ran. Light on his feet for a big man, he had soon disappeared, slipping down the same alley the man who had tried to kill him had taken.
“I will take you home and then go and find him, Thea. Let me close the door now.” Luke pushed her inside gently.
“Bella, stop crying, love. We are both here safe with you now.” Luke sat and gathered his wife into his arms.
“I-I seem to weep all the time at the moment.”
“Tis natural considering your condition, love. Remember your sisters,” Luke soothed. “Phoebe cried endlessly over the smallest thing.”
Thea could not understand why Oliver had been so foolish as to go out there alone with no protection when someone was trying to kill him.
“How many instances have there been of people trying to kill Mr. Dillinger, Luke?”
“A few,” Luke said slowly. “Oliver told me about them today when I confronted him about avoiding me. He thought to keep his friends and family safe by having no contact with us, and I fear what happened today will only strengthen that resolve.”
“To have gone out there alone is foolhardy, Luke.” Thea voiced her thoughts as panic clawed at her throat. “The man, the one who shot at him, could be there, just waiting for him to show himself.
Luke’s eyes still held the anger he, too, felt over what had just happened.
“You forget that Ace knows how to survive here, Thea. He has lived in London for many years and not always in the best parts of town. He is a survivor and has many allies in the world he once inhabited.”
“That does not make me feel any better,” Thea said, shivering. The thought of Oliver hurt or alone made her feel ill. What if that man had succeeded? She would have never seen him again.
“I will find him after I have dropped you and Bella home,” Luke added and Thea had to be happy with that, although his words did nothing to ease the tension inside her.
The journey was silent as they thought about what could have been, and when they had arrived, it was to find Joseph had returned.
“Joe.” Thea was so relieved to see him she burst into tears, which had him striding across Luke and Bella’s parlor to take her into his arms.
“What has happened?”
Luke told the story of her attack, and what had taken place today, and she felt Joe’s body tense.
“Dear Lord, Thea, are you all right?” He lifted her head off his chest and anger darkened his eyes as studied the fading bruise on her jaw. “Did they find who did this?”
“Not yet,” Luke said.
“I want him found,” Joseph said softly.
“It is all right, Joe, please,” Thea lay her check on his solid chest.
“And what of this business with Dillinger? Where is he now?”
“He has gone out alone to look for the man who tried to kill him, Joe, with no gun or men to protect him,” Thea added, her voice rising.
“This was his jungle, Thea, so I have no doubts that he knows how to survive in it. However, no man is a match for a well-placed bullet.”
Thea shuddered at the thought of a well-placed bullet hitting Oliver. She tried to shut out the vision of his body lying lifeless on the ground.
“I’m going to take Bella upstairs. She needs to lie down, and then I will go and see what I can find out,” Luke said, escorting his wife from the room and leaving Thea alone with her brother, who was once again studying her face.
“You seem very concerned for Dillinger, considering to the best of my knowledge you have met once, perhaps twice before, sister.”
“Because I was the one who saw the man, Joe, pointing his gun at Oliver, it gave me quite a shock.” Thea schooled her features before stepping out of his arms. “It was terrifying to know that he could have been shot and I was the only one who could have stopped that happening.”
“Yes, I can imagine that would have been unsettling,” Joe said slowly still watching her. “I’m just wondering when he became Oliver to you?”
“Do you think it is safe for Luke to go out after him, Joe?” Thea ignored his question. “Should he not have men with him before he does? He is not used to the ways of London like Mr. Dillinger, surely?” she added.
“Luke is well able to look after himself, according to Will. However, I shall have a word with him before he leaves, and while I do, you go and have your maid pack your things and we shall leave for the townhouse soon.”
“First I shall see if Bella is all right with me leaving, as she is with child now.”
“Wonderful news,” Joseph said, before gently stroking her bruised jaw. He then left the room.
…
Ace tried to clear his head and push aside the rage that still pulsed through him. Someone had shot at him and could have hurt Thea or Luke. It wasn’t his life he was concerned with; he’d come to understand at a young age that it was a possibility that he would meet a violent death one day. You didn’t live the way he had, with many enemies, and expect to reach your dotage, but Thea and Luke should. The thought of either of them hurt because of him was not to be borne.
She’d saved him. Run screaming from the building shrieking his name, urging him to take cover. When he’d turned and seen her and understood there was danger, his first instinct had been to reach her—and then she’d launched herself at him. Ace had caught her, and together they fallen to the hard ground.
She could have been killed.
The thought of her beauty and vitality snuffed out was not something he could live with. He would not allow it, and it was just another reason why he must keep his distance from her now. This merely confirmed what he believed. He was not good enough for Lady Althea Ryder.
Having her beneath him had been heaven and hell, as had the look in her eyes when she’d run at him. Ace had seen the fear, and it had been for him, her concern solely based on the fact that his life was in danger. She cared, he knew that, if only a little, and he hated that his heart thumped faster at that thought because he had no right to that woman.
He’d run down the alley, hoping to see some sign of whoever had shot at him, but it was empty. Ace had then headed for the places he had known to house disreputable men, and his appearance had created a stir, especially dressed as he was in his expensive clothes.
“Slumming it, Dillinger?” Totts, a man who had once come to every one of Ace’s fights and won a considerable amount money betting on the outcome, had said as he’d entered his lair—a dark tavern in an area of London many never frequented.
“Someone is trying to kill me and I want to know who, so put out the word that there will be a reward for answers.” Ace had said these words at every place he stopped, until finally he arrived at the house that had been his home when he had most needed one.
The streets were narrow and the houses butted one against the other. Even on such a cold day, washing hung from windows and scruffy children played in the streets. Ace wanted to shoo them inside, as night was starting to fall, but was not entirely certain their reception would be better than what they faced out here.
The house he wanted lay at the end of the lane. Three stories high, the brothel did not have an inviting façade. Paint was worn and flaking, windows darkened so not a crack of light could be seen. He had not been here for many months, but the memories came back when he reached for the tarnished knocker. Ace rapped it three times, then a further two. Seconds later, it opened.
“Ace!”
“Hello, Bess.” Ace entered and closed the door behind him, and allowed the tall woman to hug him.
“It’s been months, lovely. We was just saying the other day how we missed you.”
She had painted lips and dyed blonde hair and her breasts spilled out of a scarlet silk corset that she wore with bloomers.
“Is she in?” He looked up the stairs.
“She is, and seeing you will cheer her up. She’s been right mean these past few days. You go on up, love, and I’ll bring you something to eat. You look as if you’ve had a rough day.”
“You have no idea,” he muttered, taking the stairs two at a time.
The house was clean and the walls washed white, the curtains bright emerald green. The furniture was worn but comfortable, and Ace knew that even at such an early hour there would be customers in the rooms.
Angelique was the madam and a woman who understood men. She said they came here to get what they could not from their wives, and while she understood those women had been taught to act like a slab of frozen meat in bed, it was because of them that she made a tidy profit.
‘Surely not all women,’ Ace had said once. ‘There must be some noblewomen who enjoy their marital beds,’ to which Angelique had replied that they were too few to count.
Knocking on the door that would lead to her rooms, he waited until he was summoned, then opened it and walked inside.
Petite, with flaming red hair, Angelique was still a beautiful woman at sixty. She wore severe-cut, dark clothes, the opposite of her girls, and she did not participate, to his knowledge, in what went on below her.
“I wondered if you had died, boy.” Ace took the hands she held out to him and kissed her on the cheek.
“Not dead, just busy, madam.”
“Yet now you are here, and I sense from your expression it is not merely because you had a wish to see me.”
“Someone wants me dead, and today he shot at me. As I was with friends this put them in danger, and I cannot allow that to happen again.”
She led him to the sofa and sat beside him. Ace saw the desk he had spent hours at, poring over the books she had urged him to read, once he knew how to. It had been there that he’d learned most of what had made him into the man he was today.
“These friends,” Angelique said. “I am pleased they mean so much to you.”
Ace had never been able to hide anything from this woman. She knew him as well as his own mother, and possibly better. She had known him when he was at his lowest, when his will to live had been gone and he’d simply wanted to die.
“They do,” Ace said softly.
“And I sense that one of these is a woman.”
The pale green eyes were fading, but still as sharp as they had always been.
“Yes, but there can be nothing between us,” Ace added.
“Because she is of noble birth?” Angelique patted his
cheek and fussed with his necktie that had by now lost all shape and was covered in dirt.
“Yes, she is the daughter of a duke.” Ace had never lied to her and he would not start now.
“And you believe you are not worthy of her, but I wonder how she feels about you?”
“It matters not as I will spend no more time in her company,” Ace said, ignoring the sharp pain inside him. “I will not put her life in danger again.”
Angelique cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look into her eyes.
“I can see that you care very much for this woman, boy. Are you sure there can be no future for you together?”
Ace pulled away and climbed to his feet. He walked to the windows and looked down to the streets below.
“No,” he said softly. “There is no future for us.”
Ace saw Luke as he returned to his house. It was dark, and his friend was leaning against a wall talking with a man. As he approached, Luke finished the conversation and came toward him.
“Were you looking for me, Fletcher?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about someone watching out for him. He should be furious, but instead his chest felt warm.
“I was, and now I’ve found you,” Luke said calmly.
“You have not alerted my family, I hope, to what happened today? I have no wish to involve them in this.”
“I have not, and I will thank you for not thinking me a fool, Dillinger.”
They fell in beside each other and walked through the dark streets. It was cold now, and there was a flurry of snow that would suggested the streets could be paved white by morning.
“But you will need to tell them, Ace, simply because you have no idea where the danger lies and they must be vigilant now.”
“I know. I had just hoped to have information about who was responsible before I did so.”
He felt Luke look at him. “But you do not?”
“No. However, I’ve offered a reward.”
He wanted to ask after Thea. The words were pressing against his throat as he fought against them.