“As though you’d let me.” Daniel bathed me in his warm smile. “A candlelit evening with Kat Holloway. My greatest pleasure.”
My face warmed. “With the best of my scones, you mean. Or cakes, or tarts. You will have to wait and see which one it is.”
“I look forward to it, my dear Mrs.Holloway.”
“It will be my pleasure, Mr.McAdam.”
* * *
I started off to Cheapside to finish what was left of the afternoon with Grace. There was not a hansom to be had at this busy time of day, so I strode along the Strand, anticipation propelling my steps.
Not until I crossed Farringdon Street and entered Ludgate Hill did I realize my danger. As I passed a narrow lane, hands seized me and two men half dragged, half shoved me from the main street into a tiny passageway filled with shadow.
They tore my handbag from my arm and thrust me face-first into a brick wall.
25
I struggled mightily, but to no avail. My captors were large men in homespun breeches and woolen jackets such as Daniel wore. The faces I’d glimpsed were clean-shaven, and their lack of odor told me they regularly saw a bath, but I knew at once these were hard men who would have little mercy with me.
The feeble contents of my handbag clattered to the worn cobblestones. One lout pawed through them while the other held me in an iron grip. I could not move even to strike out or attempt a kick.
The man going through my things abruptly swept them aside in disgust. The one who held me dug my face harder into the wall.
“Where is it?” he barked.
I gulped for air. “What?”
“Whatever you took from that scum Peyton’s.” His accentwas nondescript, as though he’d practiced to sound neutral, as I had when I’d gone into service.
“The police have anything important.” There was no use in lying. They’d beat the truth out of me if I tried to put them off.
“The police and their rotten spies are done for,” the man who’d rifled through my bag vowed. He gave my things another kick, sending my pencil and notebook slamming into the wall beside me.
I prayed he did not take the notebook, where I’d listed so many details about this case. Either he wasn’t able to read what I’d written when he’d opened it or else he thought a cook’s scribblings were unimportant.
They could have released me and run off once they knew I had nothing they needed, but the first man kept a clamped hold of my neck.
“We’ll show ’em what we think of spies.” He shook me, and I cried out in pain.
He and his friend were prepared to kill me, and I knew it. Whether they’d leave my body here or throw it into the Thames, I couldn’t guess, but there was no doubt they had murder on their minds.
The Thames was the most likely, I reasoned. Surely these were the men who’d disposed of poor Mr.Howard, leaving the post open for Daniel at Lord Peyton’s.
“Why did you kill the secretary?” I asked them. If they were going to murder me, I might as well find out what I could. “Did you think he was a spy?”
“Orders, weren’t it?” the man who held me said chillingly. “He were even easier to catch than you.”
“Stop talking to her,” the second man said. “Get on with it.”
Pleading for my life would not work, I knew. I could weepthat I had a child I would leave alone and destitute, but to my last breath I would not give these men Grace’s name.
If they’d been following me, they’d already know about her, but somehow, I thought these were not the same watchers I’d been evading in the past weeks. I’d not sensed them, meaning they were professionals, plus they hadn’t hesitated to grab me off a crowded street.
I love you, Grace, was all I could think.And you Daniel, my heart-mate.
I continued to struggle, because I would not tamely let them cut me down, but both men had immense strength.
Pounding footsteps sounded behind us, and I heard a grunt as the man who’d gone through my things suddenly folded over onto himself. I felt a hot pain as a knife scored my neck, and then my captor was ripped from me, a massive fist crashing into his face.
