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“Whatever I have done, I have not asked for,” she replied dully. “I don’t see that wanting some peace for a few minutes is wrong. That was the reason, the only reason, I was in the study. Trying to evade the attentions of someone like the Count is not wrong, and that was what I was doing and had been doing from the moment we were first introduced by the hostess. There is no acquaintance, physical or otherwise, with the Count or anyone else.”
Joe knew from the finality in her voice that if he asked anything else he was going to be met with a wall of silence.
“I warn you now that there isn’t much the Count touches that isn’t illegal in some way,” Joe warned.
“I suspected that someone like you would know that,” she mused spitefully.
Joe scowled. “How so?”
“Well, I know that kidnapping someone is wrong, and likely to get you put behind bars, yet you do it, even when you have fought to stop me from being kidnapped. It wasn’t that at all, was it? You just wanted to be the first to ask me questions about him.” She snorted inelegantly but didn’t care what the man thought. “It makes me wonder what the Count, or this Sayers person, would say about you if I was with him.”
“The Count has no information on me whatsoever,” Joe replied confidently.
“I don’t care,” Marguerite shouted. “I am more concerned about the fact that you have kidnapped me and are now holding me against my will.”
She tried to open the door beside her, but it wouldn’t budge.
“See? Its kidnap because you don’t have my permission to take me anywhere.”
“I don’t need your permission,” Joe snapped. He warned himself to shut up. He didn’t want to frighten her but if he had to he would, especially if it meant she was a little afraid of him.
“I shall have you arrested for this,” she assured him.
Joe shrugged unconcernedly but inside knew he had some explaining to do to his boss if she was an innocent bystander. He had already pushed her far harder than he had any of the other witnesses the Star Elite had under their protection. Although he had no idea why her being connected to Sayers irked him, Joe knew that it did and that made him uncharacteristically grumpy.
Oh, why can’t I sound just as cold and hard-hearted as he does, she thought with a sigh as she settled back against the seat.
“Stop this carriage. I am going home.”
When he made no attempt to move, she slid across the seat to the door he had used to shoot from and pushed at it. To her shock and horror, it swung open easily. Her forward motion propelled her out of the swiftly moving carriage, down toward the road below. Her scream was stifled by the panic that suffused her. She grabbed wildly for the door and clung on only to find that gravity, and the corner the carriage was taking, thrust her into the open air.
“Damn it, grab my hand,” Joe shouted.
He leaned toward her as far as he dared without falling out himself, but she was clinging desperately to the end of the door which took her as far away from him as it was possible to get.
“Help me,” she cried.
“Grab my hand. Marcus!” Joe bellowed. “Stop!”
Marcus leaned over the side to take a look at what was going on. He cursed when he saw her, but the height of the carriage prevented him from reaching her. The carriage immediately rumbled to a stop.
Once it had stopped, Marguerite released the door. She quivered in fright while she absorbed the enormity of what had just happened, and how close she had come to disaster.
“Are you alright?” Joe asked as he jumped down.
She stared at him, pale and shaken, and unable to speak.
Joe reached out to comfort her but then reminded himself who she might still be connected to. There was just something deep inside that refused to relinquish the possibility that she did have a connection to London’s worst thug, but he had no idea why. While he didn’t want to believe it, he had to keep it in mind that she could quite conceivably be the doxy of one of the Star Elite’s most wanted men. Until he had some physical proof to say otherwise, he had to consider her guilty.
He couldn’t allow any softness to invade the work he did, no matter how beautiful and spirited she was. Whatever physical attraction he had to her could go nowhere, not even if he found out she had no connections to Sayers, mostly because she didn’t belong in his world. She was an innocent bystander; someone who was used to the social whirl of the ton, and inhabited a lifestyle completely alien world to his. As far as he could see, whether Marguerite was guilty or not,
they were a world apart and would always be that way. Because of this, the ridiculous connection he felt toward her had to be ignored-for his own sanity if nothing else.
With that, he snatched his hand away and glared at her dispassionately. Inside, though, he felt hideously cruel for being so harsh and felt the heavy weight of guilt settle over him when he saw the hurt in the gaze she turned upon him.
“It will teach you not to open doors in moving carriages, won’t it?” he bit out with a huff.
Marguerite stared at him while she battled tears.
