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Despite that, her snug eyrie in the roof no longer felt quite so secure. Nell turned the key and wedged a chair under the door handle. Was it time to move again?
By the next day, Nell’s unease had hardened into something like defiance. She was damned if some man, whoever he was, was going to frighten her out of her home. It wasn’t much, but it was clean, it was dry and she was surrounded by good-natured, honest people. She had her pistol, she was forewarned. She would stand her ground.
That was easy enough to resolve in the brightly lit, warm surroundings of the workroom with half a dozen people around her and a large pair of sharp scissors to hand, she realized as she walked home.
Wary, she checked behind herself, yet again. There were no carriages following at walking pace tonight, no suspicious pedestrians behind her. It must simply have been a lone buck taking a chance. With a sigh of relief she ducked through Smock Alley and turned left and then right into Dorset Street. Home.
The keys were slippery in her chilled hands and she fumbled getting them out of the reticule. They caught on the pistol and she heard a sharp click as she pulled them free. Then she saw the man: big, dark, menacing and striding towards her out of the gloom, just yards away. The breath left her lungs and she tugged the little pistol out of her reticule and held it in front of her.
‘I am armed. Keep away!’ Her hand was shaking, so she lifted the other to support her wrist.
‘Miss Smith, put that thing away before you hurt yourself.’ Lord Stanegate? He stopped, perhaps two feet from the end of the muzzle. The lighting was poor, his face was in shadow, but she would recognize that deep voice anywhere. He was apparently hanging on to his temper with an effort.
‘It is you it is pointed at, my lord,’ she observed. ‘It is not I who will be hurt.’ Her heart was thunderous, her stomach was churning and there was nowhere to run to, but she would not let him see her terror.
‘Have you any idea how to use it?’ He sounded more interested than alarmed. Nell wished she could see his face properly.
‘Of course I have! I aim it at the brute who is threatening me and then I pull the trigger. I can hardly miss at this range.’ If she could keep him standing there long enough someone might come out of the house. Or Bill Watkins might come home. Bill was a bricklayer, at least the height of the viscount and built like an ox.
‘I was not aware I was threatening you, Miss Smith,’ he said in a voice of infuriating calm, standing his ground. ‘I merely wish to speak to you.’
‘As you did before, I collect? That involved me being locked up in your house and intimidated with threats of Bow Street. And yesterday—was it you who chased me? Hunted me through the streets?’
‘Yes, I must apologise if I alarmed you. That was not my intention.’ He shifted a little so that light fell feebly on her hands and on the dark muzzle pointing at his chest. She could see his face better now, or at least the profile. Long nose, uncompromising jaw, high cheekbones.
‘Oh no, not at all, think nothing of it,’ she retorted with honeyed politeness. ‘Alarmed? I merely thought it was either some buck set on rape or Mr Salterton thinking to dispose of his messenger. It would have been foolish of me indeed to have been alarmed.’
‘Hell.’ He put up a hand, rubbed it across his mouth, the first crack in his composure she had so far detected. ‘I intended merely to follow you home and to make myself known. To talk to you. When you ran—’
‘I see. Like a hound you chase anything that runs away. How civilised.’ For such a tiny thing, the pistol seemed to be made of lead. ‘How is the earl?’
‘Better, a little, no thanks to you, Miss Smith.’ The apologetic note in his voice was gone again. ‘He is resting more easily, I think. In poor spirits, it depresses him to be so weak.’
‘I can imagine. My mother—’ She bit back the words. This man did not want to know about her mother, nor should she weaken enough to confide in him, perversely tempting though that was. It must be something about the solid strength of him, she thought, renewing her grip on the weapon.
‘Please go away,’ Nell said firmly. Movement at the end of the street caught her eye. A black carriage, its glossy sides catching the torchlight, pulled in against the kerb a few yards behind the viscount. ‘I do not wish to speak to you.’
‘But I want to speak to you.’
‘And what you want, you always get, my lord?’
‘Mostly.’ His mouth twisted wryly as though at a private joke. ‘It is warm in the carriage and comfortable. I only want to talk.’
‘No.’ Nell edged back, searched for the step with her foot, found it and realized she needed a free hand for the keys. But if she opened the door he could force his way in. ‘Stay there.’
The muzzle of the gun waved more wildly than she intended as she scrabbled for the key. The viscount moved suddenly to the right, she swung the gun round, he feinted and caught her wrist, the weapon trapped between them.
‘Let it go!’
‘No!’ Part of her realized he was not exerting his full strength and that even so, she was completely powerless. Nell opened her mouth to scream and a gloved hand covered it. She bit and got a mouthful of leather. She kicked and he moved sharply; their hands, joined around the pistol, jerked and the gun went off.
Reeling with shock and half deaf, Nell fell back against the railings. It had been loaded? It was a miracle no one had been hurt. And then she saw that Lord Stanegate was clutching his left shoulder.
‘Damn it,’ he said as she stared, aghast. ‘Do you want to kill us all?’
‘No! It was an accident—it wasn’t loaded! I tried it. It wasn’t loaded!’ The driver must have whipped up the carriage, for it was there beside them. Behind her, windows were flung open and people were shouting; in front of her, the big man she had thought so solid was swaying on his feet as the coachman jumped down from the box.
‘My lord!’
