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Infuriating man.
Wonderful man.
Keeping her attention on the newlyweds, she said, “Are you hurt? More than the...” She waved a hand at her eye. When they shook their heads, she said, “Stay there; Trumbull has guards everywhere. You’ll be safe soon enough.”
“Alfred Trumbull!” Another shout from outside, sounding like an elocution professor from Oxford had arrived.
She straightened and turned toward it, as her father raised his brows. “Oho!Alfredhe calls me! Just like a toff.”
Making a show of checking his pistol in its holster, Alfie tugged the waist of his trousers up and made for the doorway of the church, leaving Adelaide no choice but to follow, but not before she slipped her own blade from where it was strapped at her thigh.
Had Henry come alone? Into this place? Onto enemy turf?
Of course he had. Because for Henry, Duke of Clayborn, there was no such thing as enemy turf. He’d been born into a world where he could walk wherever he liked, without repercussions.
Not here, though. Here, there were repercussions. “Let’s have a look at your boy, shall we?”
“He’s not a boy,” she said, regretting the words even as they escaped her lips and made her sound like a petulant child.
“’Course he is. He’s never had cause to grow up and be a man, ’as he? He’s had everything given to him, along with that silver spoon that was down ’is gullet when ’e was born.” He stood in the door, looking down the lane, and Adelaide joined him, her heart beating in a chaotic rhythm as she stared down the empty alleyway. Of course, it wasn’t empty. It was full to the brim with bystanders and onlookers and a half-dozen brutes who were paid to linger near Alfie and keep him safe. The only reason that Adelaide got close—the only reason that Henry would—was that they had been requested. Otherwise, they would have been knocked cold long before they reached this place.
Alfie hefted his club, making a show of adjusting his grip. Reminding her that Henry might still be knocked cold if he didn’t behave.
She tightened her grip on the hilt of the blade she had hidden in her skirts, and held her breath, hating that she couldn’t be certain her father and his thugs wouldn’t take him in hand and rough him up. Or worse. Maybe this was all a ruse for Havistock to get everything he wished. His daughter, her groom, and his nemesis all gone in one fell swoop.
But she couldn’t ask her father to keep him safe. Revealing that she cared about Henry’s safety would ensure that her father mistreated him, simply to toy with Adelaide. So instead of begging for his safety, she willed him safe, watching him without moving—barely even breathing.
A shield-maiden, watching her warrior.
And he looked like a warrior, dusk having fallen over the city, casting long shadows down the alleyway, turning it into a battlefield. Ready to fight, with his broken nose and bruised face and bandaged knuckles, straight shoulders and strong, bearded jaw—he hadn’t shaved on the journey—and stiff hat and the billow of his greatcoat behind him.
He saw her immediately, the moment she appeared in the doorway, his gaze sharpening on her as his stride lengthened and his pace increased. The rest of the world was beyond his focus, and Adelaide held her breath, hating that he did not look to the rooftops where a sniper would be stationed. To the stairways and upper walkways, where others watched, weapons out.
He didn’t care about any of that.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
He only cared for her.
He’d come for her.
The realization shattered through her, sending pain and frustration and pleasure and a thread of foolish hope through her even as she knew she did not deserve to feel the last two. Even as she knew this might be the last she ever saw of him.
She ached with gratitude for this—one last moment, like fresh water.
And then she reminded herself that he did not belong here.
She hated him in Lambeth.
Yes, she’d seen him there before, on the South Bank the day she’d stolen his box, but that had somehow been different, perhaps because she hadn’t expected him there, and perhaps because she hadn’t known him and how good and decent andwronghe was in this place, so when he’d turned up, it had felt less horrific and more like... a gift of some kind. Like finding a blade of bright green grass growing between alleyway cobblestones.
Except blades of grass didn’t belong in London alleyways, and the Duke of Clayborn didn’t belong in Lambeth, and that night, as he stalked his way through the cobblestone streets toward St. Stephen’s, he did not feel like a gift. He felt like a liability.
The memories of her youth there, in the night, when nippers and pickpockets and cutpurses and thieves came out of the woodwork to fill their coffers, shouted through her, and even as she told herself there was nothing shameful about where she’d come from, she knew it wasn’t true.
Her father put voice to her thoughts. “You think he’ll have you? A nipper from Lambeth? Aw, Addie. Ye never could stop dreamin’ of Mayfair. Remember—thievin’ from toffs never won you anyfin’ but trouble.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels before adding, “Well, let’s see, shall we?”
A chill ran though Adelaide at the casual curiosity in the words, as though this were a game and not her whole life approaching. But that was how Alfie had made his fortune and built this sooty kingdom full of criminals—by treating every moment like a game. Nothing important. Nothing that couldn’t be cut loose or tossed out or traded.
