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“What’s goin’ on out there?” barked a voice in the doorway behind them.
“Stop struggling, sweetheart,” Braden murmured to Samantha. “They’re gone, and if we’re not careful, we’ll have the Watch down on us.”
Although she subsided against him, he could feel the tension vibrating through her slender form. Braden half-turned to see an older man standing in a doorway behind them. He was holding a lantern and peering at them.
“My wife and I were returning home when those two villains tried to rob us,” Braden called back. “Fortunately, your appearance gave them fright and they ran.”
“Missus, are ye all right?” asked the man, obviously suspicious.
“Y . . . yes,” Samantha said in a quavering tone. “I’m fine. It . . . it was frightening. I thought my husband and I might be killed.”
Although she was doing a bang-up job of playing the terrified wife, Braden knew part of that terror was genuine—for her sister, not for herself.
“Do ye want me to fetch the Watch?” called the man.
“No need.” Braden gently began to tug Samantha back the way they came. “We made the mistake of taking a shortcut, that’s all. We’ll head back to the street and find a hackney.”
“These closes are no place for folks like ye after dark,” the fellow said. “Yer a damn fool fer takin’ yer wife through here.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Braden dryly replied.
The man slammed the door, plunging the close back into gloom. Braden glanced over his shoulder as he hurried Samantha to the street. Though he needed to wear spectacles to read, he had excellent night vision. Thankfully, he could see no one was following them.
“Please stop rushing me,” Samantha said in a cross voice. “You’ll give me a stitch. Besides, those poltroons are obviously long gone, and you know it.”
“Then thank God for small mercies.”
They exited the narrow lane into Cowgate. Although quiet this late at night, the streetlamps pushed back the darkness and they could see a Watch box just up ahead. Even better, a hackney approached from a few blocks away.
Braden stopped them under a lamp. “Samantha, I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But it would have been deranged to follow those men.”
She voiced a frustrated little growl. “I need to know where their bolthole is.”
“I think we can safely assume it’s the Hanging Judge. It’s likely they have men guarding the perimeter. Maybe they were even looking for us.”
“Yes, and that’s incredibly disturbing.”
Braden had to agree. He could understand that the bastards would have gotten wind of Samantha’s activities, since she’d been roaming the stews for months. But they’d immediately recognized him as well, and it almost seemed that they’d expected him to be in Samantha’s company.
She removed her arm from his grasp and began absently rubbing her elbow.
“Lass, did I hurt you?” he quietly asked.
She shook her head. “No. And I think it was me they were looking for.”
“Very possibly, which means you are not to go out by yourself at night. In fact, we won’t go out at all until we come up with a better plan. Either that, or we’ll both end up like Donny.”
Or worse.
When she snorted in derision, Braden bent down so he could look her straight in the eye. Even obscured by her veil, her expression mingled fear and defiance.
“I repeat that you are not to go out at all. Understand?”
She rapped her walking stick against the cobblestones in frustration. “Weneedto find them, now more than ever.”
“I know. But if anything were to happen to you, who would take care of Felicity?”
Her quick grimace told him that he’d made a home hit.
