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After the fourth or fifth suitor approached her, she grew tired of the charades and stood from her stool, heading for the front door. Whistles and jeers followed her, as well as a few crude comments.
I stood once she reached the door. Adjusting my dusty leather shirt, I left my booth. As I passed a man who had thrown one of those crude comments at the lass, leaning back smugly on two legs of a chair, I promptly kicked one of the back legs.
The chair slid out from under him and he tumbled to the floor, to the laughter of his friends around the table.
He fumbled to his hands and knees, sputtering, “Who the fuck did that?!”
I was already past, headed for the door. The scene took all eyes off me and the girl.
And the other man who followed her. The man who had been eyeing the redhead like a meal the entire time I sat in my booth. He was dressed in grimy leathers and a ragged tunic, his hair unkempt and face unshaven.
As I reached the door, I paused, waiting for that man to catch up from the other side of the bar. He had risen from his booth mere seconds before me.
I swept my arm out like a gentleman, letting him get to the door first. “After you, good sir.”
He flashed a smile before the scowl returned to his grizzled face. “Obliged.” He pulled his hood up as he exited the tavern.
The nighttime air greeted me outside, and I slowed my pace to give him a lead. He followed in the footsteps of the redheaded woman, who was oblivious she was being followed.
The noblewoman proved herself a fool when she turned into the mouth of an alley.
Everyone knew not to traipse down the dark, muddy alleyways of Nottingham at night. Especially if you were a beautiful, solitary woman.
Which told me this girl wasn’t from Nottingham. Perhaps she was visiting from an estate out of town, thinking she could get the flavor of the area by going to a local alehouse. She didn’t understand how much a simple night of fun endangered her life here. Besides dirtying her elegant heels in the mud of the alley, there were vile men around every corner.
Two such men followed her right now.
As she disappeared into the alley, with only a sliver of moonlight casting over the tall walls on either side of her, the man closed the gap.
I made it to the mouth of the alley just as the two of them were nearly halfway through it.
“Hoy, lass, slow down,” the man said in a raspy, smug voice. “No need to run, beautiful.”
She froze. Turned to face him.
Just as a third man appeared from behind a barrel, behind her.
This newcomer walked up beside her, confusing the stalker from the tavern, making him pull up short and tilt his head in confusion.
Because this new man was dressed in the dreary brown habit of a friar. He had his hands behind his back. The man looked pudgy, but his face spoke of something dark and menacing. His lips were pursed as he said, “This the one, fair maiden?”
The woman in the blue dress crossed her arms under her chest. She put on a smirk of her own. “I daresay he is.”
The stalker from the tavern backed up, reaching behind him to grab a knife . . .
And he backpedaled right into my sturdy chest.
I towered over him with a frown. As his hand came out to pull his dagger, I caught it, twisted sharply, and forced him to drop it to the ground with a clang.
The man winced and stammered, rubbing his wrist. “W-What the fuck is going on here?”
“Like a frothing hound caught in a cage,” I murmured, pushing him forward between me, the girl, and the friar.
“You couldn’t contain yourself, could you, Gilroy?” the woman said, her voice deep and brooding.
He spun around. “How the fuck do you know my name?”
“Because we’ve been watching you, bastard.”
