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They were an odd group, one of them huge and bear-like, his hands like hams as they hung loosely beside him. Another was small and wiry, with grizzled gray hair and beard and far too much interest in his faded eyes. But the third, the one who was doing the talking, was the worst. At some point in his life he’d suffered a cruel accident, and half his face was burned and scarred. He was barrel-chested, and his open, grinning mouth showed a handful of blackened, rotting teeth, the odor of decay so strong she could smell it from several feet away.
She had only a moment to react. The street she’d come from had been deserted—there would be no safety if she turned and ran back that way. It was the middle of the day in a solid British city—she had to be imagining her danger.
“You’re going to let me pass and leave me alone.” She raised her voice, sounding so calm it steadied her.
“Oh, I don’t think so, lass. Anyone knows you don’t wander around these parts if you’re not looking for making a little money on the side.”
“She’s pretty,” the big man said.
“That’s the truth of it, Barney, old boy. Much too pretty for the likes of us, but who’s to say we should look a gift horse in the mouth? She’s here, we’re looking for a bit of sport, and we all know no one interferes with what goes in these dockside alleys.”
Dockside? They were near the harbor then, and there would be people nearby. “If you don’t move aside I’ll scream,” she said sharply.
“No one will care.” They were getting closer, and she could feel some of her self-assurance fade. “Pretty thing like you—you were asking for it, that’s what we’d say. Or maybe we won’t have to say anything at all, maybe you’re just going to disappear. I know someone who’d pay good money to take you far away from here, sell you to some of them heathens who like white skin. Too bad you’re not a blonde, but you’d still fetch a pretty price.”
She started to back away from them. She could always hit one of them in the head with her valise, but it was far too light to do much damage. All right, so she’d miscalculated, and she hadn’t been paying proper attention. She’d had instructions on how to get to Captain Morgan’s house, instructions she’d merely glanced at and arrogantly assumed that had been enough. She was going to have to run for it, and while she c
ould probably outpace the big one and the old one, the scarred one looked far too eager.
He was moving in on her, and one of his hands reached down and cupped the front of his filthy breeches suggestively. “You want to beg for mercy, little girl? I’m afraid I’m all out.”
“I want her first,” the big man said in a plaintive whine.
“You hurts ’em too much, Barney,” the old man chided. “You get her last. Once you’re done with them they aren’t much good to anyone for a long time.”
She was going to throw up. Right there in front of them. In any other circumstances it should have filled them with disgust, but these depraved creatures would probably enjoy it.
“Say ‘please,’ girly,” the scarred man taunted.
She was almost at the corner of the alleyway. Just a few more feet and she could make a run for it. “Please,” she said in a soft, breathless voice. “Please…”—her voice hardened—“go sod yourselves.”
She spun on her heels, swallowing her fear. Something grabbed her sleeve, and she heard it rip as she yanked away. Her valise went flying. A moment later her arm was caught in a grip so painful she felt as if her bones were being crushed, and she was being dragged back into the alleyway. She opened her mouth to scream, but a filthy hand slapped over it, silencing her. She fought—kicking, hitting, clawing with her hands, though trapped in her cheap cotton gloves she couldn’t do much damage. She managed to move her knee up sharply, hitting the big man in the groin, and he went down with a comically high-pitched scream of pain, writhing on the ground.
For a moment she was free, but she was so shocked that what her former maid had described to her had actually worked that she didn’t move fast enough, and then another of them caught her, spinning her around and shoving her up against the side of a building, her face pushed against the crumbling brickwork as she felt someone fumble with her skirts.
“I think you’d better get your hands off her, boys.”
The voice came from out of nowhere, and for a moment Maddy thought she’d dreamt it. Except that those crushing hands had immediately released her, and she pushed away from the brick wall, trying to catch her breath as she pulled her bonnet more tightly on her head.
“We weren’t doing no harm,” the talkative one wheedled. “You know that any woman comes around here is fair game. Only working girls walk these streets, and I’ll grant you she’s a lot prettier than most of them, but she ain’t no better off. Some of them likes a bit of a fight.”
“I don’t think she did.”
Taking a deep, calming breath, Maddy turned to face her rescuer, and for a moment everything froze within her.
She hadn’t known a man could be beautiful. She was used to pale Englishmen—this man was bronzed by the sun, with long, curling black hair, high cheekbones, and faintly slanted eyes. He wasn’t looking at her, he was concentrating on the miscreants, and when she was finally able to break the odd spell he’d cast over her she turned to look at them as well, now that it was safe.
The big man was struggling to his feet, groaning loudly, and the old man was fumbling with his breeches, presumably refastening them. She shuddered, just faintly, but it caught the stranger’s attention. “You should know better than to walk alone in this area,” he said coolly. He had a lovely deep voice with an odd accent that she couldn’t quite identify. She could recognize a bit of the London streets, mixed with half a dozen other accents that made his voice indescribable.
He wasn’t struck dumb with her beauty, a shock. In fact, he’d barely glanced at her, and what he’d seen didn’t appear to impress him. It was a novel experience, and she wasn’t sure she enjoyed it, particularly when faced with someone who could, in another life, have that same effect on her. “I got lost,” she said, with no note of apology in her voice. “You would think a girl could walk through town without being molested, but then, I’m new here. I hadn’t realized the scum of the earth lived in this city.” She realized belatedly that she’d forgotten to use the accent she’d planned on. It didn’t matter now, but she mustn’t forget once she got to the captain’s household.
“Real uppity, ain’t she?” the old one said. “She needs to be taught a lesson.”
The stranger’s slightly tilted dark eyes crinkled in amusement. “I don’t think she needs the kind of lesson you had in mind. Stupidity isn’t a crime, rape is.”
Maddy bristled. “I am not stupid, I simply don’t know this wretched town. One can walk in London without being subjected to such vile behavior. Had I known Devonport was so depraved I would have looked for work elsewhere.”
“Where do you work?” the stranger demanded, and she gave him a suspicious glance.
