by Jo Goodman
"There he is!" Black Cap yelled. They charged forward as if expecting their quarry to turn tail and run. When he didn't, they didn't stop to think what it might mean.
Yellow Cap leaped first, throwing himself at his prey to drag him to the ground. Skye pressed her knuckles against her mouth to keep from shouting a warning. As she watched, the man simply and gracefully pivoted to one side and Yellow Cap pitched forward, flailing at the air until he landed belly down on the path. He grunted hard, the warm air spilling from his body and misting in the moonlight.
Seeing what happened to his companion brought Black Cap skidding to a halt. "You all right?" he called.
There was a muffled groan. Black Cap accepted it as a signal that no real harm had been done. He gave his full attention to his quarry, circling slowly, elbows bent and gloved fists raised in a fighting posture.
Black Cap closed the circle, jabbing and thrusting with his right. The other man feinted, easily dodging and ducking the intended blows. A left hook sailed above his head. A right jab missed his ribs by inches. Skye saw Black Cap become frustrated and make his punches wilder and harder. Yellow Cap was on his knees, pushing himself upright. He staggered for a step or two, found his land legs, and threw himself into the fight.
With Black Cap and Yellow Cap both punching and jabbing, their victim had to watch his front and his back. He was able to avoid their throws, bobbing and weaving, until both his assailants were fairly growling with anger. Without a word passing between the two of them, they closed in again. Then Black Cap managed a swing that connected. The stranger's head snapped back and he lost his footing for a moment, pushed backward by the force of the blow. Black Cap came at him again, this time aiming for his ribs, but his victim was already recovering.
From Skye's vantage point she thought the lone man's movements were so precise they almost seemed choreographed. He twisted and feinted with the powerful grace of a dancer, his hands and arms part of the same motion as his legs. He struck like a snake, coiled in one moment, then unleashing a terrible fury in the next.
The stranger used his right hand like a cleaver, chopping Black Cap hard on the curve of his neck and shoulder. Black Cap's heavy coat wasn't enough padding to absorb the power behind that blow and his knees buckled under him. He groaned, as much in surprise by the attack as in pain.
Yellow Cap stepped back, confused by his victim's tactics. The distance he put between himself and his quarry prevented the stranger from using his arms. Yellow Cap couldn't have anticipated that the stranger might use his legs.
Skye's eyes widened as she saw the stranger leap feet first. His right foot connected with Yellow Cap's midriff. Before Yellow Cap could take stock of what had happened, the stranger's left foot followed through, shoving Yellow Cap backward with enough force to push the breath from his lungs. Gasping for air, Yellow Cap dropped to his knees again, this time clutching his middle. When his head dropped forward, exposing the vulnerable nape of his neck, the stranger struck again, this time with the same cleaver-like chop he had used on Black Cap. Yellow Cap toppled sideways and lay groaning for a moment before his body jerked once, then was completely still.
Skye's gaze lifted from Yellow Cap's motionless body to his partner's. Black Cap charged the stranger from behind. She opened her mouth to yell a warning and in the next second realized it wasn't necessary. The stranger seemed to have an awareness beyond what his eyes could see. He pivoted and stepped out of the path of Black Cap's charge. At the same time he reached out to grab Black Cap by the scruff of the neck and the small of the back and pushed, using Black Cap's own considerable weight and speed to force him even further away.
Black Cap stumbled and fell forward, collapsing on all fours just a few feet from where Skye stood. She remained perfectly still in her hiding place, afraid to even draw a breath. Black Cap shook himself off, much like a shaggy, sopping wet dog after a bath, then he scrambled to his feet, turned, and charged again.
It seemed to Skye that the stranger waited until the last possible second to step out of the way. Black Cap was once again helped along in the direction he was already going. This time he skidded on the ground on his stomach and face, his broad chin pushing clumps of snow out of the way like a plow. For a moment he remained still and Skye thought he just might have the good sense not to get up. It wasn't to be. She winced as Black Cap pushed himself into a kneeling position, swiped at his icy chin with the back of his hand, and looked over his shoulder at the prey who had become the predator.
"You're a nasty bit of business, ain't you?" Black Cap muttered. "You afraid to face me with your fists?"
The stranger stood his ground, saying nothing.
"That's what I thought." He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a derringer, a deadly weapon in the right hands and at close range. "Then go up against this, you bastard."
The stranger didn't wait until Black Cap finished his sentence before he attacked. His lithe body was a blur of motion, spinning, flying, leaping. A single kick dislodged the gun from Black Cap's hand. His wrist, devoid of all feeling now, was trapped beneath the stranger's foot. A second solid kick to Black Cap's gut drove the breath from his lungs. Black Cap collapsed and never saw the blow that centered between his shoulder blades. His body shuddered once, then was as still as his partner's.
The stranger stepped back and paused, looking at his felled attackers. Skye thought he might be using the time to catch his breath, but he wasn't winded in the least. He simply seemed to be indulging in a moment of detached curiosity.
Skye watched him take his fill. He shook his head back and forth slowly, as if he could not quite believe what had taken place, or at least couldn't comprehend the stupidity of his assailants. Although his back was to Skye, she imagined that she could see his mouth curved in an ironic sort of half smile.
"You were never in any danger, ma'am."
Skye started, blinking widely. She looked around, her eyes darting to shadows on the other side of the path. It didn't seem possible that he intended his comment for her.
"Or is it 'miss'?" he asked.
Mary Schyler inched away from the pine tree but not out from under its protective canopy. "Sure and I'm thinkin' it's none of your concern," she said cheekily, affecting her mother's lilting Irish brogue.
He turned toward her and the moon shining on his face gave Skye slender evidence of a smile that was a bit menacing in its coolness. "You're right," he said. "You'd better be on your way."
Skye didn't want to leave the safety of the sheltering pines. She was merely a shadow to him and she wanted to remain that way. "You first." He ducked his head and she thought the action hid a more fulsome smile. She wished she could see him better, yet to do so would have compromised her own anonymity.
"I need to look after these men, don't you think?" he asked her.
Since both Black Cap and Yellow Cap seemed to be perfectly unconscious, Skye could only imagine what his "looking after" might entail. "You're going to kill them?" she asked. "Right here in the park?" She thought she heard him chuckle. The low, husky, back-of-the-throat sound sent a shiver up her spine, yet she recognized it wasn't fear that she felt, but something just as elemental and infinitely more intimate.
"I'm going to tie them up."
Remembering what Black Cap had pulled out of his pocket after reaching inside, Skye held her breath as the stranger's hand slipped into his own overcoat. A normal rhythm resumed when he held out a length of rope and dangled it in front of her. "You were prepared," she said.
"I've learned to be."
She wondered what sort of man he was that he had anticipated a walk in the park would be so fraught with danger. It occurred to Skye that she didn't even know which side of the law he was on. "Why were they after you?" she asked.
"Sure, and I'm thinkin' it's none of your concern," he said, echoing her earlier words as well as her accent.
This time she heard the smile in his voice even if she couldn't see it. He was amused by h
er and that didn't set well with Skye. "I could scream," she told him, "and bring down the beat cops on your head."
"You could," he said. He knelt beside Black Cap, drew out a knife, and cut off a length of rope. In short order he had the man securely trussed, his hands behind his back and one of his own gloves stuffed in his mouth.
Skye couldn't say why she was still standing around, except perhaps because it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. It was practice of sorts, she supposed, for being an adventuress.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Yellow Cap was stirring. She started to call out a warning, then realized it was unnecessary. Once again the stranger seemed to have anticipated trouble. He turned on his haunches, saw Yellow Cap's struggle, and neatly clipped him on the chin with his fist. Yellow Cap's jaw cracked and his head struck the frozen ground with a thud. Skye winced.
"So you can fight with your fists," she said when she'd recovered her voice. "Just like a Dublin street brawler."
The stranger merely shrugged and began tying up Yellow Cap. When he was done, he dragged the unconscious man toward Skye's hiding place.
She retreated quickly. "What are you doing?" she demanded. She wished her voice could have shown more anger and less fear.
"I'm moving him off the path," he said calmly. Even the exertion of dragging Yellow Cap's considerable bulk to the hiding place hadn't winded him. He came within a few feet of Skye but he didn't once turn in her direction. After leaning Yellow Cap against the rough trunk of an evergreen, he shifted his attention to Black Cap and repeated the procedure. He completed his activity by kicking up snow where it had been pressed flat from dragging the bodies. In less than a minute he had obscured the trail to the bodies.
When he was standing on the path again, he glanced once in Skye's direction. "You'd better go before they come around and you're discovered with them."
Skye hesitated, waiting for the stranger to move on.
"I assure you they won't be half so gallant as I am about a lady's welfare."
She blushed and her husky brogue deepened. "You do me credit, sir, callin' me a lady, but I'm not so fine as all that."
The stranger was quiet a moment, considering. "Then perhaps you'd agree to go somewhere with me. There'd be money in it for you."
"You mistook my meanin', sir; I said I wasn't so fine as a lady, but that doesn't mean I'm a whore."
The stranger was stunned into silence, and then he chuckled quietly. "And you mistook my meaning. You could help me if—" He stopped. There was a shout of rowdy laughter somewhere along the path behind him. More than one person was part of the vocal fray. Someone called a name. A woman giggled in response. A joke was finished and there was more laughter.
"Go on," Skye urged him when the stranger hesitated, looking in her direction. "Get out of here." She would have repeated herself, but he needed no second urging. He vanished almost in front of her eyes.
Skye came out of her hiding place just as Daniel and his friends came upon the grove of pines.
"Skye!" Daniel said, halting in his tracks. "I thought you'd gone home."
"And I see you lost no time in chasing after me," she said. She glared at his friends. They didn't have the same grace as Daniel to look sheepish. Her eyes touched everyone in the crowd. Louisa Edison and Alice Hobbs were gaping at her. Thomas Newman's laughter was trapped at the back of his throat. Charlie was staring at the ground. Richard Mill and Amy Scott seemed to wish themselves elsewhere.
Skye was suddenly fiercely angry. Angry at Louisa and Alice for staring at her as if she'd grown a third eye. Angry at Thomas for not sharing his laughter. Angry at Charlie and Richard and Amy for being embarrassed. But most of all, Skye was angry with Daniel for not supporting her. She was a lady, and she had never given them any reason to think otherwise.
The words simply came tumbling out. "What if it had been the baby, Daniel?" she asked. "What if something had happened to the baby?"
There was a collective gasp from Amy, Alice, and Louisa. The men were staring at Daniel, their looks registering something between horror and admiration.
Skye turned her back on them all and marched away.
Chapter 2
"Skye! Wait for me!" Daniel looked at his speechless friends and made a quick apology. "She's making it up," he said. "Just to give you what you want to hear. I swear it!" He took off running. "Skye!"
She didn't turn her head, but she didn't increase her speed to avoid him either. "Did you make excuses for me?" she asked, when he came abreast. "Perhaps you told them I'm a little out of sorts because of the baby."
Daniel grabbed her elbow but she shook him off. "You're being unreasonable. Why you purposely want to feed their silly speculations, I don't know. You're determined to make yourself an outcast."
Skye's hands clenched inside the ermine muff. She bent her head against the wind as they left the park. "I've always been an outcast, Daniel. Tonight's merely the first time it's been so openly discussed." She spoke so softly that Daniel had to bend forward to hear her. "There's nothing for me in the city; there never has been. I don't know how I always knew that, but I did. I've never wanted anything so much as to get away from here."
Daniel stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and waved down a handsome cab. He gave the driver Skye's address. "What about school?" he asked, as they climbed aboard.
She shrugged. "I don't want to go back for the spring term."
"But-"
Skye turned to Daniel and gave him a frank stare. "Don't you think Jay Mac already suspects that's the case?"
"It hadn't occurred to me."
She gave a short, humorless laugh. "That's because you don't know him as I do. He's not only realized I intend to fight him about returning to school, he thinks he's a step ahead of me. That's what his amazing offer was about this evening."
"You mean he dangled this in front of you in the hopes you'll choose going back to school over being a housekeeper?"
Skye snorted indelicately. "You really don't understand how he thinks, do you?"
"I suppose I don't."
Removing one of her hands from her muff, Skye patted Daniel's arm. "It's all right. He's my father, after all, and I've had years of opportunity watching him work on my older sisters. He has the best of intentions, you understand. He wants to be certain we're always well cared for."
Daniel sighed. He raised one leg and rested it casually on the seat opposite him while he slouched restfully beside his friend. "Do you know what, Skye? I think I'm glad I bungled that first kiss with you. I'm not sure I'd want John MacKenzie Worth for my father-in-law."
Skye leaned into Daniel, laying her head against his shoulder. "You wouldn't, Daniel," she said feelingly. "You really wouldn't."
He laughed at her heartfelt comment. "You don't think you'd be worth it?"
"Oh, God. I know I'm not." She glanced up at him. "You saw what happened this evening. I can't leave well enough alone. If people give me an opening to make a public fool of myself, I not only take the opportunity, I thank them for it."
Daniel grinned. "You're worth it," he said. "I'm the one not up to snuff." Before she could contradict what he knew to be the truth, he said, "I still don't understand your father's plan."
"The story about the engine and the inventor... that's just smoke and mirrors."
"Smoke and mirrors..."
"Sleight of hand," she explained. "A magician's trick to hide what's really going on."
"And what's really going on is..."
"Is Jay Mac wants me to experience complete boredom. He supposes that after a few weeks or months as a housekeeper for some fusty old man, I'll be begging him to allow me to finish school."
"So the adventure he's offering you is all a lie."
Skye nodded. "Precisely. Jay Mac's lies don't get much bigger."
Daniel noticed that Skye was smiling. "You don't seem angry about it. I wouldn't have thought you'd like being manipulated like this."
"I don
't. But if I look on the bright side, I can be glad Jay Mac tried to bribe me with something I find appealing. It means in his own way he understands what I want. He wasn't nearly so accommodating with my sisters."
The swaying motion of the hansom quieted as the cab slowed in front of the Worth mansion. Daniel helped Skye out of the cab and escorted her through the iron gate to the front door. "Will you take your father's offer, then?" he asked.
"Probably. I wasn't certain I would when he brought it up, but after this evening... well, it's better that I go off somewhere to have the baby."
"Skye!"
She graced him with her mischievous, dimpled smile. "I can't behave myself," she said. "It's not in my nature." Standing on tiptoe, she rested her hands on Daniel's shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. "Go pursue Evelyn Hardy," she told him. "She'll make you happier than I ever could."
A moment later Daniel was alone on the stone steps of the mansion, bathed in the yellow light coming from the towering arched windows. What Skye had said about Evelyn wasn't true, he thought. If it were, he wouldn't feel so ineffably sad.
Hunching his shoulders against the wind, Daniel ducked his head. The hansom cab was waiting to take him home.
* * *
Moira looked up from her needlepoint as Skye passed the parlor entrance. "You're home early," she said.
Skye backed up a few steps and remained framed by the dark wood of the doorway. "It was uncomfortably cold for skating," she lied, removing her hat and muff. She tucked both of them under her arm. "Where's Jay Mac?"
"In his study. Where's Daniel?"
"I sent him home."
