Danger and decadence seemed far more appropriate.
Chapter Seven
It was the zenith of the night, the darkest point, when the moon clung desperately to the approaching dawn, unwilling to relinquish its grip to the first light of a new day. The yellow fog met the cobblestones, ebbing and flowing through the murky streets of the Rookeries, bathing all in its path with a blanket of invisibility.
It was not a night to be out and about, and even the most stalwart of those who made their homes in the slums knew to stay clear. But these very slums were Sebastian’s domain, both his salvation and his eventual doom. He knew every back alley and building with intimate familiarity.
After all, he’d been born and bred here, among the dirt and squalor that gripped the Rookeries like a vise. He, the bastard son of the Duke of Dalkeith, who’d essentially grown up on the streets but was now the undisputed king of London’s underworld, with the Rookeries his kingdom and his hunting ground.
But none really dared to traipse about alone in the Rookeries at this hour. Not unless they wished to get a knife in their belly. Which was why, when Lance had told him only a half hour ago he’d received word Lady Olivia was to meet an informant at the back of the old Malvern tavern in the Rookeries at four in the morning in an effort to obtain information on the men she was investigating for her bloody gazette, Sebastian had sworn black and blue.
The woman had lost the plot to meet an informant in this part of London, at this hour of the morning. She really was playing roulette with her life, and Sebastian was going to wring her darn pretty neck when he confronted her over the fact. And if she thought he’d go into business with a madwoman, no matter how she stirred his loins, she was deluding herself. Even if he’d been able to think of little else except those blue eyes of hers and the gentle curve of her hip under her dress, since she’d left his office earlier.
He’d never been so attracted to a woman before, and a duke’s bloody daughter at that. It was baffling, but he couldn’t deny the surge of desire that had hummed through him when he’d laid eyes on her. The desire still humming through his blood at the thought of seeing her again.
He paused and listened. The air was unnaturally silent apart from the frigid breeze skimming in from the inky waters of the Thames and brushing against Seb’s cheeks like ice. It was a sensation he’d experienced too many times before now to be fazed by, though one he knew from experience never to ignore.
Pulling his coat tighter against his chest, he continued down the path, his footfalls purposefully silent against the cobblestones as he weaved his way through the back-alley labyrinths of the area toward his target. Only one street farther.
When the knife flashed out from the fog on his left, Seb instinctively pivoted to his side with an ease born from a life of having to stay one step ahead of everything to survive. He grabbed the dagger-wielding arm as it arced toward him and twisted the attacker’s elbow backward until he heard the crack of bone and the knife clattering against the ground.
A sharp scream tore through the attacker’s throat as the man clutched his arm to his chest and staggered back.
Seb stepped toward him and grabbed his shirt, hauling him to within inches of his own face. “Now that was stupid.” He pulled back his fist and slammed it into his attacker’s side.
The man grunted at the impact, before stumbling and gasping for breath.
Advancing toward him, Seb grabbed hold of the lapels of his jacket. “You dared to attack me?” No one who lived in the Rookeries should have been foolish enough to do so, at least not without a large monetary incentive.
The man glanced up at Seb, and his face blanched of color. “Oh fuck…I didn’t know it was you, Mr. Colver, I bloody well didn’t. You’ve got ta forgive me, sir. I’m just trying ta earn a living.” There was enough stark terror in the man’s eyes for Seb to believe him somewhat. Though it was no excuse.
“Explain yourself.” Seb’s voice was cold and hard, for an act of trying to stab him could not go unpunished. Such a thing required a swift message be sent to others who may try. Retribution was the only way to ensure deterrence; a lesson he’d learned early and had made sure to follow.
And now everyone in the Rookeries knew that only a dead man crossed Sebastian Colver.
“Well, I, um…I, uh, know this here is your area and I shouldn’t’a tried to do anything here without you or ya men’s okay,” the man spluttered. “But, well, someone said a man would be walking along here shortly and I’d get a pound for stabbing him. I got four young mouths to feed, sir. ’Tis the only reason I said I’d do it.” There was desperation clinging to the man like a pathetic second skin. “If I’d known it was ya, I never woulda taken the job. Please forgive me, sir, please…”
The man knew he was pleading for his life. Whatever that sort of life was, with the man’s filthy brown pants and boots covered in grime, his shirt a tattered mess of holes and gaping stitching along the seams. Certainly not the sort of clothing to keep a man warm in this frigid weather. A pound would be a lofty enticement for someone who was clearly desperate. And desperate men often made stupid decisions. “Who hired you?”
“I don’t know his name, I swear!” the man replied earnestly. “He approached me in the Old Lion tavern and stayed in the shadows mostly. I didn’t recognize ’im, but I didn’t really see his face. He kept that hidden, he did.”
“And what exactly did he say?”
“He told me that a tall man dressed all in black ’d be walking along here at this exact time, and that I was to stab him. Promise, that’s all he said.”
“So, you were prepared to stab a man for a pound?”
The man looked sheepish. “I have mouths to feed, and a pound would have fed ’em for months.”
Seb let go of the man’s shirt and pushed him away, knowing all too well the truth of his statement. Once, Seb, too, would have done practically anything for such a sum. “Get out of my Rookeries before I change my mind. And don’t return here, or I will get my men to dump you in the Thames with rocks tied to you. Do you understand me?”
The man sighed in relief and took a step toward Seb, bobbing his head up and down. “Perfectly. And thank you, sir!”
But then Seb saw a glint of silver from the corner of his eye. He swore loudly and swiveled to the side as the man lunged at him with another dagger he must have had tucked up the sleeve of his unbroken arm. The fool.
Seb grabbed the man’s arm and twisted the knife away from him and back toward his attacker. The man’s forward momentum propelled him straight into the ten-inch blade, and Seb felt the dagger rip through the man’s flesh until it lodged all the way into the fool’s stomach with only the hilt visible.
Wrenching the dagger free, Seb stepped away from the man, watching as blood gushed from the man’s belly to spill down his front and onto the cobblestones beneath. The man staggered backward, clutching at his middle before collapsing onto his back. He blinked up at Seb, an expression akin to surprise flickering in his gaze as a pool of crimson soaked into the ground beneath his body. Then he took a shuddering breath and went completely still as death took him.
Seb had been responsible for too many deaths before now to even blink an eyelid at this one, though he was still able to recognize the futility of it. Especially as he’d done something he rarely did and had given the man a chance. Perhaps Lady Olivia’s visit had had more of an influence on him then he’d credited it with, her optimism seemingly contagious. Well, he wouldn’t let that happen again.
One thing Seb did well was to never repeat his own mistakes.
Throwing the knife on the ground next to the man, Seb wiped his blood-splattered hand on his own trouser leg, the red fading into the black material easily. He quickly pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at the dials. Damn. He was late. Hopefully, the lady hadn’t gotten into any strife. That’s even if she got out of her carriage, which was u
nlikely once she saw the sort of area she was in. Though Sebastian rather doubted she’d have any sense, the lady seemed too foolhardy by half to worry about herself greatly. She’d visited him, hadn’t she?
Without a backward glance at the man’s body, Seb continued along the street to his destination. He’d send his men to clean up the mess after he’d ensured Lady Olivia was safe.
And if anyone had dared hurt her, then they’d incur the wrath of the Bastard of Baker Street, and in doing so would ensure their own place in Hell.
Chapter Eight
Livie took in a deep breath, trying valiantly to calm her nerves.
It wasn’t working. Her heart was racing a million miles an hour and her hands were shaking slightly.
She shook her head in disgust. Goodness gracious, get ahold of yourself, Livie!
Of course, this probably was the most reckless thing she had ever done in her life. Well, maybe the second most reckless thing, after having confronted the Bastard of Baker Street in his den the other day.
But after she’d spent the whole previous day trying to track down the blasted man, to no avail, she’d nearly rejoiced when she’d received his note an hour ago while she was at the McAuley ball, demanding she meet him at the back of an old, abandoned tavern in the heart of the Rookeries.
The man was either trying to terrify her or was insane, dictating they meet here of all places and at this hour, too. For no one of sensible character would have a lady meet him here, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was desperate to secure the funds from him with less than five hours until Mr. Mooney’s deadline, she would have flatly refused his summons.
But here she was with the fog growing thick around her and not a sign of the man himself anywhere to be seen. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her cane and she stepped farther back into the shadows. If she had to meet him here, best she blend into the night rather than be a target for any potential ruffians.
No wonder she was nervous.
Being alone in one of the most notorious slums of London was ludicrous. For a moment, she contemplated dashing down the laneway to the safety of where her carriage was waiting. If she didn’t need that blasted money, she would most definitely have done so, but instead she stayed put, her eyes and ears straining to hear his approach.
Yes, she was most definitely an idiot, meeting him here, an attribute her three brothers would certainly agree with if they ever found out what she was up to. Well, in truth, they’d probably call her far worse, but she was confident they’d never discover her escapade tonight.
The carriage driver, Mr. Gregson, was extremely loyal to Livie, having served at the household before Livie was born. He could be trusted to keep her more daring adventures a secret from her father and brothers, particularly as her family were all extremely overprotective when it came to their baby sister.
Not that she was a baby. At five-and-twenty, she was rather firmly on the shelf, as Mr. Trantor had unknowingly pointed out earlier, which, thankfully, meant she did have a measure of independence that other younger ladies of her social station did not, much to her three brothers’ protests. Though even they conceded that with every passing year it was getting less and less likely she would ever marry.
Hence, their grumbles were getting less frequent.
Besides, the year was 1885, a time when women had a great deal more independence than they ever had in years gone by. Even if her brothers obviously liked to live in the past and argue the fact. But Livie was determined to be independent, regardless of her overprotective family.
Especially now after Alice’s death.
If she’d been more independent before, instead of hiding away in the countryside, she might’ve been in London and able to talk to Alice before that fateful night, rather than now trying to find the man responsible for her demise.
“Lady, you better have a damn good explanation for meeting an informant here and at this hour.” The muffled drawl of a man’s deep voice drifted across to her through the fog, a few feet to her right, piercing the unnatural silence blanketing the area.
Livie nearly jumped out of her skin; the sound had come from the shadows. She stifled a scream and swung around to face the threat, her cane held out in front of her. “Stay right where you are. I warn you, I am armed!” How on earth had a man snuck up on her? She hadn’t heard his approach at all.
She depressed the button on the handle of her cane and the sharp blade of the sword hidden within its housing swiftly deployed through the thin slit of the rubber bottom. The action didn’t seem to deter the man as he slowly stepped forward, coming to a halt just shy of where the blade was now pointing firmly toward him, a scowl covering his mouth and twisting up the edges of his scar.
“Oh, thank goodness, it is you,” she declared.
“You certainly are full of surprises, aren’t you?” Sebastian Colver said as he glanced down at her cane. “I suppose at least you had the foresight to come armed, if nothing else.”
“Do I need to be armed when meeting you?” Livie asked, relief washing through her that he was there. “You are late.”
“Late?” A cold light of fury came from his eyes. “I didn’t realize I had received an invitation to your predawn party.”
“My party?” The man’s words were making little sense. “I came here to meet you. At your request, might I remind you.”
“My request?” Sebastian shook his head.
“Yes, you sent me a note.” Was the man deliberately toying with her?
“I never sent— Fuck!” He took a step toward her and grabbed her hand. “We’ve been set up. We need to leave now.”
Without hesitation, Livie took his hand. “My carriage is around the corner.” She nodded up the alley toward the main street, valiantly trying to ignore the fission of energy shooting up her arm from his touch.
“Very well. Come.”
A loud cracking noise echoed all around them, and suddenly Livie found herself pushed to the ground as Sebastian dived forward, twisting them both to the side and taking the full brunt of the fall.
As he exhaled harshly, another loud noise blasted Livie’s ears, and she realized that the noise was a gunshot.
Someone was trying to kill them.
Chapter Nine
Seb’s ears rang from the reverberation of a pistol being fired again.
The bullet pierced the brickwork of the building right behind where they were lying, sending a shower of stone and dust into the air.
He pulled out his pistol but couldn’t see where the shooter was hiding. It had to be down the adjacent alleyway or from one of the first-floor windows in the tenements across from them. Quickly, he aimed and fired two rounds down the alley, the most likely place the shots had come from.
A moment later he heard footsteps receding down the street and away from them. But he wasn’t ready to take any chances; there could still be another shooter waiting.
“Hurry, crawl behind those barrels,” he whispered to Lady Olivia, nodding to his right while he kept his pistol pointed steadily toward the direction of the threat. “I’ll protect you.”
She nodded and without question began dragging herself over to where he’d motioned, grabbing her cane in the process and pulling herself along the dirt-strewn ground until she was safely hidden behind the large oak barrels, mumbling something about her darn leg in the process.
Waiting a moment more until he was certain there was no movement from either the alley or the tenements, he sprung into a crouch and raced behind the back of the barrels, too.
He halted in his tracks upon seeing Lady Olivia standing behind the cover of the wooden barrels, her left hand leaning on her cane and her right hand holding a pistol. A pistol aimed directly at him.
“Watch out,” Livie yelled, her eyes darting behind him.
Sebastian swiveled to the side, giving her an unobstr
ucted view of the alleyway behind and the man who had sprung from a side door and was rushing toward them with a revolver in his hand.
As Seb raised his pistol, Livie beat him to it, pressing her trigger not once but twice. But instead of aiming at the man, she shot at the spot directly in front of the would-be attacker’s legs, barely twenty feet from where they stood. The bullets bounced off the ground, sending a plume of dust into the air.
The man stopped short and glanced up toward them. His gaze swung first toward Livie and then to Sebastian, before he began to raise his pistol toward Seb.
Sebastian’s revolver recoiled slightly as he pressed the trigger and a bullet shot out from its casing. The man jolted as he was hit in the leg, the force from the bullet sending him sprawling backward to the ground, blood spraying in the air like a fountain.
“You shot him,” Livie gasped, swiveling around to face Sebastian, who had stood and was now only inches from her.
The woman smelled of roses and cinnamon tonight. Get ahold of yourself, man, he chastised. He clearly had more important things to focus on than what she smelled like.
“I did.” Sebastian lowered his weapon, his eyes flickering across the alley, scanning for further threats.
“But why? We could have fired more warning shots at him.”
“Is that what they were?” Seb asked, as the fallen man moaned while he lay prone on the ground close to the entrance of the alley. “I thought you’d accidentally missed.”
“I did not miss!” she insisted as she holstered her pistol in one of the pockets of her cloak. “I’m an excellent shot, I’ll have you know. Another warning shot may have worked, rather than harming him.”
“Do you know why I shot him in his leg?” Sebastian’s eyes locked on her own. Would she dare stand up to him or question him? He was rather curious to know.
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