Page 7 of A Duke's Keeper
They worked along the narrow walls and followed the growing sound of the Thames River. A few blocks more and they’d come out on the south Dockland, where the ever-increasing traffic on the Thames would be uncommonly quiet after the recent storm from the North Sea; there’d be no onearound aside from bored sailors looking to make their next port—or fill their beds with cheap company.
IfRenardmeant her harm, she was little better than a babe. She could run again, but any number of thugs ormenlurked in the dark, and there was a distinct possibility Hawkins wouldn’t stay down for long.
Camille gritted her teeth and kept pace, leaving her well-being up to fate, and a blasted duke.
*
Renard’s relationship withfate was a fickle one. Like most nights, he’d spent a good few hours drinking, followed by a chaser of the most dangerous activity at hand.
Normally, the activities were drunken carriage races through the London streets. Tonight, he’d elected a merry jaunt through the back alleys of the slums, expecting to find a fist in his face, or better, a knife to his throat.
The fists he’d gotten right, but finding a lovely woman facing off with three thugs hadn’t been part of the deal.
He welcomed the violence with open arms and bruised fists, but the woman complicated matters. He made a point to never dabble with the flighty creatures. The idea of being at the receiving end of some grateful, cloying wench was enough to keep most of his treacherous activities to male sport.
And yet he’d gone and saved her like some damned knight of old.
But if he’d expected the damsel to inflate his ego with lamentations of gratitude, he’d need to go back to the Cock ’n Hen to find a bar wench impressed with manners and coin, because Miss Camille Forthright seemed more likely to chop off an arm than accept his help.
Renard didn’t delude himself for a second that the lady had succumbed to his charms. If the thought weren’t ridiculous, he’d say the woman was impervious. She’d as much as sneered when he’d called her lovely.
She shuffled behind him, her one arm tucked to her chest, the other hanging limply at her side.
The woman was exceptional. Aside from her looks, which were on par with renderings of Venus with her flaming hair, flawless face, and eyes the color of autumn in the country, she’d bashed that ginger bastard hard enough the boxer hadn’t recovered to avoid Renard’s uppercut. And he had no doubt she’d have taken that skinny fiend to pasture if it hadn’t been for her other injuries.
All without a whimper of complaint. Forget exceptional; she wasn’t human.
Though the way her gazes, and words, flayed his ego open, he’d yet to determine if he was in the presence of an avenging angel—or a delicious devil.
“You’re staring,” she accused.
“Hmm. Tell me, Miss Forthright, are you religious?”
Those lovely, brown eyes flashed in the spotty moonlight. “I’ve seen too much of the world to believe there’s someone looking out for my well-being.”
“You’re a cynic?”
“I’m a realist.” Her nose wrinkled. “I suppose you are a believer?”
“Heavens, no.” He smiled at his joke. She didn’t. He cleared his throat. “Not in the conventional sense of church and prayer, anyway. But God...” The blackness long buried in his mind clawed its way towards the surface. Renard pushed it down and away and answered simply, “Yes.”
There was a God. Renard knew with absolute certainty. He should know; he’d been stupid enough to anger Him.
The sounds of water, and profanity, filtered down the alley with the warm light of the Cock ’n Hen tavern.
Renard felt an odd sense of reluctance to part ways. Stranger still, his increasingly sober state didn’t elicit the usual panic he experienced most mornings before his drink—since not even a self-proclaimed lush of a worthless gentleman thought it right to grab a bottle before ten in the morning.
He turned down a bisecting alley, heading for the warehouse on the far side of the harbor. “The tavern is the other way,” she said.
He didn’t stop. “Your deduction skills are profound.”
He was surprised to hear her follow. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her jaw was locked and her wrist had turned an unhealthy shade of plum. And those lovely eyes... were blank; she’d near lost consciousness on her feet.
“Damn it.” He scooped her into his arms, minding her injuries.
She protested—loudly.
“The man I mentioned lives up ahead,” he said in hopes of quelling her struggling.
