Page 14 of The Forsaken

He didn’t need to. A collapsed figure some four paces ahead lay in the middle of the thoroughfare. Hmph.

“Very well. I thank you for serving as my bodyguard, but expect no further gratitude from me. Now, if you will release me, I have affairs to attend.”

“Have I interrupted another masquerade?” The clouds moved and cast the moon’s light over the white flash of his sarcastic smile.

He glanced about. “Or given your unconventional choice of locations, are you playing a round of hide and seek in St. Giles?”

Andromena slammed her booted foot with full speed and force into his shin. When he didn’t budge, she kicked him harder.

A hiss sailed past her lips.

Through a blurry sheen, she caught the cynical curl of his mouth.

“A real gentleman would at least be contrite, Kerr.”

“A real lady wouldn’t be looking for fun in the Rookeries and kicking a gentleman who’d saved her from being raped and worse.”

“Worse!” Ignoring her smarting toes, she battered her boot against him over and over. “There is no one worse than you, Edgar Hollis, Viscount Cur.”

This time, he yawned. His boredom was worse—it was unforgivable.

Andromena let fly a litany of curses.

“Ye got a real shrew there.”

Startled mid-kick, the earth came out from under her. For all his iniquity, Kerr caught Andromena before she hit the brick wall and gently set her against it.

Heart beating fast, she looked at their company. The man, with his black hair pomaded back and sizeable belly straining his garments, put Andromena in mind of the black Dorset hog, she and Oleander dressed in Papa’s Sunday best, and trotted through sermons years earlier. The exception being in his moth-eaten suit from a good forty to fifty years ago and that he leered at her like he was ready to make her his next meal.

Reflexively, Andromena sidled nearer to Edgar. She crept a hand into his sleeve.

“You have no idea,” Kerr said.

Andromena pinched him through his greatcoat.

“Oi ’ave an idea. She put on quite a show.”

The two unalike men laughed like old chums. The only thing they didn’t do was slap one another on the back.

“Oi can take her off yer ’ands, mate.”

She gasped, and whipped her attention up to Edgar.

The ‘good sir’ had taken to rubbing his obstinate jaw with a thumb and forefinger, appearing as if he gave the offer some real consideration.

“You will do no such thing, my lord,” she said in low, threatening tones.

“Shh, darling.” He patted the hand she had fastened to him. “Gentlemen are discussing business.”

Business?

She thought the feeling inside her chest might be anger—it certainly wasn’t fear. Except she’d been plenty angry in her life, but nothing came close to the sensation inside that made her want to claw his eyes out and scratch her nails down the untouched portion of his face. But then, that would only make the lout into even more of a masterpiece ladies went agog over. And that nearly left her blind.

Andromena fought to free her arm from his crook that he’d locked tight around her.

Fire coursed her blood.

“My family will kill you both,” she pledged.