Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(16)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Temperance inhaled. Any other gentleman—especially an aristocratic gentleman—would’ve given up on her at her tart words and turned and left her in outraged male anger. Whatever the game Lord Caire played, he was patient.

And besides, the home still needed a patron.

“Polly is our wet nurse,” Temperance said more calmly. “You’ll remember the night we met, I brought a new baby to the home. I’ve placed the baby, a frail child, with Polly to nurse. Her name is Mary Hope.”

“You seem…” He trailed off as if analyzing the tone of her voice. “Unhappy.”

“Mary Hope will not suck,” Temperance said. “And when Polly dribbles milk into her mouth, she hardly swallows.”

“Then the child will die,” he said, his voice remote.

She stopped and whirled on him. “Yes! Yes, Mary Hope will die if she cannot take sustenance. Why are you so uncaring?”

“Why are you so caring?” He’d stopped with her, too close as usual, and the wind blew his cloak forward, wrapping around her skirts like a living thing. “Why feel so much for a child you hardly know? A child you must’ve known was ailing, perhaps already dying, when you brought her to your home?”

“Because it is my work,” she said fiercely. “It’s the reason I get up in the morning, the reason I eat, the reason I sleep—to provide for these children. To keep the home running.”

“That’s all? You do not love the child herself?”

“No, of course not.” She turned and continued walking. “I… I care for each of the children, of course I do, but to let oneself love a dying child would be the height of foolishness. Don’t think I don’t know that, my lord.”

“So selfless,” he said, his voice deep and mocking. “Such a martyr to those poor, wretched infants. Why, Mrs. Dews, you might as well be a saint. All you need is the halo and the bloody palms.”

A hot retort was on the tip of her tongue, but Temperance pressed her lips together, swallowing the words.

“And yet,” Lord Caire mused somewhere close behind her, “I wonder if it is possible to stop yourself from loving a child. For some it might be easy, but for you, Mrs. Dews, I very much doubt it.”

She quickened her steps in irritation. “You consider yourself an authority on emotion, my lord?”

“Not at all,” he murmured. “I rarely feel anything. But like the legless man, I’m unaccountably fascinated by those who can dance.”

She turned the corner, thinking. They were walking away from the home now. “You don’t feel anything?”

“Nothing.”

She paused to look up at him curiously. “Then why spend so much time searching for the murderer of your mistress?”

His mouth curved cynically. “I wouldn’t read too much into that. A whim, merely.”

“Now who lies?” she whispered.

He looked away as if in irritation. “I notice we’re not going toward your home.”

She was oddly disappointed at his deflection of the subject. If he truly felt no emotion, then why spend months looking for a murderer on a “whim”? Did Lord Caire feel more than he would admit? Or was he really the cold, uncaring aristocrat he painted himself?

But he was silent, obviously waiting for her reply. Temperance sighed. “I’m taking you to Hangman’s Alley, where Martha Swan supposedly lives.”

“Won’t your brother worry for you if you don’t return home?”

“If we can go and come back in the next hour, I’ll say that I was checking on the other wet nurses,” Temperance muttered, setting off again.

“Tsk, Mrs. Dews, lying to your own brother?”

This time she simply ignored him. Night had fallen fully now, the streets emptying as the hunters came out, and she was glad she’d brought the pistol, tucked into a bag hanging beneath her skirts. Half an hour later, they turned into Hangman’s Alley, a gathering place for footpads, thieves, and pickpockets. She wondered if Lord Caire knew just how dangerous this area was. When she looked at him sideways, she noticed that he walked with a predator’s grace, his ebony stick held in one fist like a club.

He caught her glance. “What a lovely neighborhood.”

“Humph.” But despite her dismissive tone, Temperance was relieved that he looked so formidable. “There ’tis.”

She pointed to a worn sign depicting a shoe. Mother Heart’s-Ease had said that Martha Swan lived over a cobbler’s shop. The building was dark, the alley before it deserted. Temperance pulled her cloak closer about herself, feeling surreptitiously for the pistol under her skirts. They should have stopped for a lantern.

Lord Caire stepped forward and knocked against the door with his stick. It echoed hollowly, but no movement came from within.

“If she’s a pickpocket or a prostitute, she may be out,” Temperance said.

“No doubt,” Lord Caire replied, “but having come so far, I suggest we at least look.”

She frowned, about to protest, but over his shoulder, she saw a movement in the shadows. Her breath caught on a scream as three figures scuttled from an alley, moving fast.

Moving with obvious deadly intent.

She would’ve called a warning to Lord Caire, but there was no need. His eyes sharpened on her face. “Run!”

And then he was whirling, putting her behind him near the building as he faced the attackers. They spread as they came at him, the outer two men going to either side of Lord Caire, the center man raising a knife. Lord Caire hit the center man’s wrist with his stick, deflecting the first blow. He withdrew a short sword from his stick, and then they were on him in a flurry of rapid blows and kicks, three against one.

It was only a matter of time until Lord Caire went down, even armed.

She had her pistol. Temperance hauled up her skirts, fumbling for the sack. She withdrew the pistol, letting her skirts drop.

She looked up in time to see Lord Caire grunt and half turn as if he’d been hit. One of the men staggered away, but the remaining closed in. She brought the pistol up, but the combatants were too close together. If she fired, she might hit Lord Caire.

And if she didn’t, the assailants might kill him.

As she watched, one of the men feinted with a dagger on one side of Lord Caire while another raised a knife on his other side. She couldn’t wait any longer. They were going to kill him.

Temperance fired.

Chapter Four

Once a year, it was King Lockedheart’s custom to give a speech to his people. But because he was a man more used to wielding a sword than a pen, the king made a habit of practicing his speech. Thus one morning, King Lockedheart paced the balcony of his magnificent palace, declaiming his speech to the open air and the caged blue bird.