For six days now she’d been cataloging his habits and rituals, striving to map out the pattern of his life, working to determine how best to bring that life to an end without sacrificing her own.
Unfortunately, her life in a small village near the sea had hardly provided her with the education or experience to play cat and mouse, and more often than not she feared she was the prey and not the predator in this deadly game. Especially as she had the increasing sense that while she followed Lord Rockberry, someone followed her.
As the lavender bowers scented the air around her, Eleanor fought not to glance back, not to give any indication that she was aware of her pursuer. She’d first become cognizant of a large man trailing in her wake two nights ago, after Rockberry had paid a visit to Scotland Yard. She should have been more discreet in her plans for Rockberry. She might have spooked him with her boldness, making him aware of her presence, hoping he’d begin to question his own sanity. If he went mad and took his own life, so much the better. It would save her from having to take it for him. Instead, it was possible he’d reported her to the police.
She’d yet to catch sight of her pursuer tonight, but she was certain he was there because the hairs on the nape of her neck prickled, sending icy tingles coursing through her.
It didn’t help, so near the Thames, that the thick fog was silently rolling in, washing out the color of all that surrounded her. The gaslights became muted hazes, eerily striving to illuminate what many preferred to hide. Behind the elms and poplars, in shadowy recesses, came the murmurs of gentlemen and the seductive laughter of women.
She was no longer certain what she hoped to accomplish by following Rockberry to such a questionable place, but she needed to know what he did, who he met, so she could determine the best moment to strike. Caution over expediency.
He prowled the night as though he were some ravenous beast, but she knew it wasn’t food he sought, but rather decadent pleasures-her sister’s journal had revealed in intimate and heartrending detail how he had seduced her, not only for his gratification but for the amusement of others. As though her wants had no merit, her dreams were meant to be shattered. Rockberry had destroyed Elisabeth long before she’d flung herself over the cliff into the turbulent sea below.
Fighting back her tears-now was not the time to succumb to her sorrow-she strengthened her resolve to see that Rockberry paid handsomely for his part in her sister’s death at the mere age of nineteen.
The loathsome man disappeared around a curve. Drat it! He was too self-absorbed to realize he was being followed, so he must have some rendezvous in mind. She wondered if he’d already singled out his next victim. If that was the case, then she might very well end the game tonight, because she couldn’t stand by and let another woman suffer as Elisabeth had.
She swept around the trees and came to a staggering stop, her path blocked by three gentlemen with lascivious grins.
“Hello, sweeting,” the one in the middle said, giving her the impression that he was the one in charge.
The lights in this area were exceedingly dim, and the gray mist didn’t help the situation. She could tell little about him save that he was fair, and if not for his wretched smile, she might have even considered him handsome. His friends were dark, one distinguishable by his rather unattractive bulbous nose, and the other by his unfortunate lack of a chin, as though it had somehow fallen into his neck. The way their gazes roamed over her made her skin crawl, and it was all she could do not to shrink before them. They wore the finest of clothes, along with expectations for a grand time, intent upon enjoying their youth while it still belonged to them.
As for herself, with Elisabeth’s death, she’d aged well beyond her twenty years.
“Please, excuse me.” She made a motion to go around them, but they moved as one to bar her path. Her heart sped up, imitating the rhythm of the train that had brought her to London, clacking and rattling and threatening to jump the tracks at any moment. She took a step back, and No Chin sidestepped over to hinder her escape. Suddenly, she found herself surrounded. It would take very little for the men to drag her into the darkest shadows of the garden where no hope existed for retaining her dignity.
She tried to open her reticule, to find the dagger she kept there as her only source of protection, but No Chin tore it free of her hold, nearly wrenching her arm off in the process. “No!” she cried out.
“Come on, be a good girl,” the fair-haired man said as he snaked an arm around her, lifting her to the tips of her toes.
Terror gripped her as she released an ear-splitting scream. But all she heard was laughter as they began carting her toward the dark abyss. She wouldn’t succumb easily to what they planned. She would fight, scratch, claw-
“Hold up, gents! The lady is with me.”
Apparently, the men forcing her off the main pathway were as surprised by the deep confident voice obviously directed at them as she was. They parted slightly, allowing her to view through a narrow gap the shadowy silhouette of a large man with broad shoulders, taller than any man she’d ever seen.
Abruptly, he shouldered his way in, wound his arm around her waist and untangled her from her captor, using his free arm to shove one of the other men aside.
“I mean you no harm,” he murmured quickly in a low, reassuring voice. “If you wish to survive this night with your virtue intact, I suggest you come along with me.”
Everything about him was lost to the murky shadows that accompanied the encroaching fog. His hair was dark, but she couldn’t tell its exact shade. She could feel the power in his hold, strength as well as confidence. Instinctively, she knew he was not a man who forced women. He had no need. Something about him radiated a protective air, and she realized in all likelihood he was the man who’d been following her, the man from Scotland Yard. She didn’t think he was one to fear the devil, and she had an insane thought that perhaps he could help her deal with Rockberry. But even as she thought it, she realized she could no more confide in a stranger than she could a friend. Not about this matter, not when so much-when everything-was at risk.
His gaze shifted away from her, and only then did she remember they had an audience. The three young men were glaring at them.
“Look here, old chap,” the leader said. “We claimed her first.”
“As I’ve already stated, she’s with me.”
“We were told she was available.”
“You were told incorrectly.” With his arm firmly around her, he began to stride away. She had to move her feet quickly to stay in step. But before they’d neared the main path, the three men moved to thwart their leaving. She heard his weary sigh.
“Do you gents really want to fight tonight, knowing you can’t possibly win?”
“There are three of us and only one of you. I like our odds.”
“My odds are better. I grew up on the streets, fighting far worse than you.”
“You sound like a gent.”
“But I fight like the very devil.” The underlying threat of his words reverberated through his voice.
It seemed the men who had accosted her were not only mean-spirited, but stupid. Bulbous swung-
She found herself quickly thrust behind her protector-it was how she was quickly beginning to think of him-as he warded off the blow and sent Bulbous to the ground. The other two attacked him. While he used his shoulder to cause No Chin to stagger back, her rescuer plowed his fist into the fair man’s stomach. With a gasp, Fair doubled over and dropped to his knees. Then her protector rounded on Bulbous as he regained his footing and stood. The thud of flesh hitting flesh as her protector’s knuckles caught the man beneath the chin echoed around them. Bulbous staggered back, arms windmilling. He fell in a graceless sprawl over the ground, unmoving. As his companions tried to get to their feet, her protector made short work of landing two quick punches that returned both to the ground.