His features hard, his expression impassive, he nodded. “At least three, but I think there are more.”
They strolled on a few paces. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
Del wasn’t sure he agreed. “It’s what we wanted to do.” To draw the cultists into an attack. Only he didn’t think they were cultists, although he still held a faint hope. More importantly, however, he had Deliah beside him-and that went against every tenet in his book.
With every step he took deeper into the park, he felt increasingly torn, one part of him urging him to take Deliah’s arm and march her straight back to the safety of the hotel, while the rest of him argued that this was a chance-a chance his mission committed him to take-to engage the enemy’s troops and reduce their number. His decoy’s mission hinged on that.
And she would fight him every step of the way if he tried to remove her from the action she’d instigated.
They slowed, but remaining apparently oblivious was essential to tempt an attack. Yet the edge of the park drew steadily nearer, and still their pursuers hung back.
“What do we do?” she asked. “Turn and saunter back?”
Mentally reviewing the areas through which they’d passed, he grimaced. “It’s too open-they’re worried others will see and come to our aid. There’s still plenty of people walking along Piccadilly-anyone could glance into the park and see.”
“In that case”-with her furled umbrella, she waved ahead-“let’s continue on into St James’s Park. Lots more bushes under the trees there, and even fewer people.”
Let alone the sort who might assist them. With the light fading, and the weather closing in, the denizens left in St. James’s Park were more likely to be pickpockets and thieves than upstanding citizens.
Del’s jaw set. He didn’t want to, but…with a stiff nod, he guided her on.
Leaving Green Park, they crossed the end of the Mall, all but deserted, and strolled, apparently nonchalantly, on into the glades of St. James’s Park.
The bushes closed around them, and every instinct Del possessed heightened, sharpened.
Beside him, he felt Deliah tense, alert, her senses no doubt reaching out, scanning, as were his.
“Tony and Gervase will be near.” He uttered the reassurance beneath his breath.
She tipped her head in acknowledgment, but said nothing.
The attack, when it came, was potentially more deadly than he’d foreseen. They were ambling, outwardly without a care, down a grassed avenue wide enough for three men abreast, when three thugs swung out of the bushes ten paces ahead, and faced them, blocking the way.
Movement to their rear told him there were men there, too; gripping Deliah’s arm, he pulled her behind him as he swung to place their backs to a wide tree trunk.
Two more men blocked the path they’d already trod, cutting off any retreat. At that point, the trees and bushes lining the path were too thick to easily push through.
The enemy had chosen a decent setting for their ambush, yet they were all Englishmen. Del inwardly swore as, with a click, he loosened the sword concealed in his stick. Three of the men started forward, two from one end, one from the other, leaving one man standing guard at either end of the short stretch. With a flourishing swish, Del unsheathed his sword. Stepping back, crowding Deliah between the tree and him, he beckoned. “Come on, then.”
The sword had given them pause. They already had knives in their hands. They exchanged glances, then looked back at him.
Then they launched a concerted attack.
The fighting was fast and furious, but Del had been in tighter, more dicey situations. He hadn’t, however, fought before with a demented female armed with a parasol beside him.
He should have expected it, yet he hadn’t. Far from cowering behind him-where she ought to at least have stayed-Deliah slipped out to stand alongside him, with her parasol laying into any of the men who came within beating range.
Her active participation as well as her furious flaying threw the three men facing him off balance.
Before matters got too fraught, and the two thugs standing back thought to intervene, Tony and Gervase slid silently from the bushes, and the two thugs dropped where they stood.
The remaining three suddenly realized that instead of being the ones springing a trap, a trap had been sprung on them.
But it was far too late for escape. With ruthless efficiency, Tony, Gervase and Del subdued them, using their fists, rather than any blades.
Then came silence, broken only by the sound of their breathing.
In the deepening gloom of early twilight, they hauled all five men into a row on the grass, sitting them propped against each other. None were in any state to make a bid for freedom.
The men were still groggy, but they could hear.
“Who sent you?” Gervase began the interrogation.
With short, sharp questions coming from all four of them-Deliah joined in, of course, and as her sharper tone made the men holding their heads wince, Del let her fire away-they soon extracted the expected story. The five had been hired by a man-a suspiciously tanned Englishman with close-cropped dark hair-to stalk them, watch closely, and act on any opportunity to seize either Deliah or Del.
As before, the would-be abductors had been told to bring any baggage they might acquire to a tavern, this time in a seedy alley in Tothill Fields.
Turning to Del, Deliah and Gervase, Tony shook his head. “No point going there-it’ll be the same story as last night.”
Gervase grunted an assent. He eyed the five figures slumped before them. “What should we do with them?”
While Del, Tony and Gervase evaluated the merits of turning the men over to the Watch, Deliah stood with her arms crossed and scowled at their prisoners.
They knew she was watching; none dared meet her eye. They shifted, but none showed any sign of getting to their feet and running.
As Del and the other two were in the throes of concluding they might as well let the five go-no real point in going to the Watch and having to spend hours explaining why men continued to attack them-sitting quietly and watching and waiting was wise.
And that, Deliah thought, illustrated what was different about these men. They weren’t like the lumbering louts of yesterday; these men were harder, smarter, quicker-distinctly more deadly.
They were quite a different breed.
“Very well.” Del turned to the men. “You can-”
“Wait.” Deliah shot a glance Del’s way. When he raised a brow but obediently waited, she refocused on the man in the center of the line. He was, she judged, the oldest, and appeared the most sharply observant. “Before you scurry back to your sewers, tell me-do you know others like you? Do you have contacts you can use to get out a warning?”
The man in the center returned her regard steadily. “Might have. Why?”
“Because you need to understand what’s going on here.” Deliah felt Del place a hand on her arm; she nodded slightly in acknowledgment, but continued, “The man who hired you-you noticed his tanned skin. He’s lately come from India. He’s the servant of a man from India-a fiend who’s been terrorizing the country there, among other things butchering and torturing Englishmen, English soldiers and civilians, and even women and children.”
She held the man’s gaze. “The reason the fiend-he’s known as the Black Cobra-sent his servant to hire you was because the Colonel here”-with a wave she indicated Del-“and three others who’ve yet to land in England are carrying information that must get into the right hands in our government to bring the fiend down. Naturally, the Black Cobra doesn’t want that-he wants to be able to keep killing Englishmen in India. So you might tell all your friends that, if they agree to work for any man, even a gentleman, lately from India, then they’re most likely being used as cannon fodder for the Black Cobra, so he can keep killing Englishmen.”