Page 56 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
Ada turned and leaned her back against the balustrade.
He itched to pull her away and into the safety of his arms. “Get away from there.” Cass pulled her back. “Stay away from the edge. Your father is damned intimidating, and I would hate to have to explain your death to him. Exile myself before that happened.”
“I won’t fall. Are you jealous of the strongman’s muscles, Cassius?”
“No.” But he might be jealous she found those muscles so fascinating.
He felt a touch better when she turned from the spectacle in the ring to study every single detail around them.
Her brows leapt together. “Oh no.”
He leapt to her side. “What?”
“That man, the one who exposed himself out front. He’s here, too.” She nodded to the balcony across the ring from them.
Cass spied the man at once. “So are those women, the ones who were following us.”
“So they are.” She frowned.
“They all three seem to be bothering one another. Perhaps that means they will not bother us.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. Some mischief is afoot. I know it.”
Cass chuckled. “How can you know it?”
“I’ve got afeeling. And my feelings are always right.”
“Whatever mischief they might get up to, at least it will be over there and out of our way,” he grumbled. But he didn’t like to think of that sot near any woman, and if he knew the women in question, well, he liked that even less. “They don’t appear amused with him, do they?” Cass nodded toward the cloaked women.
“No. Not at all. That one’s trying to leave, I think—oh!”
The man’s hand shot toward the woman and grabbed her wrist. He yanked her into his body, and with his other hand, he pushed her hood back.
Ada gasped again. “Nora? It can’t be!”
Cass looked at Ada and back to the scene across the way again. “Nora? As in yoursister?”
“Yes! And—oh. No, no, no, no, no, no.”
“What is it?”
Ada grabbed his arm and pulled him into a run. “Nora is reaching into her pocket.”
Cass huffed, struggling to keep up physically and intellectually. “So?” he managed to squeak out.
“Nora only ever keeps one thing in her skirt pockets—a pistol. She knows how to use it. And well.”
Cass, who usually ambled everywhere, apparently knew how to sprint, and he reached the side of the fray before Ada.
He slammed a hand onto the man’s shoulder. “Let the lady go. Now.” He shifted his gaze from the sot to the young Miss Cavendish’s pocket. Her hand disappeared there, her arm poised to act.
The sot looked at Cass with a snarl on his lips. “You again? Go to hell.” He shrugged his shoulder, trying to dislodge the marble hand squeezing there. “This pretty little bit of muslin is all mine. Ow!” He jumped back and hopped on one foot, holding the other with both hands, until he fell and landed with a thud on his ass. “She jumped on my foot!”
Better than putting a bullet through his brain.
Cass stepped between the grounded sot and Ada’s sister, whose face contorted with flaming fury. He reached down and twisted his hand into the man’s crumpled and stained cravat. He lifted him to his feet and twisted the cravat tighter around the man’s neck. “You will leave here now. But first, apologize to the lady.”
The sot gurgled and spit.
