Page 17 of Tempting the Scoundrel
With the blade hidden behind her wrist, she did as he demanded. The moment he lowered the pistol and reached for the wad of notes, she struck.
Alexandra shoved the blade into flesh of his shoulder and pulled it out with a swift jerk.
The intruder gave a shout, his pistol hitting the floor. Alexandra kicked it away, saw it skitter beneath the bed. With her slick, bloody knife still in hand, she whirled and lunged for the door. But he recovered too soon. The man seized her hair from behind and shoved her to the floor. Alexandra gasped in pain.
“I’ll take your blunt and leave you dead, you little bitch,” he said, raising his fist.
She was quicker. With a sharp cry, she plunged her knife into his gut. His expression was startled.
Oh god. Oh god, oh god.
“You—” He choked. “Y-you—”
The intruder crumpled to the floor. His breathing was ragged, and he stared up at her as the blood pooled around him. His last words were an incoherent garble.
Then, nothing. His eyes stared up at her bedroom ceiling, sightless.
Alexandra had killed a man.
She pressed a hand to her mouth. What could she do? Call the servants? Tell someone to find a constable? They’d ask questions about the dead man in her garden, as well. They’d dig into that murder in Whitechapel. Had Nick even informed the police of Mary Watkins’ death?
Nick.
Come to me, if you need anything, he’d told her.No matter the hour.
Nicholas Thorne was the only man she knew who could help her now. Alexandra barely remembered putting on her boots and cloak as she fled Kent House. She hurried down the pavement to the main road and hailed a hack.
“Take me to the Brimstone in Whitechapel.”
“Brimstone ain’t no place for a lady,” the driver said. “Don’t expect me to stick around—”
“If I wanted to receive a lecture on appropriate behavior and places for women, sir, I’d listen to the imbeciles in Parliament. Now drive me to the Brimstone and there’s a sovereign in it if you shut the bloody hell up.”
The driver shut the bloody hell up.
Time went by in a blur. The streets changed from the tidy rows in Westminster to the uneven, blackened tenements of the East End. Ever closer to the Brimstone, and . . .
Safety?
Alexandra gave her head a shake. No. What happened in the last hour had addled her. Her breathing came too fast; she was surprised the driver couldn’t hear it. She kept recalling the face of the man she’d killed, the fact that he was still lying on the carpet in her bedchamber. God, his blood coated her hands, hidden beneath her cloak.
Thorne’s wife, he’d called her.
No, the Brimstone would not give her safety. Going there was simply necessary.
The lights of the club were visible all the way up the road. Alexandra hated this place. Hated everything it represented: a gambling den to line the pockets of the man who had deceived her. And now—Alexandra held back a bitter laugh at the thought—she was here for his help.
“Around the back,” she told the driver.
The driver gave a grumble, but complied. He was not about to risk losing his sovereign.
The hack rolled to a stop at the back entrance. Alexandra tossed the coin to the driver, hoping he wouldn’t notice the blood until after he’d left—not that it would make a difference, she suspected. Blood covered money was as good as any.
Alexandra knocked on the back door of the gaming hell. She didn’t know who she expected to answer, but the man before her didn’t appear to be a lawless type. He was as broad and muscled as Nick, but with patrician features that wouldn’t have been out of place in a ballroom. His eyes, however, were the gold of fine whiskey. Intimidating, were it not for his glasses to soften the impact.
“Are you from Maxine’s?” he asked. Before Alexandra could answer, he gave a gesture to the street behind her. “You ought to go around front. You can greet the gentlemen there.”
Maxine’s was a nearby brothel that served the more upper crest clientele that came to Nick’s club. Alexandra had written an essay on the women who worked there. None of the women at Maxine’s would be caught dead showing up at anyone’s door looking so unkempt. It was bad for business.
