Page 42 of Enticing Odds
“You,” Matthew choked out.
“Ay, me.”
Before him stood Charles Sharples, not an arm’s length away, wearing a battered bowler hat and a sinister grin. He was dressed in an almost amateurish attempt at modernity: a wilted sack suit that had seen far too many washings, with a large gold watch chain hanging from his waistcoat, anchored by a cigar cutter.
The flow of pedestrian traffic spilled around them, a river of people split into two channels before converging again on the other side of this monetary dispute.
Matthew swallowed and adjusted his spectacles. That watch chain, he thought unhelpfully, was spectacularly gaudy. His pulse was racing.
“Shall we walk, Doctor?”
Egad, that sounded like a threat. Matthew glanced about; no one paid them any mind, save a few brief dirty looks for obstructing the path.
“Thinking of running?” Sharples chuckled. “A big, strong fella like you, scared of a poor, soft sod like me? I suppose I ought to take that favorably.”
Matthew’s thoughts were scattered; no good options presented themselves. He couldn’t fight, not here, and he couldn’t run. He had an appointment for lunch.
At the Athenaeum!
So he set his jaw, his chest constricted with anxiety, and started walking.
Sharples fell in alongside him, so close that their arms brushed against one another. Matthew did his best not to recoil.
“And where are we off to today, then?”
Matthew didn’t answer. If only he could be cold and calculatingnow. Where had his baser instincts gone? Fled to wherever his bollocks had, no doubt.
“Paying a call, perhaps?”
When he still didn’t answer, Sharples reached into his coat. From his periphery Matthew surmised he was lighting up a cigar, which the ensuing noxious aroma soon confirmed.Filthy habit, he silently reproached, although even his unspoken rejoinder felt timid and feeble.
“Fliss says you’ve friends in high places. Lady friends and the like.”
Matthew felt a jolt of panic. Still, he made every attempt to school his features, to appear impassive.
“Ah, struck a chord, did that? Not just a friend or a patient then. Something more? Now, calm down, I can see your big ol’ nostrils flaring. Like an ox, you are,” Sharples said around his cigar. “Wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley.”
“Hence crashing into me in broad daylight,” Matthew muttered, finally finding his tongue. How dare he suggest… how dare he evenmentionher!
“See? You’re a smart lad.”
Sharples clapped a hand upon his shoulder, to Matthew’s disgust. Feeling fractionally bolder, he shrugged it off.
“But me, you see, I’m smarter. I’m craftier.”
Matthew snorted at that assertion. He doubted this man had ever read a word of Hippocrates or Euclid, let alone—
“Take your fine lady friend, for instance. Fliss is rather certain of the fancy crest on her carriage. Thinks he could pick it out. He’s a damn fool, but I’ll allow he’s a good memory. Would be a few days’ work, asking around at all the mews and stables. But I reckon I’ll find her all the same.”
A sudden rage consumed Matthew, blinding him in a red fog. His brain contained no words, only raw emotion. Like a lion he pounced, seizing the villain by his lapels and shoving him against the nearest brick wall. The cigar fell to the ground.
“You bloody oaf!” Sharples cried as he reached up to claw at Matthew’s hands and wrists, all to no avail. Matthew only twisted the fabric tighter and higher, raising the man to his toes. “Hands off! This is my new clobber!”
“Now you listen to me, you vile scum,” Matthew growled.
Sharples shut his trap. His face had turned a satisfying shade of mauve.
“I beat your game fair and square. That’s more than I can say for the way you operate, you filthy cheat. But that’s a matter between you and me.” Matthew could feel his blood pressure escalating, his carotid artery throbbing in his neck. He shoved Sharples back against the wall again. “Don’t you dare go near the viscountess!”
