Page 75 of Kiss Me Lady One More Time
“An old stocking, with the ribbon garter still tied. The whole room gave off a bad feeling.”
“Someone’s coming,” Ruby whispered.
They all looked. It was a couple, walking close together. Courting, perhaps. As they drew near, Penelope stepped further onto the pavement. “Oh, dear. It looks as if no one is home. Perhaps we have the wrong house?” She looked up at the approaching couple. “Excuse me? Would you know if Lord Moffat lives here?”
The couple paused and the young man looked the house over. “No indeed, ma’am. A gentleman lives there, Sir Richard Lowell.”
“Lowell?” she whispered. She staggered back a step. “Lowell!”
“Indeed, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
The couple moved on, but Penelope stood where she was, her hand at her throat. Lady Tresham had theorized that the theft was a personal attack. And yes, Lady Lowell had set her eye on Tensford as a husband at one time, but it certainly had not seemed as if she cared much about him, just the title and the chance to enter Society. But she’d got all of that with her marriage. Was Tensford’s choice of Hope, instead, enough of a reason to go to all of this trouble? “I don’t understand.”
“There’s naught to understand, with some folks,” Scarred Curtis said. “They are just twisted, or self-absorbed, or vengeful, or just plain like to cause others pain. That man we dealt with was cold. Nothing behind his eyes, if you know what I mean.
His brother pointed at the house. “If these toffs have a man like that who works for them—they are likely worse. You’d do best to stay away from them.”
“We should take our own good advice,” the scarred brother said thoughtfully. He looked her over. “You seem like a better sort of person. A lady who keeps her word. We done what you asked us. We can wait for payment. You can arrange it when you return home, but it’s time we left and got back to Gloucestershire, ourselves.”
“A very good idea.”
The voice came out of the dark at the same moment that Penelope felt someone grip her arm—far too tightly. She forgot the discomfort when she felt cold metal press against her throat.
“Here now! Samseh. What’s all this?” one of the brothers protested.
“You two should not have meddled.”
“There’s no need to act like this, now, man.”
“That’s enough out of you. Get yourselves out of the city by morning or I’ll send you to the ocean, by way of the river.” He jerked her a step away and the knife bit deeper into her flesh. She felt a drop of blood roll down her neck. “I’ll deal with our busy little bee. You two take the carriage. Where’s the other girl?”
“What other girl?” The brothers looked about, trying for innocent expressions.
Samseh tugged her again. “Leave. Now!” he barked at the men.
They scrambled for the carriage and she found herself propelled down the street and into an alley. The servant moved the knife from her neck to her side and guided her to the Lowell house. A servant’s door led them into a dark hall. At the other end there were lighted rooms and the quiet murmur of voices. The servants’ hall, perhaps. If she could get their attention, perhaps—
“They will not interfere with me,” her captor warned her. “No matter who you are. They know that a sacking is only the first and least painful thing that will happen to them.”
He dragged her up narrow stairs and into the public rooms of the house. It was dark here and she had only the sense of passing several rooms before he stopped and opened a door. Hustling her in, he shoved her into a chair.
“Stay there.”
He lit a wall sconce, keeping the light low, and locked the door. Her first real look at the man did not reassure her. He had a pocked complexion, short, dark hair and a merciless scowl. And yes, she saw what the Curtis brothers had meant. His eyes were . . . hollow. As if no human empathy had ever lived inside of him.
She glanced around. They were in the library. She ran her hands along the arms of the chair and wondered if she was strong enough to pick it up and toss it at him.
Standing in front of the door, he aimed that scowl at her. “I knew you would be the one to cause trouble.” He sounded bitter and aggrieved, as if she’d been defying him on purpose.
She stared—and suddenly understood. “You. You’re the other one. The man who has been following us.”
“Everyone else was happy to follow the trail to Rowland’s party. But you would not go along. You just had to keep digging after that damned cousin of yours.”
His hand kept tightening around the knife he still held, before he flexed his fingers and tightened them again. Suddenly he started toward her. She cringed, but held on tight to the arms of the chair, ready to dive away and fling it at him, but he walked on past her.
She swung her head around to watch him go to the corner bookshelf. He angled his back to block her view of what he was doing, and suddenly the shelf swung inward. Looking back at her, he made a beckoning motion. “Come on, then.”
