Page 96 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
But still their men did not come with the carriage.
Kane turned to themajordom, who was also, by this time, frowning at the failure of Kane’s carriage to arrive. “Might you know in what street our men went to retrieve our conveyance?”
The man opened his mouth to speak and noticed Kane’s carriage pulling to the circular drive.
With thanks, Kane and Gus darted out into the rain.
Kane’s footman bent over, his cap tightly drawn over his head, as he opened the carriage door. The rain was a torrent.
Kane handed Gus inside. Both of them were soaked to the skin.
The door slammed shut, and Kane attributed the abruptness to his footman’s need it get out of the rain.
The coach jerked forward.
In her seat opposite, Gus shivered once more, pulling at her silken gown. “No need to wet down this dress to appear fashionable, eh?”
He removed his formal frock coat. “I think this has shrunk. Let me give you my waistcoat.” He remembered how sensitive Gus was to colder temperatures.
“I don’t need it. Honestly, Kane.”
“Take it.” He swung it around her shoulders, then moved beside her. “Come here. Let me warm you.”
She snuggled next to him. “Better than your waistcoat. Hmmm. The coachman is driving very fast through these narrow streets, don’t you think?”
“He probably wants to get home out of the rain,” Kane told her, but he was worried at his man’s reckless behavior. Speed was not like him.
Suddenly, the carriage lurched forward. Kane parted the lace curtain and saw that his man was taking the riverbank road. In the black night, only a few candles glimmered on barges in the Seine. Across the river on the left bank, a few more candles lit the tall houses of merchants. The carriage was also traveling west, not east toward Rue Gabriel and home.
“You are scowling,” Gus murmured. “What’s wrong?”
As if in answer, the coachman yelled to the groom, the carriage careened to one side, and shouts pierced the night.
Kane reached under the seat and brought out his pistol.
Gus opened a compartment in her armrest and extracted her gleaming stiletto.
Kane held her close. “I will kill whoever opens that door.”
She gripped her knife. “I am for the second one.”
Men yelled, a raucous din. The carriage door flew open. An ugly creature with a scarf over his mouth snarled.
Kane fired.
The creature was dead before he took another breath.
A churl behind him reached in, and another beside him tore Kane from his seat.
As the two beat him about the head and dragged him along the cobbles, he heard his wife behind him.
Screeching at them to let him go, Gus struggled with her attackers.
Kane heard her curses and, in his soul, felt her struggles. He heard the cry of one man and the shout of another.
Both cursed.
Gus had cut them.
