Page 33 of The Viscount's Seduction
“Yes.”
He held on to her arm and retrieved the shawl, draping her with it. “What you’re feeling is shock.”
He was feeling it himself. That first horrific vision of her with a knife to a ruffian’s throat, the man at her feet beaten, had sent a panic through him.
He should have been quicker. She should have not come here. Foolish, foolish girl.
He scooped her up in his arms.
“I can walk,” she cried. But her face was wet, and her tears were shredding his composure.
His sister, Perry, never cried. But she might if someone had beaten up her footmen and tried to assault her. The mere thought made his blood boil.
“Shush.” He hurried back to the hackney that had brought him and, flipping a large coin, sent a boy for another.
Her servants, the Smith brothers, staggered up behind with Bink at their heels. Both men looked wild-eyed, tired, afraid, like the fox after a long chase. He set Lady Sirena on her feet while they waited and kept her locked at his side.
“None of this was their fault,” she said.
“I told you I’m not turning them in.”
The man called John sagged in his brother’s arms.
“Listen,” Bakeley said. “Both of you need a surgeon. I’ll see you patched up. Then you may leave.”
“Get in.” Bink hauled John up as gently as possible. “And don’t think to stab me with that blade you have hidden. Bakeley, take the lady in the other transport.”
She tried to push away. “You will take them to—”
“We will all go to the same place, lass,” Bink said. “Bakeley, where is that to be? My home?”
“No.” Bink’s home included Kincaid, who was deeply loyal to both of the Gibsons, but he had served as one of Shaldon’s operatives for more years than anyone could count. He would see this situation the same way Shaldon would. “There is another place. Get in.”
He gave each driver the same direction and helped Lady Sirena into the hackney.
This second carriage was a small affair, only big enough for two. She slid into the corner and huddled there.
He planted himself in the center of the seat and hauled her onto his lap.
“What are you doing?”
Lord, how she trembled.
He tucked the knitted shawl around her, a shawl for a fisherman’s wife, not the wrap of an earl’s daughter. The coarse texture of it angered him. She should have something finer against her tender skin.
“Stop fighting me, woman. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sharing my warmth.”
Her fidgeting settled and she allowed him to finish arranging the shawl around her.
“It’s colder now. There’s a storm coming in, I fear, and there’s a storm inside you. You’ve had a great shock and that’s why you’re shaking. Now,” he pulled her close and settled her head on his shoulder, “you must think about your story.”
He heard a tight breath.
"My story?"
He let his hand drift over her back and began to stroke there. “Yes. Let me see. Why would a lady be walking the London docks with two working men?” He let the words hang there a minute and when she didn’t speak, went on. “Oh, yes. You ran into the Smith boys at a shop where they were making a delivery of, of—”
“Grain.”
