Page 77 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
Muffled cries came to them, a woman and a man arguing.
Blythe froze.
“Upstairs,” Jarrow said and bounded for the staircase.
“Wait.” Blythe tugged Graeme back, her head cocked, listening intently. “It may not be them.”
Graeme heard it then—the cockney accent, the deep bellow. Those were not the sneering whiny tones of Lord Vernon. A loud thud and a woman’s scream were followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Graeme squeezed her shoulder. “Jarrow might need help. Wait for me here. Don’t go in there alone.”
He found Jarrow bent over the body of a scrawny fellow in threadbare coats, a thin woman standing over him, weeping.
“Passed out, I’d say,” Jarrow said.
“Ye broke me door,” the woman said. “How’m I to pay for it? Mrs. Thornsby’ll have me out on the street.”
“She’ll have you out on the street for disturbing the peace fighting with your man,” Jarrow said.
The woman scoffed. “She does worse, her and that woman who lives with her and that baby crying night and day.”
“Is Thornsby the yellow-haired woman on the ground floor?” Graeme asked.
The woman swept a gaze over him head to foot and then back up again. He’d worn his best coats for the morning meeting and hadn’t had time to change.
He pulled a half crown from his pocket and held it up for her.
“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand.
“And the woman who lives with her?”
She scoffed again. “Calls herself Lunetta. Now…” She extended her hand further, and Graeme dropped the coin into her palm.
“That’s not enough to fix the door,” the woman said.
“Who visits Mrs. Thornsby?” Jarrow asked, holding up another coin.
“No one that I know. Just the two of them and that squalling brat. She goes away, Thornsby does, from time to time. Doesn’t have a man if that’s what ye’re asking.”
“What is her business?”
“She’s a whore as far as I know. Not one as brings her business here, otherwise we wouldn’t be living here. My man has a stall at the fish market.”
Downstairs, a door slammed. Graeme stepped around the man on the floor.
“There was a man here this morning. Saw him through the window going in just now.”
Graeme hurried past the splintered door and rushed down the stairs.
Blythe was gone.
As Graeme hurried up the stairs to help Jarrow, Blythe edged closer to the door and bent her ear to the panel.
The thick door obscured words but she heard the unmistakable tenor of a man’s voice. A chill went through her, a chill that told her it was Diddenton’s vile spawn conversing with Madame. Perhaps they were planning to ruin some other lady’s life.
Anger coursed through her and a thirst for revenge.
But she wasn’t a fool. Though she’d been weakened by a drug and concern for her babe during her last encounter with the woman, she still might not be a match for the two of them, who were both so skilled at wielding a whip.
