Less than ten minutes by his pocket watch, it turned out. She stirred right from unconsciousness into terror, struggling to get upright but tangled in her dirty skirts, and Alan lunged to help her stand.
“Maud. Miss Blyth. Maud, it’s all right—you’re all right now.”
“I can’t. I can feel them, and—oh, I’m so hot—” She sounded exhausted, ragged. “No,” she whispered, and despair took hold of Alan again.
“Maud?”
“You shan’t take me” came snarling out of her throat. “You shan’t,” and thin fire erupted on Alan’s jawline as she lashed out with surprisingly sharp nails. Alan hissed with pain and nearly tripped himself on her blue coat, still abandoned on the ground, as he got out of range. He lifted his hands in conciliation.
“I won’t hurt you. Or take you anywhere—please—”
“Lies,” she hissed, and went for—Jesus, his eyes. Alan managed to twist away, winning only a shallow scratch across the temple. He hovered out of reach, warily watching the bleak violence of Maud’s expression and her trembling posture.
His own body had switched from helping to surviving. Knees loose, hands ready to dart and block. He’d fought girls before, the street-forged ones with hard faces and fears smaller than their hunger. This was—he didn’t know what this was.
And the only thing to stop it was sleep.
Alan muttered his first real prayer of the last decade, to whichever saint looked out for strong-willed girls and desperate thieves in far over their heads. He came in at a weaving angle and swung his fist precisely at Maud’s head.
It was a blow designed to stun an opponent and end a fight before it could worsen. It certainly stunned Maud. She dropped like a rock, for the second time in less than an hour, and once again lay senseless.
Alan ran through a few of the more outright heretical oaths he knew, any one of which would have his ma boxing his ears. Perhaps he would have to leave Maud here while he fetched help. Why had he let her talk him into this?
“Oi!” came a shout.
Alan looked up to see a blue-uniformed man approaching. It was the first time in his life he’d ever been relieved to see a Scotland Yard copper.
That pleasant feeling lasted all of five seconds. It evaporated as soon as the man barked, “You! Get your hands off that girl!” and broke into a run.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Alan muttered, and braced himself for things to get messy.
10
“A pity,” said Jack. “I was rather hoping they’d put you in a cell.”
Alan Ross’s entire face shouted how much he wished he could respond to that with a great deal of uncouth language. “His lordship is joking. His lordship has a unique sense of humour.” His accent was as polished as Jack had ever heard it, clearly for the benefit of the policemen in the room. Several scratches stood out pink and angry on his face, as if he’d been separating fighting cats.
“I am joking,” allowed Jack. “Maud.”
“My lord,” said Maud, with a meekness that sat even more poorly on her than restraint did on Ross. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair a disaster, and her dress dust-stained and creased. At least she had not been handcuffed.
Jack’s pleasant afternoon at his club had been interrupted by a message that there was an apologetic Scotland Yard constable begging a moment of his time, with a wild story about his young ward being assaulted into unconsciousness by a man who claimed first to be her friend, then a hired attendant. All very fishy. Both man and girl—once she’d revived—had begged the police to fetch Lord Hawthorn, who would clear up the situation in no time.
Jack was looking forward to the day when he could escape back to his previous life and stop being summoned to apply the grease of his station to Maud Blyth’s disasters.
“As I said, my lord,” said a blue-uniformed man whose face already showed the strain of having been in a room with the full force of Maud’s Maudness for some time. “This … individual … claims to have been hired to watch over the girl.”
“Because I have violent fits,” said Maud. “I keep telling them, my lord, that Mr. Ross was only trying to protect me from harming myself.”
Violent fits. Harming herself. An old, old fear curled a sly hand around Jack’s heart. For a moment he couldn’t speak at all. Then he mastered it.
“Remove the cuffs,” said Jack. “My ward does indeed require constant supervision, and I would personally vouch for the virtue of any young woman in Mr. Ross’s company.”
Ross’s face wiped itself clean of expression and he stared at the ceiling.
Jack got them out of the station amid a flurry of apologies and harrumphing and The whole situation seemed very irregular, my lord, I’m sure you understand-ing. He heard the rest of the story in a cab back to Spinet House. Some of the cold fear fled, though it left frosted fingerprints on the underside of Jack’s ribs. Possession, not madness. Or—anything else. And Maud seemed entirely herself now. Ross’s face was the worst casualty.
“Why didn’t you send for your brother?” Jack demanded.
“She wasn’t awake for the first part of it,” said Ross. “I played the highest card we had. Earl’s son trumps baronet.”
“So the fits of violent madness were your idea.”
“My reputation is already in tatters,” said Maud. “It can stand it. And it was quick of Alan to think of it.”
Jack admitted the truth of that. He delivered Maud to the front of Spinet House, where she directed a semi-hopeful look up at him.
“No,” Jack said. “You can explain your brilliant plan, and what happened, to the people who love you. And you can deal with all their yelling yourself.”
“Violet will yell. Robin won’t,” said Maud glumly. “He’ll look hurt and worried. It’ll be awful.”
“Good,” said Jack. “You deserve it. Goodbye, Maud.”
“Ill-bred cad,” said Maud, but one of her dimples popped into view and she went inside readily enough, leaving Jack standing with Ross on the street.
“You really are,” said Ross. “Actually, I think the breeding contributed. You can afford to never have learned to be pleasant.”
“I’ve yet to see any evidence you’ve learned it either.”
“I might be a perfect lamb when I’m not being provoked by you lot,” said Ross. “You wouldn’t know.” He rolled his eyes when Jack made a disbelieving sound. “When we met on the ship you were holding a gun in my face, Violet was threatening to mess about with my memory, and you all already knew I was a thief.” Like a stone thrown through glass burst that wicked, uneven smile. “There didn’t seem much point in pretending to be nice.”
“And now you’re pretending?”
Ross hesitated. Finally, lethally—“I don’t think you want me to be nice, my lord Hawthorn.”
Jack’s breath didn’t stop. It might have … paused.
“Besides—in my position, you figure out pretty fast who’s safe to push. Whose bark is worse than his bite.” The smile grew deadlier. Jack took a moment to curse Pete Manning, and Ross finished: “You’ve a very good bark, your lordship—a huge, rough, throbbing bark—”