Page 86 of Never a Duke
“I have things to say to you, Ned Wentworth.”
“And I have things to say to you, Lady Rosalind,but not here. Give me your blindfold.”
Rosalind passed over the requested item, and Ned gagged the specimen on the floor.
“What about his hands?”
Ned produced a wickedly impressive folding knife, cut strips off the curtains, and bound the villain’s hands and feet.
“That won’t hold him for long, but we only need a few minutes. Let’s be off, shall we?”
“The front door is locked,” Rosalind said, retrieving her reticule. “I heard him lock it behind us.”
“The doors are locked, the windows are either nailed shut or boarded over, and the neighbors can be relied upon to mind their own business. I’ve already had a look around upstairs, and there’s nobody living here at the moment.”
Rosalind stepped around the groaning form on the floor. “Then how do we get out?”
“I came in through the coal chute, which nobody thinks to lock in warm weather, but we’ll go out the kitchen door.”
Ned led Rosalind down a narrow, dusty set of steps to a dingy kitchen, then past a gloomy pantry and scullery to a door that opened onto a set of steps below ground level. A stout boot applied to the lock sent the door creaking open.
“When we get to the street, we saunter along,” Ned said, “a besotted couple enjoying a stolen moment on a pretty afternoon. We have eyes only for each other.” He held the door open for Rosalind, who preceded him up dank, uneven stone steps into an alley so narrow the houses on either side seemed to lean in to blot out the sky.
“The brains of the operation was due to arrive in a quarter hour,” Rosalind said. “I want to see who that is.”
“And if he brings two more bully boys, all of them armed?” Ned said. “In this part of town, nobody would interfere with them, Rosalind. We need to put distance between us and your abductor.”
“He said I’d be let go.” Rosalind allowed Ned to lead her up the dank stone steps. “The objective was to frighten me into minding my own business.”
Ned stopped at the top of the steps, which opened onto a narrow, trash-filled walkway between number twenty and its nearest neighbor.
“I don’t mind telling you, Rosalind, the past hour has seen me more terrified than I have been since the watch took me up for picking pockets.” He offered his arm. “You might well have been told a tale to keep you from bolting or resisting. Who knows what fate awaited you? Look like you’ve just stolen a kiss.”
Rosalind kissed Ned’s cheek and wrapped her hand around his elbow. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but he was right: time to move.
“Thank you for coming, Ned. I should be terrified, I know, and I will be soon, but I am too angry. Angry at myself, among others. I fell for a simple, stupid note. I thought to take it to you at the bank, and enlist your aid, but it never occurred to me…He simply walked up to me in the alley andtook possessionof me, telling me to come along like agood girl.”
“You weren’t thinking of your own safety,” Ned said, pausing before directing Rosalind onto the walkway. “Look sharp, and if I tell you to run, Rosalind, run like hell and scream as loudly as you can.”
This version of Ned was as ruthless as he was careful, and yet, he walked along down a street too narrow for wheeled traffic, not a care in the world.
“Say something,” Rosalind muttered, when they emerged onto the wider thoroughfare. “I am so upset I could spew invective loudly enough for all London to hear.”
“Please don’t.”
Two words, though they held enough banked emotion that Rosalind could tell Ned wasn’t quite as self-possessed as he seemed.
“Ned, whoever is stealing those women knows we’re onto their scheme. They know we’re getting close. Now is not the time to turn up missish.”
Ned escorted her around the corner and down the street, where the Dog and Dam appeared to be doing a thriving business.
“That man whom you wanted to kick,” Ned said, “travels under the name of Reggie Sharp. Sharp is a reference to his facility with a knife and his penchant for keeping souvenirs carved from the bodies of his victims. He has a whole collection of ears, if rumor is to be believed.”
“He did not kidnap those women for their ears.”
Ned came to a halt. “Rosalind, you are an eminently practical woman. Be practical now. If the likes of Reggie Sharp are involved, then somebody is willing to kill to keep this scheme afloat, whatever its particulars. This investigation grows too dangerous, and we must desist before greater harm befalls you.”
Ned was speaking reason. Rosalind knew he was, and yet, she also knew that if she gave up, more women would be snatched from more alleys, and nobody would care.
