Page 152 of Their Master

The older man stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Where do you keep it?” Smith asked.

“I don’t know—”

Smith shoved his thumb into the bullet wound and winced when the other man screamed; Clayton could reach an impressively high note for such a large man.

He removed his thumb. “Where do you keep it?” he asked again once he could be heard over the screaming.

“What?” Clayton sobbed.

He shoved his thumb in again. This time, he rooted around until he could feel the bullet, which he pushed.

Clayton screamed and thrashed.

“Where do you keep it?” Smith asked, applying more pressure.

Stillthe man didn’t divulge the hiding place.

“No?” Smith said. “How about a bit more persuasion—”

“Good God,pleasestop!” Grimes yelled. “I’ll tell you where he keeps his stash of dirty secrets.”

Amazingly, Clayton screamed louder than he had with a thumb in his shoulder. “You duplicitous bast—”

Smith pulled out the pistol he’d had tucked into the back of his trousers and held it at Clayton’s head. “Shut up.”

The older man’s mouth snapped shut.

Smith turned to Grimes. “Where?”

“There is a false bottom in that rattletrap carriage of his—that way he always had everything with him. You’ll find it stuffed full.”

“Where is the carriage?”

“It’s at the Barrow and Snake,” he said, naming a truly vile inn two streets away.

Smith wiped his bloody thumb clean on Clayton’s coat and turned back to Selkirk, who was watching the proceedings with interest.

“Take one of my grooms with you and send the other to fetch the doctor—tell him to come in my traveling coach.”

The earl nodded, tucked away his gun, and left without another word.

If Selkirk wasn’t already one of the richest peers of the realm, he could have had an excellent career ahead of him as a criminal henchman.

Smith felt Moira shiver beside him and cursed his stupidity.

He turned to her and unbuttoned his overcoat. “Here, sweetheart,” he said, draping the coat over her shoulders and leading her away from the two moaning, bleeding men, but turning so that he could keep an eye on them.

“Is Luke really going to be fine?” she asked, pulling his coat tightly around her small body.

“Yes. He was angry that he couldn’t come along to help. Doctor Felson had to give him enough drugs to knock out a draught horse to keep him in bed.” He tucked a brilliant red curl behind her ear. “He was beating himself over the head that you got taken. He will be most relieved to know you are unharmed.”

“He protected me and the baby with his life,” Moira said.

Her words—and how close he’d come to losing her—sent a stab of fear through him, and Smith cupped her face. “When I thought I might lose you—” his throat constricted, trapping the words inside him.

“You must have been so worried about the baby. But I feel fine, nothing bad—”

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