Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,58
a sitting position.
There came a sharp hiss, and a moment later, Faye slipped around Tynan, and brought that lacy scrap down hard on the fighter’s broad shoulder. “How dare you?” she demanded.
Bragger grunted. “Me?” He glared at Tynan. “What the hell are you doing? I was just talking to the lady.”
“Threatening me,” she shot back. “He told me not to come around these parts of London,” she said to Tynan…and then fixed a dark look on the fighter. “And you grabbed my arm, you brute.”
Rage surged to the surface once more that this man or any would dare touch her.
Faye, who’d retreated, but only so as to set herself up as a protective guardian of sorts for Finn. She’d a hand resting on the boy’s shoulder. She was a lioness protecting a cub. She, a tiny slip of a woman with only a flimsy parasol as a weapon, stood prepared to do battle with the toughest street fighter in London. Her bold gaze all but dared Bragger to move.
Something moved in Tynan’s chest, something he couldn’t identify or explain or make sense of in any way. Her behavior was an incongruity with the women of her station. But then, the lady was an incongruity in every way. And perhaps that was why Tynan had been so thrown off-kilter by her at this most perilous of times, after felling a fighter who’d never let the offense go unmet.
Except…
Bragger grunted, and looked up at Tynan. “We done ’ere?”
“Get the hell out of here,” Tynan growled, and the bigger man came to his feet with a steadiness that gave no indication of the blow he’d just taken. But then, having witnessed and wagered on the fighter numerous times in his life and knowing what he’d withstood, he knew Bragger had taken many more powerful blows than that which Tynan had dealt.
Bragger took another look at Faye. Tilting her chin up at a mutinous angle, she positioned herself in front of Finn.
Bragger hesitated, and then wordlessly, he drifted off, his large frame swallowed by a whorl of London fog.
The moment he’d gone, Tynan rushed over to Faye, his heart still pounding.
Faye had already dropped to a knee beside Finn. “Are you all right?” she asked the boy gently.
“Foine,” he muttered, ducking his head as if he didn’t know whether to reject her warmth or surrender himself completely to those foreign sentiments.
It was a confused state Tynan knew all too well because of this woman.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, stroking the child’s cheek.
Aye. Something here didn’t add up. It didn’t escape Tynan’s notice that the child studiously avoided his…and Faye’s eyes.
“Thought ye might need ’elp.”
Tynan stilled; his suspicions doubling.
Faye’s brow furrowed. “Help,” she echoed dumbly.
And why would the boy have thought she needed help? Why unless he’d known…something. Tynan silently cursed.
Faye however, was too clever to miss those details Tynan had already noted.
Faye peered at Finn. “How did you know where to find—?”
“I don’t know anything,” Finn said on a rush. “Nothing at all.” And then that slip in the child’s usually composed demeanor was back in place. He ripped his hands out of Faye’s delicate ones. “An’ I don’t need ye worrying about me. I said I’m foine!” the boy hissed like an angry cat and took off running.
Faye came quickly to her feet. “Finn!” she called out and set out after him.
Tynan stepped into her path, drawing a gasp from her. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “What—?”
“Are you hurt?” he clipped out, running his hands up and down her arms, seeking signs she was safe.
“Am I—?” Faye gave her head an uneven shake. “No. I—”
“You are certain?” His heart knocked an erratic beat against his rib cage.
Tynan might be a stone and a half lighter than the fighter, but he’d find the bastard and beat him bloody for what had happened. This concern for another person was foreign. That was, a person he’d not called family. He never let himself worry about anyone, because nothing good could come of it. Worry only weakened a person and made one careless.
“I am certain,” she promised with a gentle insistence that penetrated the fear that had gripped him the moment he’d come upon her.
My God, I almost continued on my way. Which he’d done so many times before. Nausea roiled in his gut. Faye would have been alone with a brute of Bragger’s strength, and she—
Collecting her skirts, Faye marched off.
He growled. “Where do you think you are going?” he barked.