The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,27
a lady’s dead grandmother’s locket right off ’er neck, I ask you? Oh, my poor, sainted grandmother is like to be turning over in ’er grave, she is! Why, ye’re a blackguard sir, and make no mistake.”
Tristan tensed as Sharpe took a threatening step toward her, but he needn’t have worried. Miss Monmouth was more than capable of taking care of herself. “Search ’is pockets if ye don’t believe me!” she shrieked, turning her big, tear-stained green eyes on the crowd of men gathered around the entrance to the pub.
“Oi, Harry! Git on over ’ere and check ’is pockets, will ye?” Two of the men, both of them mean with drink, broke from the crowd and descended on Sharpe, grabbing his arms. “Give ’im a good shake, like,” one said, with a menacing look at Sharpe. “We don’t take kindly round ’ere to thieves.”
“’Specially those what steal from a ’elpless lady.” The other man wiped an arm across his mouth, leering at Miss Monmouth. “Not the pretty ones, leastways. Don’t care much ’bout the harpies, eh?”
Helpless? Tristan nearly laughed aloud at this description of his wily little rooftop thief, who was about as far from helpless as a rabid dog. He hadn’t the faintest doubt the men even now turning out Sharpe’s pockets would find the locket. She’d been so stealthy about it even Tristan hadn’t seen her do it, but there was no question she’d contrived to drop her locket somewhere on Sharpe’s person.
Good Lord, she was clever. With one twist of her wrist and flutter of her eyelashes she had Sharpe at her mercy. Tristan couldn’t prevent another reluctant twinge of admiration. He couldn’t let her get away with it, of course, but it was a neat trick, and an effective one. The two men who had hold of Sharpe were moments away from throwing him onto the ground and stomping him under their boot heels.
Tristan had spent enough time on the London streets to know when a drunken rabble was about to take justice into their own hands. Once they found the locket—and they would—they’d pound the life out of Sharpe. Tristan didn’t care for the man, but he also knew him to be innocent of the theft. He couldn’t stand by and watch while an innocent man was beaten.
“Wait! Take your hands off him.” He strode forward and wrapped his fingers around the slender arm of the real guilty party. “Pardon me, madam, but I saw you slip your locket into this man’s coat pocket.”
Miss Monmouth turned on him with a squeak of outrage. “Ye dare accuse me of—” she began, but as soon as she saw his face the words died on her lips, and her mouth dropped open in shock. “You!”
“Me, indeed. I’d be obliged if you two gentlemen would be so kind as to unhand that man. He’s no thief.” He may well have been worse than a thief, but Tristan didn’t have any proof of that, and one didn’t accuse a man on supposition alone.
Sharpe and his two drunken counterparts turned to gape at him. One of them let go of Sharpe at once, but the other had found the locket, and now he thrust it in Tristan’s face. “I don’t ’spose this belongs to ’im. If ’e’s not a thief, then why does he ’ave the lady’s locket on ’im?”
“Because she planted it there. I was walking right behind her, and I saw her slip it into his pocket.” Tristan held out his hand for the locket, then added with a wink, “I believe we’ve stumbled upon a bit of a lover’s quarrel, gentlemen.”
“Lover’s quarrel!” Miss Monmouth swept an appalled gaze over Sharpe, her mouth twisting with disgust. “You’re either jesting, or you’re mad.”
“He’s not mad. That’s Lord Gray, that is, Stratford as was, afore his brother keeled over.” Sharpe regarded Tristan for a moment in awe, then pointed a finger at his accuser. “If the Ghost of Bow Street says she planted it, then ye can be sure she bloody well planted it!”
As soon as they heard ‘Ghost of Bow Street,’ the two men on either side of Sharpe stepped back, their hands held out in front of them. “Beg pardon, Ghost—that is, beg pardon, sir. That is, yer lordship, sir. Didn’t mean no ’arm. Just trying to help out this lady ’ere.”
“Very chivalrous of you, and no harm’s been done.” Tristan took the locket the second man offered him and tucked it safely into his breast pocket. “You needn’t