spending, but made a show of looking impressed. “And now, moppet? Where’s the lady?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell her ’ow to find you. I’d never.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Her chest bowed out with pride. “Left ’er in the square, I did. Told her no one beats you.”
He imagined Hattie hadn’t cared for that. He reached into his pocket and extracted his bag of sweets, offering it to Bess. When she popped one into her mouth, he chuffed the girl beneath her chin and said, “Good work today, Bess. It’s getting close to dark. Best find your mum.” The duo would have another early day tomorrow—up at dawn to collect their blossoms and then back to the square to sell them.
If the Bastards had their way, every child in the Rookery would wake early to get to lessons, but families had to eat, and the best Devil and Whit could do was give them clean water and as much protection as was possible.
Which meant he didn’t have time to protect aristocratic ladies hell-bent on adventure when he’d expressly told her he would find her, and not the other way around. He saw Bess off, then headed for the market square, crossing into it in just enough time to see Hattie on the other side, getting fleeced by one of the square’s card men.
He imagined she’d chosen the dress to blend in with the Garden crowd or some nonsense, a simple walking dress in a soft, mossy green with a bonnet to match, topped with a knitted shawl pulled tight around her shoulders in an attempt to, what—make her shapeless? Whit supposed that he might have ignored the whole ensemble if not for the woman inside, who was impossible to miss and nothing near shapeless. She was taller than most and with wild curves that no one would miss. Especially not a man who’d had a taste of them the night before.
Memory flashed, her tongue meeting his in a delicious stroke, her breath coming fast at his lips, her fingers tight in his hair, as though she wished she could direct the caress.
Christ, he would allow her to direct his caress wherever she liked.
He resisted the urge to linger on what might come of it, ignoring the waking of his cock as he headed for her without hesitation, speeding up when he realized she wasn’t getting fleeced. She was doing the fleecing.
The broad-tosser stood, anger clear on his face, collected his table, and turned away—heading for the nearest alleyway. And Hattie followed . . . not knowing she was being led into the darkness to be set upon by thieves.
Whit began to run.
He followed down the dark, empty lane where they’d disappeared, turning down one alleyway, then another, searching the dead ends that peeled off the path—each a perfect place to rob a toff. To do worse to them. He cursed, loud in the darkness.
“Don’t come any closer!”
No, he didn’t like Hattie in the Garden. He didn’t like her boots in his filth, or her voice ricocheting off his stone walls. But he absolutely didn’t like the fear in it.
He’d break anyone who touched her.
He was at a flat run at that point, desperate to get to her. Telling himself, as he tore down the street, that he only rushed to protect her because she was the key to his enemy’s demise.
Protect her.
Around the final corner, still in the shadows, Whit discovered the Doolan brothers—proper Garden thugs, homegrown from the muck of the place and far stronger than they were smart—backs to him.
Facing Hattie.
Whit couldn’t see her face behind the duo’s thick shoulders, but he could imagine it, and he hated it. Pale with her violet eyes—that impossible color—wide with fear, and her full lips open as her breath shallowed with panic.
Rage coursed through him, setting his heart pounding.
Protect her.
He couldn’t see her. But he knew she’d be inching away from the stink of the brothers, from the rot of their teeth and the scars on their faces and the filth on their hands.
Wait.
She wasn’t inching away from them. “The way I see it, gentlemen,” she said, her voice ringing out, steady as a steel, “you’ve misjudged my ability to fend for myself. I don’t think you’d like to see how I would do it.”
She’d had a small knife in her pocket in the carriage last night—a blade sharp enough to cut the ropes at his wrists, but too small to strike fear in the hearts of the Doolans, who’d been