Introducing Miss Joanna (Once a Wallflower #2) - Maggi Andersen Page 0,26

to hear it.”

“Mind where you’re going!” A man growled as Reade elbowed past him. He blanched at Reade’s expression and hastily moved aside.

“Where are you taking me? I’ve lost my maid,” Jo yelled. “And, you are stifling me.”

He rearranged her in his arms, tossing her as if she weighed nothing more than a bag of feathers. But at least her head was now on a level with his. She clung to his shoulder and cast a sideways glance at his fine profile. His dark eyes searched ahead, hard as flint. Jo loathed depending on him, although she’d seen women and children knocked over.

She’d always considered herself indomitable. It had never occurred to her how easily someone like Reade could overpower her. If it were any other man, she would be scared witless, but she was not afraid of Reade. “Something bad could have happened to my maid, Sally. I must find her quickly,” she said in a more reasonable tone as she studied a glossy black lock flopping onto his forehead. She could smell his skin, his spicy soap.

“Your maid will find her way,” he said grittily. “If you’d been dragged into that alley, something nasty could have happened to you.”

“But you have kindly prevented that, so you can put me down now.”

“Be patient. Not a virtue of yours, I suspect, Miss Dalrymple.”

“Oh, how unfair…” She clamped down her lips when a woman ahead of them staggered after being viciously shoved.

Reade mounted the half-dozen steps to the front door of a building. He placed her on her feet on the narrow porch. She bent to rearrange her skirts, which had ridden up her legs. Her head throbbed. Pressed against his muscular body while breathing in his male scent had shaken her almost as much as the attack on the prince regent.

“Hold still.” He framed her face in large, capable hands and studied the wound on her forehead. “It’s not too bad. I doubt it will scar and mar your beauty.”

She held her breath. Did he find her beautiful? His palms were warm against her skin, his eyes the color of dark chocolate, rimmed with thick black lashes. Up close, he looked less overbearing…somehow more vulnerable. Reade vulnerable? Ridiculous.

Reade pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. “Are you dizzy?”

“No,” she lied. She was a little, but she feared he would carry her if she admitted to it.

Dabbing her forehead with the linen square, she decided it was he who made her dizzy, for Reade acting concerned and gentle with her made her knees wobbly. Had she hit her head harder than she thought? She reluctantly dragged her gaze from his to look around the street. Bewildered people were wandering about like lost lambs. Pitiful cries rent the air as they called for lost loved ones. It made her eyes tear up. She stiffened and bit her lip hard. This was no time to weaken. She had to find Sally. “I am grateful for your assistance, Lord Reade,” she said, fighting to regain her equilibrium. “Please don’t let me keep you. I’ll search for my maid.”

“Wait a while,” he cautioned.

“Was the regent hurt?”

“I don’t believe so.”

She craned her neck and tried to see what was happening farther down the road. The royal guard had left the chaotic scene. She turned back to Reade. “I will be all right. I doubt anyone is interested in me.”

“You think not?” His gaze casually took measure of her. “What’s in that silk reticule? Money? Those are fine clothes. And I’ll wager the locket is gold. Prime pickings for a pickpocket. You’re young enough to attract a procuress in the area. They could have had you away down that alley before anyone was the wiser, and don’t think they wouldn’t.”

Alarmed, she studied his hard face. “What is a procuress?”

“They are women who snare innocent country girls by offering them what they think are respectable jobs.”

“What sort of jobs?”

“Something too good to be true. Their goal is to make the girls a prisoner in brothels and sometimes send them overseas. They search for girls at playhouses, coffee shops, and other public places, and have the men who work for them nab them off the streets. They sell young women to their gentlemen clients. The girls are then trapped in brothels for the rest of their lives,” he continued, ignoring Jo’s horrified gasp. “It’s a lucrative business. Female pimps have few morals. They prefer to offer a variety of women, virgins especially, who can fetch