It was a colossal understatement. “She is not.”
“Clothes,” the Frenchwoman continued. “They have a power that is undeniable. They can change everything.”
It was rubbish, but he was not in the mood to argue with a modiste on her field of expertise, so he allowed her to finish.
“Be certain you wish for what you ask.”
Just what he needed. A cryptic French dressmaker.
He pushed through the curtains, his gaze flying to the platform where Mara had stood in that beautiful gown, proud and tall.
The now-empty platform.
The now-empty room.
Shit.
She had finally run.
Chapter 6
Three minutes. Perhaps fewer.
She had that long to hide before he would be after her.
And if he caught her, the evening would take a turn.
Not that it hadn’t already done just that.
Mara pulled her cloak tight around her, thanking Lydia for convincing her to purchase a warm winter coat for her excursions with the boys, and tore down the alleyway behind the dress shop, desperate to find a nook in which to hide herself well and wait him out. She’d escaped while his driver wasn’t looking, the universe on her side for once.
Now, to hide.
The closer to the shop, the better.
Temple would think she’d have run. He’d be calculating the time she’d had and the distance she could have made, and he’d be checking that radius. She simply needed to sit quietly and wait for Temple to pass her.
He’d never expect her to stay close.
She’d learned well how to hide in the last twelve years. Indeed, she’d learned to hide in the first twelve hours after she’d run. But she didn’t have a mail coach with a well-paid driver and a legion of people willing to help her now. Now she was in Mayfair in the dead of night. And she was on the wrong side of one of London’s most powerful men.
If he caught her, she believed he would force her to tell the truth.
But the truth about that night—about her life—was her only power. And she would be damned if he’d get it from her so easily.
That wasn’t why she’d run, though. She’d run because she worried she might not be able to resist him as well as she’d once thought.
Her heart began to pound.
Thank goodness for Mayfair’s strange architecture. She was quickly lost in a maze of mews and tiny alleyways before long, and she tucked herself behind a large pile of God knew what, trying not to inhale too strongly for the stench.
Even the aristocracy made garbage.
In her experience, the aristocracy made more garbage than most. And the things they made that were halfway decent were those they attempted to toss out anyway.
One man’s meat was another’s poison, after all.
Footsteps.
Heavy, masculine footsteps.
She pressed her forehead to her knees, willing herself smaller, holding herself utterly still, refusing to move or even breathe. Waiting for him to pass.
When the footsteps faded away, she leapt to her feet, knowing now was the most important time. She had to run. Far and fast. In the opposite direction.
It wouldn’t work. They were impossibly intertwined, now.
It would work for tonight. And with distance, she could think. Regroup. Strategize. Wage war.
She took a deep, stabilizing breath and tore out of the alleyway, getting not five feet before slamming straight into a wall of man.
Temple.
Except it wasn’t. She knew because, of all the things he made her feel—fury and frustration and irritation—he never made her feel fear.
Not like the man who held her now with his heavy, painful grip and his foul stench. And his “Well, well, wot ’ave we ’ere?”
She stilled, a rabbit caught in a trap, as he tossed her to his companion, who held her in an iron grasp as the first man gave her a long assessment from head to toe and back again. When he was finished, his appraisal turned to a leer, and his lips spread wide into a rotted-toothed grin. “Ain’t we the luckiest men in London tonight? A girl just landin’ in our laps?”
Her captor leaned in close, speaking in her ear, the words a horrifying threat on a wave of sour breath. “That’s where ye’ll be in a bit.”
The words unstuck her, and she began to struggle, kicking and squirming until her captor caught her close and the stink of him—drink and sweat and days of unwashed clothing—overwhelmed her. He leaned in and whispered at her ear. “We don’t like it when women get uppity.”
“Well,” she said, “that is a bit of a problem, as I am feeling quite uppity.”
He pushed her back into the alley, up against the stone wall, hard enough to expel the air from her lungs. Fear and panic flared, and she squirmed beneath his hand, no longer desperate to scream.
She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe.
She knew that he hadn’t done enough to kill her. That he’d simply knocked the wind from her. But it was enough to terrify her.