Mr. Monfort's Marriage

Excerpt

Henty and Verity leapt out of the carriage before it stopped. Ignoring the horses, Henty cast a swift glance up and down the street, then knelt down on the cobblestones and dragged the boy clear. Verity pulled off her cloak to wrap it around the child.
Several bystanders called out that the child was probably running away after stealing something. Certainly it was common for little thieves to pick a pocket or grab something off a barrow and then bolt with the takings. But to choose to dive beneath the hooves of a pair of high-strung horses spoke of desperation rather than escape. Or else he had been pushed. They leaned over the boy, checking for broken limbs. Whey-faced and shaking he glared at them.

Trying to elicit information from him was hopeless. “Your name, what is your name?” Verity kept asking him, but though severely winded and frightened, he would say nothing. She scrambled to her feet and tried to question the bystanders.

“No!” Henty yelled. “Miss Verity, get back in the carriage. It might be a trap!”

Verity spun around. She was startled at the urgency in Henty’s voice and hastily stepped back towards the carriage.

Too late. A huge, brawny hand closed around her elbow and she was jerked off her feet and dragged backwards through the crowd. She screamed “Henty! Jem!” once only before a grimy hand the size of a frying pan clapped over her mouth. She tried to dig her heels in to impede her kidnapper but it affected him not one whit. He was very strong and stank like a badger. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the throng of people further and further away from the carriage. Further and further away from safety.

The Earl of Alun, she fumed. He was at the bottom of this and the further this revolting creature took her, the less chance she had of either being rescued, or rescuing herself. She glared up at her abductor. Her bonnet had been pushed back and hung by its strings so she was able to get a good, clear look at him.

And when she did, her heart nearly stopped. A more fearsome creature she had never dreamed of. She already knew he was a huge man. But this! His shoulders were so wide they blocked out the sky, and his face was at once pugnacious and bland. It seemed that the skin on his face had been injured and stitched at some stage, because his expression did not change as he lugged her along like a package, people scurrying away from him and letting him through. There was not a skerrick of hair on his head but the stubble on his chin was dark. He was a product of the London dockland, one of the reasons old Briggs had advised her never to venture alone to York Buildings.

There was only one thing to do. She let go of his jacket that she had instinctively grabbed when he’d scooped her up. Threading her reticule over one arm she relaxed and let herself drop. He was forced to change his grip, and for a moment took his hand from her mouth.
She screamed, a high keening wail of distress.

“’Ere!” a voice said close by. “What you up to, Jack?”

And that was the last thing Verity heard as her bonnet gave up the ghost and dropped off altogether. Her head, unprotected, hit the cobblestones with a crack.