Aldridge shouted at a man who was lounging against a wall. “You there?!” The man spat a stream of yellow coloured bile into the street and sneered. A coin appeared between Aldridge’s fingers and disappeared as quickly.
“I am the Marquis of Aldridge and I am giving you two options. You make sure no one touches my carriage or my horses or those of Lady Bentham, and you get a crown. Anything happens to either team or rig, and I find you and extract your brains through your nostrils, burn them, and sell them as pie filling. Your choice.” He held up the coin. “A shilling now, the rest when I come back.”
The man straightened. “Done.” He held out a hand and caught the coin that Aldridge tossed even as Nate ran past him into the alley.
“Stay here and tell the duke where we’ve gone,” he heard Aldridge tell the driver before following after him, catching up as Nate reached the narrow stairs that led to the attic that they’d been told had been used to lay a trap for Charlotte.
They heard the arguing from above before they began the steep climb. A shrill female voice was demanding that a problem be removed, while at least two males were arguing that killing the servants of a duke was only going to make things worse.
It was enough to warn them to make their approach quiet. The combatants were so intent on their dispute that Nate and Aldridge were able to get all the way to the fourth floor, where a scrawny female and two men—one tall and skinny, and the other short and bulky, stood over the tied-up body of a man in Winshire livery, arguing about whether to kill him, let him go, or dump him still living into the Thames.
The bonnet on the woman’s head ratcheted Nate’s wrath several more notches. He had last seen it on Sarah.
He had time to wonder whether the ducal scion would be any good in a fight—no polite gentlemanly rules here—before the short man looked up and saw them reach the landing, Nate still a little in the lead.
At his gasp, the other two turned, but by then Nate and Aldridge were upon them. Nate had learned his combat skills in a dirty school, fighting the French, pirates and privateers for His Majesty’s Royal Navy, and any number of scoundrels in ports around the world who thought an English sailor might be good for a coin or two.
He took the short man, hurling all his weight at him to take him down, and keeping him there with a knife to the throat. He didn’t know where Aldridge learned to fight, but the marquis had the tall man subdued in seconds, with a punch to his gut followed by a knee to his crotch and an elbow to his chin as he curled over his injured jewels.
