handsome visage, but the glint in his eyes when they settled on Will was as hard as steel. ‘However, I am sure your employer can find more worthy tasks for your attention than abusing his customers. If you do not choose to meet your Maker, I suggest you do not touch the lady again,’ he warned in a tone of icy reproof. ‘Sir Thomas Fairworthy would take it amiss if you hurt his sister.’
Slightly shaken, Will managed to draw himself up with nervous hauteur. The fact that his masculinity was about to be shredded by the older, more powerful and supremely confident Lord Fox, and that he would be brought down by his inability to control his lust for Prudence Fairworthy, overcame all other emotions. ‘What’s it to you?’ he snarled.
‘I’m the man who happens to be a close and personal friend of Sir Thomas Fairworthy. I am also the man who will speak to your employer and have you dismissed.’ Lucas slid his gaze to Prudence, whose glower was hot enough to reduce him to a cinder. ‘Are you all right?’
‘He hasn’t hurt me, if that’s what you mean,’ she ground out ungraciously, mortified that Lord Fox of all people must have witnessed the whole shameful, sordid incident. But then, wasn’t he another who had dared treat her like a common trollop, kissing her in so casual, so cavalier a fashion?
‘It is clear to me that Mistress Fairworthy finds your amorous attentions unwelcome,’ Lucas said to Will. ‘I think you should apologise.’
Will laughed derisively. ‘I would sooner have my tongue cut out before apologise to that doxy.’
Prudence rounded on him, her face a mask of indignation. ‘What did you call me? Why, you—’ she cried hotly, but a sharp glance from Lucas silenced her.
‘Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said,’ Lucas persisted, addressing Will once more, his voice cold and ominous. ‘I think an apology to the young lady is in order.’
Stemming a string of foul curses that threatened to erupt from his mouth, Will glared at the Cavalier whose composure shamed him, the apology sticking in his throat. When Prudence saw he wasn’t going to comply, she stepped back.
‘Leave it,’ she said firmly, unconsciously placing her hand on Lucas’s arm when she thought he would raise it to strike Will. ‘It was his own foolishness that led him to this. Let the matter end there.’
Lucas fell back a step reluctantly, looking down at Prudence. Her face was clear-cut and delicate, her hair all a-tumble about her slender shoulders, and utter contempt for the man who had molested her was manifest in her narrowed, translucent eyes. ‘Am I to understand that you wish to ignore the fact that this man tried to ravish you?’
‘Why, what will you do, Lord Fox?’ she scoffed. ‘Avenge my honour? I think not. No good will come of it.’
She looked at Will. The wretchedness of his family’s existence was not unknown to her. They lived in a rented tenement up a filthy yard at Ludgate. Since the death of Will’s brutal father several months ago, his mother and five young siblings were totally dependent on him. If Mr Rowan heard how he had tried to molest her, he would not tolerate his working at the nursery any longer. Will would never find work that paid so well and his entire family would suffer and be turned out on to the streets to grovel for a living as a consequence. Prudence had no wish for that to happen, and neither did she want to be the cause of it.
‘I shall write to Molly and explain that I will not be coming to the nursery any more because I’m returning to Marlden Green with my brother and sister. To spare your family hurt, I shall remain quiet about what happened today. You were stupid and a fool to do what you did to me. I suppose passion can blind a man but, by my oath, Will Price, if you ever touch me again, I swear I will give you reason to regret it.’
‘You are too kind-hearted by far,’ Lucas drawled mockingly, but he shrugged. ‘As you will.’
He looked at Will and his fists tightened. There was a time, not too long ago, when he would not have let a man off so lightly if he’d caught him molesting a young innocent. He would have killed the ravisher, no matter what. But the intervening years had taught him a tolerance, if not a wisdom, that his nature would once have condemned.
‘Mistress Fairworthy is too forgiving. Consider yourself fortunate. Now,’ he said, sweeping a hand in front of him in an invitation for Prudence to proceed. ‘If you please.’
A trace of indignation still showed in Prudence’s tight lips as she turned from Will and went ahead of Lucas out of the yard.
Standing alone, as Will watched them go he yearned for vengeance. He wanted to go after them and tear into the arrogant Lord Fox, to beat him to a bloody pulp, as he would anyone else of lesser rank who crossed him, and snatch the young woman from his side. But the taste of blood and the tender swelling on his lip where her teeth had punctured the flesh made him pause. Thoughtfully he stared after them. He would let the matter rest, for now, but if a chance arose in the future to get even, he would take it.
The man who stood just out of sight of the gates to Mr Rowan’s nursery, his back pressed hard against the wall, had the air of a cautious animal as his eyes followed the two people who had just left the yard. A dim, wavering light penetrated the alleyway, and the dank smell of rotting vegetables and worse permeated the air. With his teeth drawn back across his lips and his eyes shining with an ugly inner glow, the man stepped furtively into the open, walking with the gait of a sailor as he followed the man and woman with stealth and at a discreet distance, stopping now and then, shadowy and motionless, out of sight of the couple who had no idea of his presence. Not until they stepped on to the Strand did he turn and retrace his steps back to Mr Rowan’s nursery and Will Price.
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