Gerard felt a chill down his spine. Andrew and Zane straightened and pushed back their chairs. His valet emerged from the shadows, his hand ready on his pocket. Gerard didn’t have to turn around to know the room was clearing—except for the bad vibrations at his back.
He should have gone to Wystan.
Judging distance from the tremors of violence, Gerard dropped into a crouch. Using his newly-purchased sword stick, he spun around and swung at the wrinkled trouser legs approaching. Screams of pain drowned in the explosion of gunfire over his head.
The tavern erupted in fists and cudgels and knives. Cursing, regretting that he’d dragged his friends into this, Gerard focused on his goal—Mortimer. The ship sailed in the morning.
Dodging cudgels, fighting dirty and landing crippling blows with his stick and any body part that sufficed, he finally reached the fake earl and bunched the cad’s waistcoat in his fist. Staying low, he yanked Mortimer out of his chair and down to the filthy floor. The drunk attempted just enough of a fight to justify breaking a fist against his jaw. He slumped.
A knife slashed downward, but sensing the motion, Gerard rolled from the blow. He whistled at Lowell, who ducked and sidestepped and joined him in grabbing Mortimer’s coat.
Zane and Drew flanked them, protecting their backs with fists. More scoundrels blocked them.
“Dammit, why can’t anything be easy?” With a sigh, Gerard stood up abruptly, smashed the knob of his stick against a whiskered jaw, and jabbed the knife end at a dirty trouser leg.
The enormous wolfhoundat Iona’s side came to attention at the crack of a gunshot.
Uncomfortable in her ill-fitting boy’s clothes, she straightened from her post in a doorway to study the lamp-lit street. Gunshots weren’t good. She had only the small knife Azmin had given her.
Phoebe’s raven screamed a warning overhead.
Iona opened her senses to the wind. She’d already identified a carriage waiting down the street as Viscount Dare’s. Several of the men entering the tavern stank of hunger and a scent she could only call vile—not exactly deceit but worrisome. But she really needed to be closer to smell more.
Leaving her niche, she edged nearer to the stone cellar stairs leading down to the tavern, close enough to hear the shouts and groans. Heart in throat, she debated descending. Her meager gift wasn’t of much use indoors—and apparently not much use at all if she didn’t recognize the scent of violence.
To Iona’s disgust, Isobel ran from her hiding place around the corner. She’d insisted on accompanying Phoebe over Iona’s strident objections. Just as she appeared, men from the cellar began pouring up the narrow tavern stairs in a great hurry.
“Phoebe’s rats or mice or whatever say there is a tremendous brawl in the tavern. The rodents are apparently getting drunk on spilled ale. What do we do now?”
Panic? Iona pulled them both flat against the wall in the doorway where she’d been hiding and pointed down the street. “That’s Lord Dare’s carriage. Stand near it until we know what’s happening. I may need to send Wolf into the tavern, and it would be good to know you’re nearby to back me up.”
Isobel was a bookkeeper with a mind for money. Warfare was beyond her understanding. She nodded agreement and retreated to safety.
Iona steeled herself to go inside—until the fight burst through the door. In the shadows, she couldn’t discern villains from heroes. In the melee of torn coats and flying fists, she could only sense Gerard’s fury.
If she was not mistaken, that was him dragging Mortimer up the stairs.
She didn’t have Phoebe’s ability to give Wolf orders. He was only there to protect her. She hadn’t planned for a brawl where she couldn’t separate one man from another. She winced as a blackguard attempted to jerk Gerard back down the stairs. The earl had to release Mortimer to swing his fists. She could almost feel his pain.
He was hurt!
“C’mon, Wolf, let’s smite a few rodents.” She ran toward the melee, determined to pry Lord Ives from disaster.
Throwing punches over an insensate Mortimer on the stairs, the damned earl didn’t even notice as she and Wolf grabbed her stepfather’s coat. Gerard’s unprepossessing valet dodged flying fists to add his strength. Together they dragged the sot up the rest of the stone stairs, while the earl clouted and kicked the hirelings back down. Iona was grateful for her boy’s clothes. No one gave her a second look.
Once they had Mortimer sprawling on the cobblestones well away from the entrance, Lowell dived back into the fray, attempting to part Lord Ives from the throng.
Gerard was now fighting his way backintothe melee. “Drew and Zane are still in there!” he yelled at his servant over the noise of the fracas.
Well, rats, Phoebe wouldn’t like that. Neither would Azmin. As more men spilled up the stairs, flinging fists and cudgels and knives, Iona began to hum under her breath. She just needed Gerard out of there...
She tugged Wolf’s collar, causing him to yip. A moment later, he howled—Phoebe was telling him something.
At the sound, Gerard glanced over his shoulder. She prayed he recognized the wolfhound. From his scowl, she gathered he did, but he didn’t see her. He returned to beating off attackers. Was that a sword at the end of his stick?
She couldn’t think curse words and concentrate on humming.
To her relief, the mob finally pushed his lordship back to street level.
