His Wicked Christmas Wager. ANNIE BURROWSЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Chapter One

      “Are you sure this is the place?” Lady Caroline Fallowfield peered through the window of the hired hack, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

      Though from all she had heard, this did look exactly the sort of low haunt Lord Sinclair frequented these days.

      “Oh yes ma’am,” Arbuthnot assured her.

      “And he’s still inside?” She could not imagine anyone willingly spending their evenings in a hovel like this. When they’d crossed the bridge into Southwark, she had imagined she might end up somewhere quaint and full of character. Not this ramshackle building, its roof slumped over mouldering piles which looked ready to slide into the Thames should the next tide turn with too much vigour.

      “Yes ma’am,” Arbuthnot said again. “I’ve had the nipper keeping a close watch.” He pointed to the ragged urchin running up and down outside the Crossed Oars, aggressively accosting every passer-by.

      “How can he possibly keep watch while he is so busy begging?”

      “Easy,” he said with pride. “Any road,” he added with a shrug, “it’s better for him to have a good reason for hanging about the Oars. If he’d just stood in a doorway, watching like, then somebody would have took him for a spy and moved him on. Reg’lars are always afeard of someone laying information.”

      “I see.” She smiled at him. Arbuthnot had turned out to be something of a treasure. The matter in hand was so delicate she had not wanted to employ a private investigator. But Arbuthnot owed her a favour. She had made sure he had medical help, and then compensation for the injuries he’d suffered when her late husband had forced him into the ring against a much younger, fitter opponent. She shuddered at the memory, which was so hard to blot out, of the event her husband had also forced her to attend. It had been sickening to discover that a great many so-called gentlemen could derive so much pleasure from watching one man beating another to a pulp.

      “I’ll go in first,” said Arbuthnot, and rapped on the roof, to get the driver to set the horse in motion. When they’d rounded the corner, Arbuthnot heaved his bulk out of the carriage. “I’ve told the jarvey to wait ten minutes,” he said, leaning back into the carriage, his body almost completely blocking out the bitter wind blowing off the river. “Then he’ll go round again, and drop you off right outside. I’ll have found his lordship by then. Wherever he is in the place, I’ll be standing right near, so you can go to him straight off.”

      She nodded again. Arbuthnot would stand head and shoulders above whatever crowd might be in there. His plan meant that she would not have to waste time searching for Lord Sinclair.

      She pulled her collar up round her throat against the chill which swirled inside as he slammed the door shut. For a moment, she wondered if she could go through with it. But then she reminded herself, as she’d done over and over again on the way here, that walking into a room full of drunken lightermen and mudlarks would be nothing—not after enduring four years of marriage to a monster.

      It was just that it hadn’t seemed quite so daunting when Arbuthnot had been in the carriage with her. Now he’d got out, she felt very alone, and small, and defenceless.

      She glared at the depression in the opposite seat where the gigantic prizefighter had been sitting. That’s what you got if you ever began to think you could rely on a man, she reminded herself. He rendered you weak, and dependant, and vulnerable.

      She firmed her lips and lifted her chin. There was nothing that rabble could do to her that her husband had not already done. And done with more finesse. She’d survived him, and she would survive this.

      The carriage jerked into motion, flinging her back against the squabs and putting her moment of doubt to flight.

      Everyone was relying on her.

      And so she was jolly well going to make Lord Sinclair see sense.

      When the carriage stopped, Arbuthnot’s nipper sprang to open the door and pull the steps down. She tossed him a coin from the deliberately meagre supply she’d brought with her and strode into the tavern, head high.

      This time it was not just the look of the place that offended her sensibilities. A wave of eau d’unwashed male, topped with a foam of tobacco smoke, with a base note of spilled ale and something she did not care to identify, slapped her directly in the nostrils.

      “Ooh, la-di-da,” observed one of the men closest to the door as her hand flew instinctively to shield her nose.

      She had expected trouble. She had briefly considered donning a disguise and attempting to blend in. But only briefly. In her experience, timidity only made bullies look upon you as an easy target. And so, instead, she’d emphasized her station. She’d donned her newest winter coat of dark green, with its wide lapels and trio of capes on the shoulders. Though it was based on a man’s redingote, the profusion of velvet trim, and the matching bonnet with all its ribbons and feathers, made the outfit indisputably feminine, high fashion, and costly.

      “Lost, are yer darling?” asked another, eyeing her tightly-fitted bodice, or perhaps the double row of large silver buttons running down its length. “Mebbe I can show yer the way…” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

      “There’s summat I could show yer,” said another, lewdly clutching at the front of his breeches.

      She lifted her chin a fraction, though that was the only sign she gave that she’d heard a single word. Their talk was all for show. Not one of them would dare do more than