Unraveled (Turner #3)(8)

He wore no hat, which didn’t fit at all.

Still, she had his measure. Rich. Handsome. And not very intelligent, if he’d ventured into an alley in Temple Parish wearing shoes like that.

No doubt he was looking to buy himself a little pleasure. Pleasure often made men stupid.

“Let go of me.” She let her own accent creep toward the common—consonants sliding together, vowels eliding.

The stranger relinquished his hold on her wrist and stepped into a doorway, just out of the rain. He didn’t take his eyes off her, though. There was something arrogantly peremptory about the way he perused her from head down to toe, and then back again.

She raised her chin. “The whores are all back by the Floating Harbour. I’m not for sale, and so I’ll thank you not to eye me like a piece of flesh.”

He did not appear the least put off by her vulgarity. “I’m not looking for a whore from the harbor.”

“Well, I’m not like to take you.” She snorted. “What’s wrong with you, then? Must be something dreadful, if a pretty thing like yourself is forced to pay for a tumble.”

“Pretty?” He shook his head in bemusement. “I haven’t been called pretty in years. I’m afraid you have the matter entirely backward. I came here looking for you, darling.”

“Darling?” Miranda bristled. “I’ve not given you leave to address me by something so familiar.”

“If ever I address you with an intimacy, you’ll know it. Darling is your name, is it not?”

Her face was turned toward the glassworks, where heat radiated out the open door. Still, she felt suddenly cold all over. How did he know her? What did he want?

And there was the indisputable fact that he was taller than her. Bigger. Stronger. She had safe passage from the thieves and the bullyboys, but the Patron had no control over gentlemen.

Miranda took a step backward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.”

“Mister.” A half-smile crossed his face, and he took a step toward her. Up close, that grin looked like the self-satisfied expression of a shark closing in on a hapless fish.

The smattering of powder on his greatcoat was too evenly distributed to be dandruff. She of all people should have recognized it: it was wig-powder. But the only people who powdered their wigs these days were actors. Actors and—

Miranda felt the blood run from her face. He reached out and took hold of her wrist again, and this time, he drew her close.

“It’s simple,” he said, “Miranda Darling is the first name you gave me, and it would be best for you if that much turned out to be true. You’re certainly not Daisy Whitaker, no matter what you claimed today.”

He was supposed be fat. He was supposed be old. He was supposed to be back at the bleeding Council House.

“And as we’re establishing what we call one another,” he continued, “the proper form of address for me is not mister. It’s ‘Your Worship.’”

“Lord Justice,” Miranda heard herself say. “Oh, shite.”

Chapter Three

SMITE HAD ASSUMED THAT Miss Miranda Darling was young—no more than the fifteen or so years of age that she’d acted earlier in the morning. Impressionable enough that he might frighten her into compliance with a stern little speech. But up close, he could see that she was not coltishly slender, just undernourished. Not desperately so—she wasn’t starving—but he very much doubted she ever ate to her satisfaction.

Aside from that one expletive, she had a presence to her, a self-possession that young girls lacked. He could feel the pulse in her wrist hammering against his grip, but she raised bright green eyes to him with just a hint of defiance…and something else.

If one judged age by the eyes, she was ancient.

One could never determine age properly in the more squalid districts. She might have been anywhere from nineteen to nine-and-twenty.

Her eyes widened; her pupils dilated. But she merely tossed her head, and the bright mass of reddish-orange hair slipped down her shoulder.

Most women in her situation would have lied, never mind that the falsehood would have been transparent.

She simply shifted her stance, angling away from him. “Well. What do you want?”

“You can start by thanking me.”

She glanced at his hand on her wrist, and curled her lip. “Am I supposed to thank you in some particular fashion?” Her gaze fell to his trousers.

“No.” He dropped her hand. “That’s appalling.”

“I hadn’t realized I was entirely repellent.”

“I’m not that sort,” he countered. “I wouldn’t take advantage.”

But he could see why others might. Objectively, she wasn’t pretty. She was too thin, and it pinched her features: her cheeks were a touch on the hollow side, her hands too scrawny for real elegance. A smattering of freckles covered her nose, and a flush rose over her skin—not pink and demure, but red and angry.

Not that plainness would have mattered. In the back slums, it would only have mattered that she was female and alone.

She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a vast store of defiant vitality that was all too attractive. He grimaced, and filed that observation away in the back of his mind.

“Let me spell matters out for you,” he said slowly. “You came into my courtroom in disguise, bearing a false name. There is only one reason you aren’t languishing in custody at the moment.”