Chapter One

Four months later . . .

J oss watched the ship bobbing in the middle of the Neckinger River. It was little more than a death trap. Leaky, broken down, dirty, and staffed with sailors that even other sailors would have called unkempt. Of course, he knew what that boat was. Calling it a ship was an insult to ships everywhere. That boat was used to transport women. Girls from the north who were foolish enough to believe the promises of good-paying work and free room and board in the city of London. Of course, no one ever told the poor dupes most of the work would be done on their backs and most of their pay would be kept either by the pimps or abbesses that bartered their services. He didn't blame the girls. Most were from the country, uneducated and sheltered by their families. It was hard for him to understand how anyone could be so innocent or trusting, but he'd seen it time and again.

As he watched the ship from his position crouched behind a stack of barrels, he heard the hue and cry. Then he saw her. Her skirts were billowing behind her as she ran full speed toward the aft of the ship. There was nowhere for her to go. In the moonlight, he could see her face clearly. It was etched sharply with fear. Fear of the men who chased her, fear of the water below and of the jump that could well kill her.

With a curse, he crept from his hiding place and, just as she went into the water, so did he. The sound of her splash camouflaged his own.

The water was frigid. Cold enough to make his bones ache and to set his left arm on fire. The numbness he'd experienced at first had slowly receded. What was left in its wake was constant pain that was only intensified by the freezing water.

He was up to his chin in the water when the current carried her in front of him. Reaching out, he grasped the coarse fabric of the dress she wore and hauled her against him. She was completely limp. The moonlight filtered through the boards above them, and he could see a dark rivulet snaking down her forehead. She'd struck her head. And she was unconscious. It was freezing cold, and he wasn't certain he had the ability to carry her.

Suddenly, she began to struggle. With footsteps overhead, he couldn't afford for them to be overheard. Placing a hand over her mouth, he leaned in close to her ear and whispered a shushing sound. "They are still scouring the wharf for you. Until they've moved off we must remain where we are. Nod if you understand."

Her terror was a palpable thing. Of the men above, the water, or him? That remained to be seen. But at last, she gave a brief nod, and he removed his hand from her mouth.

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Who are you?"

"My name is Joshua Ettinger. I'm a private inquiry agent—formerly of Bow Street. Your sister—indirectly—retained my services."

She was not entirely satisfied with his answer. He could sense it. There was no rush of relief through her to alleviate the rigid tension in her muscles. Instead, she remained stiff in his arms.

"Did you find her?" The voice drifted down from above. It wasn't the sort of voice he'd expected. Not rough. No cockney accent or street cant. It was cultured, educated... and it belonged to a gentleman.

"No. No sign of her. She likely drowned. Hobson told us she was fearful of water." That was the servant answering . It was obvious from the subservience that infused his voice.

"Then I want a body," the gentleman growled. "I need one. She saw me. She knows my face. I'll not swing for this."

The second man sighed, subservient but losing his patience. "We don't have enough men to be scouring the Mint for a lone woman. We'd as like get shot as not."

"Then hire more goddamn men! I will not dangle at the end of a bloody rope because that bitch managed to get past the men you trusted to be on watch, Captain !"

The men parted, one returning to the ship and another heading into the Mint. When he could no longer hear their footfalls on the boards above, he dared to speak, "You hit your head. You've been in and out for the last few minutes. I need to know if you're with me before we go ashore. If you're not fully conscious or if you're still unsteady on your feet, I need to know. If I tell you to run, I need to be certain that you can and will." Because much as it pained him to admit it, he wasn't certain he could carry her. Certainly not for any extended length of time.

He felt her shudder against him, a small and involuntary response that told him just how frightened she was. "I can do whatever it takes to get out of here." She took a steadying breath. "I want my sister. I just want to go home to her."

If it was the bloody last thing he did, he would get her there. Because there was something about her—about her fierce determination to survive, to escape her captors, even when facing her worst fears—that spoke to him. "All right. Let's go then. Quiet is better than quick. No thrashing about. We can't afford to disturb the water. Go piling to piling under the wharf."

There was a slight hesitation in her, then she admitted, "I'm not a strong swimmer. I can barely tread water."

"That's all you need to do here. Hold on to me. I'll get us there."

She placed her hands on his shoulders, holding onto him, as he began to make his way back toward the embankment. Slowly, inch by inch, they crept toward the river bank. But there was no guarantee of safety there. And there were even greater complications still to come. They were both wet, freezing, and the night air was growing colder by the minute.

Stay hidden. Stay warm. Stay alive. Those were the objectives. There was no place in that for any sort of tender feelings or admiration for her just because she'd shown such remarkable courage. There was no room in his life for a woman he admired. Certainly not if that woman was another man's wife, and a lord's at that.

*

Hettie was struggling. Her teeth chattered while her body was wracked with shivers. Her sodden clothes were clinging to her skin as they slipped from alley to alley in a part of London she hadn't even known existed, much less ever visited. Even in her charity work at the hospitals and in the rookeries, she had never seen anything like it.

Refuse of all manner littered the streets. What had once been beautiful and stately homes were now decaying shambles. And vice was present in every alcove, alley or doorway. Bawds, both male and female, plied their trade. The opium eaters were not in their dens here, but out on the cracked and crumbling sidewalks for all to see. Cockfighting, dice, and other games of chance carried on in abandoned buildings.

Then there were the dogs. Dirty, diseased, scrounging for scraps in the detritus. Rats and other vermin were rampant.

"Keep moving."

Her rescuer's voice was gruff. Not mean, but certainly brusque. He had to be cold as well, she reasoned. He'd been in the water as long as she had, and they were both now exposed to the elements. "I'm trying," she said. "I really am."

"I know. It isn't much further," he said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I don't wish to say... not where we might be overheard. And in this place, there are eyes and ears everywhere."

Another shudder raced through her, this one not prompted by the cold. Danger was ever present, and not just from the men who were in pursuit of her. She'd often heard people refer to the rookeries they traveled as cutthroat, and they certainly could be. But she'd never been as frightened there as she was in their current location. The very air around them crackled with menace and danger.

Another step forward, and something sharp stabbed the bottom of her foot, causing her to stumble. She would have given a cry of alarm, but he caught her, his hand covering her mouth once more to muffle any sound.

"Are you badly injured?" He hissed the question next to her ear.

"No. It's all right. More startled than anything, I think." Still as they continued to creep forward, she couldn't deny that it hurt. She tried not to limp, tried to disguise the pain, but she was certain that she was failing miserably.

"It's just up ahead," he said, once more keeping his voice pitched low. "That large brick structure with the arched windows."

It was a warehouse, a massive one from what she could see. The doors and windows were all boarded up, but she could still see the arches he'd indicated. But as they neared the building, he didn't pry the boards from the windows or doors. Instead, with a grace that was somewhat shocking for a man his size, he slipped between the gapped boards that covered the arched opening in front of the doors. Tucked into that small space, he picked the chained lock with some tool or other he'd fished from his pocket.

When the door swung inward, he turned and helped her navigate the boards until she too could ease through into the darkened interior of the building. Once inside, she took a moment. It was quiet. The double layers of brick insulated them from any of the sounds from outside.

"Up those stairs," he said, pointing to a rickety wooden staircase in the far corner.

Moving as swiftly as she dared in the darkness, Hettie shuffled toward those stairs on her near-frozen and terribly battered feet. Running barefoot through the filthy streets of the Liberty of the Mint was not something she had ever imagined that she would do. Of course, she also hadn't imagined that she would be the victim of an abduction either. There were many tragedies in her life that had not been foreseen. Her farce of a marriage numbered amongst them. She was hardly alone in that predicament. So many women found themselves married to men who were not as they should be. But then, given what she'd endured for the last two days, was any man what he should be?