Page 18 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

“Run!” she shouted to Annabeth.

Annabeth had been unable to move in the first few seconds—too astounded at the sight of Judy’s wickedly sharp knife as much as at the men’s sudden attack. But she snapped out of it now, saying, “And leave you out here alone? Not likely.”

Annabeth ran around Judy and snatched up the fallen book. The man who had been hit by it was now struggling to his feet, and he started toward Judy to help his knife-wielding colleague. Clearly he considered Annabeth no threat. She swung the book with all her strength, bringing it down on the side of his head. He howled with pain and threw a punch at Annabeth, but she ducked, and his fist sailed over her head.

In the flurry of the first moments, their struggle had been silent, but now Annabeth thought to scream for help. The man she had hit charged her. She fought him off as best she could, kicking and hitting and screaming. They staggered across the sidewalk, grappling.

Behind them, Judy and her opponent were dodging and feinting, circling each other slowly.

“Put that knife down, girlie. I don’t wanna hurt you,” Judy’s opponent told her, panting for breath.

“Well, I do want to hurt you,” Judy replied, sounding not at all like herself.

Her foot lashed out suddenly and slammed into his knee, and he stumbled, favoring his injured leg and shifting his weight to his other side. Judy jumped on his back, wrapped her legs around his waist and one arm around his neck, and sank her knife into his shoulder. He screamed and grabbed the wrist that held her knife, wrenching it away, and they whirled around and around in sort of a macabre dance, until finally they toppled over onto the ground. They rolled across the sidewalk and into the gutter, startling the horses and making them dance nervously.

Annabeth’s attacker threw her back into the carriage. She hit the side of the open door and tumbled onto the floor of the vehicle. In the distance she heard a man shout. Nathan? Annabeth struggled back out of the carriage and saw Nathan running toward them. She called to him, but by then the two men had managed to overcome Judy and were dragging her limp body to the carriage. Annabeth jumped forward to block their way, and the larger one picked her up again and tossed her into the carriage once more, throwing Judy in atop her.

She heard the desperation in Nathan’s voice as he called Annabeth’s name again, and she knew he was still too far away to reach them. The two men jumped in as the driver yelled to his team. The open door swung crazily as they started off.

Nathan reached them and grabbed the edge of the door, holding on as the horses picked up speed. The smaller man kicked Nathan in the chest, knocking him back onto the street, where he hit the ground and rolled.

“Nathan!” Annabeth struggled to get up.

“Shut your mouth!” One of the men hit her in the side of the face and she fell back, knocking her head against the wall. She sank into darkness as the carriage thundered away.

SLOANE SAT AT his desk, a ledger open before him, his brow knotted in thought. He had had far too much trouble concentrating on business today. His mind kept straying to thoughts of Annabeth. The present and the past. The real and the imagined. What he might have said. What she might have done.

It was idiotic of course. He had put a guard on her house, which was all he could do. She didn’t want him in her life. He would be a fool to try to be in it. With a sigh, he shoved those thoughts back down inside him and returned to his books.

The number of men he had been forced to hire to adequately patrol the docks was severely reducing his profit. The distillery was safe; he didn’t think Parker would send someone to Scotland to attack it. The gambling clubs and the taverns were much weaker spots. He needed men there, too.

Rapid footsteps pounded up the metal stairs outside his office. What the devil had happened now? Just as he began to rise from his chair, the door burst open and Nathan Dunbridge charged in. Sloane stared at him in astonishment.

“What the hell have you done with her, you bastard?” Nathan yelled, and launched himself over Sloane’s desk, sending Sloane, chair, and Nathan all toppling onto the floor.

Nathan was atop him, and he got in a good jab to Sloane’s jaw before Sloane could disentangle himself from the chair and punch his attacker in the kidney. Nathan flinched, shifting his weight, and Sloane shoved him aside and stood up.

“What the devil is the matter with you?”

“I’ll kill you,” was Nathan’s only reply as he scrambled to his feet. “I’ll kill you if you hurt her!”

He lunged at Sloane again, but Sloane was ready this time and he shifted back, grabbed Nathan’s lapels, and used the man’s momentum to fling him away. Nathan fell into a chair, knocking over a standing lamp as he went, and the glass globe shattered on the floor.

By this time, several of Sloane’s employees had crowded into the room, and two of them grabbed Nathan by the arms, holding him still.

“What you want us to do with ’im?” one asked.

“I should probably tell you to toss him in the Thames,” Sloane replied, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at the blood trickling down from his lip. “But I won’t.” He narrowed his eyes at Nathan, icy anger coating his voice. “I’m going to overlook that display because Annabeth loves you for some misbegotten reason. But you attack me again, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Nathan set his jaw and straightened, calmer now, though his eyes still blazed with fury. He tried to pull his arms from the holds of the men, and at Sloane’s brief nod, they released him.

“What have you done with her? I won’t bring you up before a magistrate or set the Bow Street Runners on you if you will just give her back to me.”

Fear crawled up Sloane’s spine, displacing anger. “Give who back?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Nathan snapped. “Annabeth, of course. I don’t know what maggot got into your brain that you would think that kidnapping her would—”

“Annabeth? Annabeth was kidnapped?” Sloane took a long step forward and seized the lapels of Nathan’s coat. “Stop your bloody blathering and tell me what happened. Who took her? Where? When?”