Read Online How To School Your Scoundrel by Juliana Gray - Free Book Online Page A

hand.
    The exhilaration still surged in her veins, making the smoke-scented gloom around her a bit less grim. A bit less threatening. A bit . . .
    Her ears registered the sound of footfalls an instant too late.
    She whirled about, arms raised. A pair of dark shoulders flashed before her, a menacing face, bared teeth, and her body flew backward to slam against the iron posts of an area fence.
    Another test, she thought frantically, but the rush of panic in her veins told her this was real. No hired thug, no careful control.
    Breath panted across her face, hot and foul. Something hard and cold laid itself against the tender skin of her neck.
    “Empty yer pockets, lad,” growled a voice near her ear, and she realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut.
    “I haven’t got any money!”
    “Empty yer pockets, afore I does it for ye!”
    Luisa forced her arms to move. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and drew out the empty lining. “You see? Nothing.”
    It was true. She wasn’t carrying any money. It hadn’t even occurred to her. A few shillings and sixpence sat on her drawer chest, back in Chester Square, along with the Earl of Somerton’s crisp ten-pound note. But the practice of holding and spending money was still too new, too foreign to have become habit.
    Stupid, of course. How had she expected to get herself home, without any coin? Every ordinary man, woman, and child knew that.
    “Take off your coat!”
    “I’ll do no such . . .”
    A sharp pain pierced her neck.
    Luisa fumbled with her buttons.
    “Faster!”
    The coat was off. The man’s hands yanked at her jacket; she heard the rip of thread and lost her balance. She crashed to the pavement, hitting her head a glancing blow on one of the iron fence posts. Dimly she felt the man’s weight fall upon her, his legs straddle her, his fingers scrabbling at her clothes.
    “And what has we here, ye fine cove? A gold watch!”
    “It’s not . . .”
    But he was already pulling at the chain. Luisa’s head swam. The man’s face blurred above her, pinched and hungry, a ghastly yellow gray in the feeble, faraway gaslight. She tried to haul herself upward, but the man’s hands pushed her back. He was fumbling roughly in her waistcoat pockets now. Oh, God! He was going to find . . .
    “Blimey!” he breathed.
    “Give that back!”
    “You wee little liar. Going to keep this hidden away from old Ned, was ye?”
    Luisa gathered her breath. “Help! Somebody help! Thie . . .”
    “Quiet!”
    “Thief!”
    The knife pushed at her throat again. She flailed for his arm, and watched in horror as his other arm lifted, the hand drawn into a large, meaty fist, elbow poised near his ear.
    She threw her body against the prison of his weight. “No!”
    The fist descended.
    She shut her eyes and turned her head, and for a brief flash her father’s face appeared in her head, looking at her with sad and disappointed eyes, his salty beard clipped into a sharp point at the end, as it had been when she was little.
    An instant later—it seemed like a minute, the whole world seemed to have slipped into a sluggish old gear—the weight lifted away from her hips like a sack of grain.
    A dog howled, a piercing and miserable howl cut short by a series of deep thuds.
    Luisa opened her eyes and struggled upward.
    No. Not a dog. A man, the thief, who dangled from one of the Earl of Somerton’s large hands while the other fist beat a tattoo into his jaw and ribs.
    “Good God,” she whispered. Her collar was wet against the night air. She looked down and saw a neat red half circle staining the linen.
    The thudding stopped. Somerton let the man drop to the pavement, as he might rid himself of a sack of ash, should an earl ever have had cause to do so himself.
    A faint groan issued from the broken bundle of humanity at his feet.
    Somerton straightened his cuffs. “Be grateful you’re still alive.”
    “Good God,” Luisa said again. She braced herself on a fence post