Anita Mills Read Online Free

back to their drinking.
    “We’ll have to jump for it,” Dominick decided.
    “Dash it, but it’s the second story!” Bertie protested. “Got to be a back way out.” But already there were running foot-steps coming up. He hastily pushed the door closed and turned the key in the lock, hoping for time.
    Dominick had grasped Anne’s arm, and when she pulled back, he snapped, “Miss Morland, there’s no time for vapors now. Either you go or you face them.”
    Someone rapped loudly at a door, and in the next room a woman complained vociferously that they had no right to interfere in a girl’s living. Anne hesitated, and the tall man’s eyes seemed to mock her as he held back the worn curtain from the jagged panes. He was right—she could stay and face a magistrate, or she could flee with strangers. It really was not much of a choice. White-faced, she nodded.
    “We’re fronting the roof over the taproom,” Dominick told Bertie. “You go first, and I’ll hand the girl to you.”
    “Me? But I ain’t … Dash it, but I don’t like heights!”
    “Open up! ’Tis the law! In the name of His Majesty, I command you to answer!”
    The door banged against the jamb with the force of the pounding. Swallowing hard, Bertie managed to step through the broken window, scattering pieces of wood and glass. A sheet of rain hit his face. Shivering as much from fear as from cold, he turned to reach for Anne Morland, and as his weight shifted, he lost his footing on the slippery roof. Grasping wildly, he caught at the gutter to break his fall, then went over the side, to hang several feet above the ground. Terrified, he looked downward. His scream seemed to catch in his constricted throat as he lost his grip and fell to the muddy alley below.
    Anne had no time to protest before she was thrust through the window. For an awful moment she wanted to close her eyes, but the man behind her steadied her, and the tightness of his grip was reassuring. He slid his other arm about her waist, then edged toward the gutter where the other fellow had disappeared. When she looked down, the slender man was struggling to rise.
    “Try to land on him,” Deveraux advised against her ear. Then, before she could stop him, he dropped her, and she fell, to lie in a tangle of Bascombe’s flailing arms and her sodden clothes.
    Above them Dominick Deveraux spread his cloak like bat wings and jumped. His feet hit the ground in a heavy thud, and his knees bent from the force.
    “You might have warned me you was giving her the heave,” Bertie muttered, standing to lend Anne a hand. “You all right, Miss Morland?” Then, before she could answer, he looked down at the mud on his clothes. “Dash it, Deveraux, but you’ve ruined a good coat!”
    “And my gown!” Anne looked down, and felt hot tears sting her eyes. The dress that had cost her four months’ wages, the one she’d wanted to wear to her grandfather’s, was now torn from hem to knee and soiled beyond repair. “ ’Tis my best!”
    “Get a new one,” Dominick advised brutally. “Which coach, Bascombe?” But even as he asked, he caught Anne’s arm and started to run, pulling her after him. Rain swirled around Bertie as he broke into a trot to keep up. “The bays, but they ain’t—” The wind seemed to carry his words away.
    Hazarding on the largest conveyance in the innyard, Dominick headed for it. Hearing the clamor of men coming out of the inn, Bertie lunged to wrench open the door, and his driver rose up sleepily to protest. Seeing his master, Davies kicked the sleeping coachy awake, and Cribbs righted himself sheepishly. “Sommat the matter, sir?”
    “Get inside,” Dominick ordered Anne.
    Before she could find the step with her muddy slipper, he’d lifted her, tossing her roughly into the interior. She sank against dark velvet squabs and tried to breathe. Through the sheet of water on the pane she saw shouting men carrying lanterns. Bascombe grasped the doorframe and hurled