In Lonnie's Shadow Read Online Free

if all her body parts were wriggling and buzzing on the verge of temper, the seams of her dress pulling like lurid lightning strikes across her cleavage with each heaving threat.
    ‘Pearl’s with me, where she wants to be. So stay off my patch.’
    She squared herself up for another slanderous scrap with the punch-fisted woman who was glaring dirty daggers at her.
    Lonnie shook his head at the antics of Mrs B as she took on Annie Walker. Lordy, he was in no mood for any more confrontations. After leaving the Wesley, still checking guardedly over his shoulder, he had dashed past the furniture mart in the direction of Casselden Place where a burst of oriental firecrackers had nearly made him drop dead. The stink of the slaughter yard hadn’t exactly steadied his nerves either. Now, two doors away from home, when he thought he was safe, who’d he come across but this pair screeching blue murder at one another. Guessing he could be stuck for a while, he slipped into the doorway of number four.
    The two harridans remained oblivious to the fact Lonnie had approached them through the darkness.
    ‘Says who? You don’t make the rules.’
    ‘I’m the law around here, you old scrag. There’s friends of mine in both parties.’ Madam Buckingham gestured towards Parliament House, whose roofline loomed over the rows of topsy-turvy terraces like a Grecian colossus. ‘I’ve spent years building up my reputation. You and your filthy girls ain’t going to drag it down.’
    ‘Drag it down?’ Annie blustered. ‘Drag it down? You weren’t the only one to entertain the Duke.’
    ‘Long time’s passed since you were able to shilly- shally around town with anyone on your arm. Who’d pay you, I wonder?’ Mrs B tapped her chin and threw a peevish look down at Annie’s squat figure. ‘The slaughtermen? The muckrakers? Nah! Too good for the likes of you.’
    Annie Walker returned with a mouthful of her own. ‘I well remember the time yer sold yer wares for a copper a go. If yer think my girls are so scabby, why’re yer trying to steal ’em? I want Pearl back, yer filcher. She owes me. Otherwise I’ll set Jack on the lot of yer.’
    Slasher Jack. That was a low-life of a name. He was a mover in the night, a mauler, who thought nothing of throttling a girl until she was senseless. He had been known to slice a gash from ear to ear with one cut of his blade.
    Not that Mrs B was afraid of anyone. She drew a hatpin from her bonnet, causing strands of mouse- coloured hair to fly out in all directions, and prodded with it at Annie’s chest. ‘You just watch who you’re threatening or I’ll pinprick those balloons of yours till they pop and then pick out your eyes! See if I don’t.’
    The door behind Lonnie slipped open. Someone tugged on his injured arm and he flinched. A hushed voice breathed from behind. ‘Don’t rat on me to Annie.’
    Pearl, the reason for the argument between the two madams, drew him hastily into the front room of number four. Lonnie breathed in the smell of shellfish and his stomach growled, a grim reminder he hadn’t eaten all day. He looked hopefully through to the scullery, but a clutter of empty oyster shells told him there was little hope of a feed here. Looked like he’d have to hold on a while longer for a bite. Pearl most frequently ate from the oyster bar around the corner or brought home hot currant cakes from the bakehouse. Not like two doors down, where his mam would keep her big iron pot filled with a beef broth that warmed him through to the very bones.
    ‘That’s twice in one day you’ve rescued me, you cracker,’ he said. ‘Don’t know which is the worst to take on, the maniac with the dog or those two outside.’
    ‘Couldn’t stop the wild beast. Used all my charms as well.’
    Lonnie raised an eyebrow. ‘The man or the mutt?’
    ‘Well, glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ Pearl said. ‘Ain’t you going to tell me what you been up to then?’
    Lonnie stood