My Wicked Marquess Read Online Free Page B

locals.
    The gang member he’d been addressing laughed aloud and cast a stunned, indignant glance around at his fellows. “Who the hell is this fool?”
    â€œDo you refuse an order from your betters?” the drunk lord challenged him, his aristocratic accent dripping with disdain.
    â€œOh, no,” Daphne whispered, risking another glance at the handsome, drunken hellion.
    At the same time, Wilhelmina gripped her arm, sharing her fright. The two women exchanged a glance. Is he trying to get himself killed?
    This was not the place for safely inaccurate pistols at twenty paces, like a rakehell was used to. This was a place where men would cut your throat if you looked at them wrong.
    â€œAre you talking to me?” the gang member barked back, letting go of her horse’s bridle and taking a few steps toward the man.
    â€œOf course I’m talking to you, you piece of excrement,” he slurred with grand drunken dignity. “I’m talking to all of you! Somebody bring me my—bloody hell!”
    Clumsy with drink, he suddenly spilled his coin purse onto the ground. A cascade of bright gold guineas tumbled all over the ground at his feet, rolling this way and that, all around his gleaming black boots.
    The man cursed rather elegantly in several foreign languages in succession as he bent down, inch by unsteady inch, to retrieve his lost fortune.
    The members of the Bucket Street gang homed in on the money with a visceral, white-hot intensity.
    Promptly forgetting all about their game of harassing Daphne, they were drawn magnetically toward the gold.
    Evil smiles spread over their faces to find such an easy target in their grasp. Moving in unison like a pack of wolves, they began walking cautiously toward the man.
    He seemed oblivious to their approach.
    â€œSir!” Daphne shouted abruptly.
    Wilhelmina grabbed her arm again. “Are you mad? Let’s get out of here!”
    â€œAye,” her brother answered, still ashen-faced from the confrontation as he swung up into the driver’s seat.
    â€œBut we can’t just leave him there!” Daphne blurted out, turning to them in alarm. “They’ll kill the poor fool! He’s too foxed to defend himself!”
    â€œNot our problem,” William muttered. “Let’s get out of here before they come back for us!”
    Daphne’s heart was pounding. “It’s his gold they want,” she reasoned. “Let them have it. We can still save his life if we take him with us in our carriage. Sir!” she started to call to him again.
    â€œNo, miss! Don’t be daft!” her maid whispered, pulling her down into the seat. “Even if we could get him into the gig, you can’t be seen driving around with a man like that! You’ll be ruined instantly!”
    â€œShe’s right!” William agreed. “He just came out of a-a—”
    â€œAn unmentionable establishment,” Wilhelmina quickly filled in, shooting her brother a prim glance.
    â€œBut we have to help him!”
    â€œWe came to help the children , mistress! You know you can’t help everybody. Please don’t get us killed!”
    Daphne looked at her terrified maid and realized she had no right to risk her servants’ necks along with her own.
    â€œHe’ll be fine,” William declared, not too convincingly. “They’re not goin’ to kill him, miss. Maybe give him a bit of a thrashing, but he’s so foxed, he won’t feel a thing.”
    â€œPerhaps it’ll teach him a lesson about frequenting such places,” his sister muttered.
    â€œOh, look at him.” Daphne glanced back with a worried frown and saw the gang members closing in on him. “For heaven’s sake, what’s he doing now?”
    The drunken lord was backing up slowly toward the brothel wall, but he wore such a sly and sinister half smile that she feared he was too foxed even to grasp the danger he was