Lady of Desire Read Free

heavily. Dangling from his coat collar, the little boy spun around and kicked her in the shin.
    She seized his ear, her brow knitted in fury.
    “Ow!”
    “You are a very bad little boy. Didn’t I already give you more money than you could earn in months? ”
    “I don’t care! Let go!” He held onto the purse with both grubby hands while she tried with her free hand to pry it loose.
    As they struggled, more of her hair worked free of the artful arrangement her maid had taken such pains to create before the ball. “Give it back, you little savage! I am going to France, and I need my
blunt
—”
    “Aargh!” He let out a cry of kittenish fury as the change purse tore open, exploding in a rain of bright coins.
    They flew up into the air like gold and silver fireworks by the glint of the full moon, then clattered down in a hail around them, plunking unceremoniously into the thin, greasy layer of grime that coated the brick-laid alley. The child threw himself to the ground and began hastily collecting what he could.
    “Leave it alone! That is my property!”
    “Finders keep—” the boy started, but abruptly froze and looked up.
    Jacinda stopped, too, puzzled by his sudden stillness. “What is it?”
    “Shh!” He cocked his head, as though listening for some far-off noise. She could see the whites of his eyes, wide and staring in the darkness. His gaze scanned the impenetrable blackness behind her, his fist clutching the coins he had managed to collect. He reminded her for all the world of some little prey animal, his preternatural senses alerted to the imperceptible sound of some fierce predator’s approach.
    Though the full moon still gleamed brightly overhead and cast a strip of moonlight down the alley’s middle, deep in the shadows along the walls, the blackness was almost palpable.
    “I say—”
    “Someone’s coming!”
    Suspecting another trick, she listened a second longer, then lost patience. “I don’t hear anything—” But even as the words left her lips, a wild, barbaric howl like a war cry floated to them from over the maze of dark alleys. She drew in her breath. “Good God! What was that?”
    “
Jackals
,” he breathed, then leaped to his feet and fled into the night.
    She stared after him in astonishment. “Sirrah! Come back here this instant!”
    He did not, of course. As silent as an alley cat, the boy had disappeared.
    “Well!” Indignantly resting her hands on her waist, Jacinda glared for a second in the direction he had gone, then quickly set to work, eager to escape the lightless passage. She crouched down and began gathering up her scattered funds. Passing an uneasy glance over her surroundings, she plucked gold and silver pieces from the sooty slime, tossing both into her leather satchel. She grimaced at the repugnant job and was cursing herself for naively letting all those people in the lobby see her money, when suddenly, she heard swift, heavy footfalls pounding down the alley toward her.
    She jerked her head up and stared into the darkness, the blood draining from her face. She heard hard boot heels striking the cobblestones, rough male shouts. Barbaric curses echoed off the maze of brick all around her.
    “Blazes,” she whispered, shooting to her feet. The realization flooded her mind a bit belatedly that larger, more dangerous creatures prowled these back alleys than wily little pickpockets.
    The voices were coming closer, bounding everywhere off the cramped walls, confusing her. She whirled around, not knowing which way to flee.
    Clutching her satchel tightly, she backed toward the brick wall behind her, trying to melt into the gloom, but when she saw several man-shaped shadows charging toward her, she abandoned dignity and dove into the junk pile by the wall. Scrambling into the heap of rubble, she wedged herself into a small foxhole beneath a faded wooden placard for Trotter’s Oriental Tooth Powder, propped at a steep angle against an old broken barrel. On all