‘I know what I’m doing, honest, Em. I’ll be all right,’ Paulette whispered and walked off down the alleyway with the boatswain.
Behind her Emma heard Nancy slide the big bolts into place across the door, locking her out into the night. The only light in the darkness was that from the high-up kitchen window.
Emma turned to head home, in the opposite direction to the one that Paulette and her beau had taken, just as two men stepped into the mouth of the alley ahead.
‘Emma, darlin’, you’ve been telling us porkies.’ Through the flicker of the kitchen lamps she recognised the sailor who had asked her to step out with him for a drink. He was unshaven and the stench of beer from him reached across the distance between them. His gaze was not on her face, but lower, leering at the pale skin of her exposed décolletage. Her heart began to thud. Fear snaked through her blood, but she showed nothing of it. Instead, she eyed the men with disdain and pulled her cloak tighter around herself.
‘Good job we came back for you, since there’s no sign of your “betrothed.” Maybe now we can get to know each other a bit better.’
‘I do not think so, gentlemen.’
‘Oh, she don’t think so, Wrighty. Let us convince you, darlin’.’ They gave a laugh and started to walk towards her.
Emma’s hand slid into the pocket of her cloak, just as Ned Stratham stepped out of the shadows by her side.
She smothered the gasp.
His face was expressionless, but his eyes were cold and dangerous as sharp steel. He looked at the men. Just a look. But it was enough to stop them in their tracks.
The sailor who had done the talking stared, and swallowed, then held up his hands in submission. ‘Sorry, mate. Didn’t realise...’
‘You do now,’ said Ned in a voice that for all its quiet volume was filled with threat, and never shifting his hard gaze for an instant.
‘All right, no offence intended.’ The sailors backed away. ‘Thought she was spinning a line about the betrothed thing. She’s yours. We’re already gone.’
Ned watched them until they disappeared and their footsteps faded into the distance out on to St Catherine’s Lane. Only then did he look at Emma.
In the faint flickering light from the kitchen window, his eyes looked almost as dark as hers, turned from sky-blue to midnight. He had a face that was daunted by nothing. It would have been tough on any other man. On him it was handsome. Firm determined lips. A strong masculine nose with a tiny bump upon its ridge. His rogue eyebrow enough to take a woman’s breath away. Her heart rate kicked faster as her gaze lingered momentarily on it before returning to his eyes.
‘What are you doing here, Ned?’ she asked in wary softness.
‘Taking the air.’
They looked at one another.
She’s yours. The echo of the sailor’s words seemed to whisper between them, making her cheeks warm.
‘I didn’t think you’d be fool enough to walk home alone in the dark through these streets.’
‘Normally I do not. Tom lives in the next street up from mine. He usually sees me home safe.’
‘Tom’s not here.’
‘Which is why I borrowed one of Nancy’s knives.’ She slid the knife from her pocket and held it between them so that the blade glinted in the moonlight.
‘It wouldn’t have stopped them.’
‘Maybe not. But it would have done a very great deal of damage, I assure you.’
The silence hissed between them.
‘You want to take your chances with the knife? Or you could accept my offer to see you home safe.’
She swallowed, knowing what he was offering and feeling her stomach turn tumbles within. ‘As long as you understand that it is just seeing me safely home.’ She met his gaze, held it with mock confidence.
‘Are you suggesting that I’m not a gentleman?’ His voice was all stony seriousness, but he raised the rogue eyebrow.
‘On the contrary, I am sure you are the perfect gentleman.’
‘Maybe not perfect.’
She smiled at that, relaxing a little now that the shock of seeing him there had subsided, and returned the knife blade to its dishcloth scabbard within the pocket of her cloak.
‘We should get going,’ he said. And together they began to walk down the alleyway.
Their footsteps were soft and harmonious, the slower, heavier thud of his boots in time with the lighter step of her own.
They walked on, out on to St Catherine’s Lane. Walked along in silence.
‘You knew those sailors would be waiting for me, didn’t you?’
‘Did I?’
‘You do not fool me, Ned Stratham.’
‘It’s not my intention to fool anyone.’
She scrutinised him, before asking the question that she’d been longing to ask since the first night he had walked into the Red Lion. ‘Who are you?’
‘Just a man from Whitechapel.’
‘And yet...the shirt beneath your jacket looks like it came from Mayfair. And is tailored to fit you perfectly. Most unusual on a man from Whitechapel.’ He was probably a crook. A gang boss. A tough. How else did a man like him get the money for such a shirt? Asking him now, when they were alone, in the dark of the night, was probably not the wisest thing she had ever done, but the question was out before she could think better of it. Besides, if she did not ask him now, she doubted she would get another chance. She ignored the faster patter of her heart and held his eyes, daring him to tell her something of the truth.
‘You’ve been eyeing up my shirt.’
She gave a laugh and shook her head. ‘I could not miss it. Nor could half the chop-house. You have had your jacket off all evening.’
‘But half the chop-house would not have recognised a Mayfair shirt.’ Half in jest, half serious.
Her heart skipped a beat, but she held his gaze boldly, as if he were not treading so close to forbidden ground, brazening it out. ‘So you admit it is from Mayfair?’
‘From Greaves and Worcester.’
‘How does a Whitechapel man come to be wearing a shirt from one of the most expensive shirt-makers in London?’
‘How is a woman from a Whitechapel chop-house familiar with the said wares and prices?’
She smiled, but said nothing, on the back foot now that he was the one asking questions she did not want to answer.
‘What’s your story, Emma?’
‘Long and uninteresting.’
‘For a woman like you, in a place like this?’ He arched the rogue eyebrow with scepticism.
She held her silence, wanting to know more of him, but not at the cost of revealing too much of herself.
‘Playing your cards close to your chest?’ he asked.
‘It is the best way, I have found.’
He smiled at that. ‘A woman after my own heart.’
They kept on walking, their footsteps loud in the silence.
He met her eyes. ‘I heard tell you once worked