When he reached the corner there was no sign of her and Robert felt a stab of panic. He couldn’t lose her already, this young woman he’d promised to protect. He couldn’t fail her.
He set off at a jog, all the time glancing left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of Louisa in her shapeless grey dress.
A coach sat at the end of the road, the driver leaning back against his seat. For a moment Robert thought the man must be asleep and cursed under his breath.
‘Good evening, sir,’ the man said without moving as Robert slowed his pace. ‘Fine evening for a walk.’
‘Have you seen a young woman walk past?’ Robert asked, sparing no time for pleasantries.
‘Oh, yes, sir, not two minutes ago. Pretty little thing in an awful oversized dress. Shouldn’t be out on the streets alone at this time of night.’
‘Which way did she go?’
The driver scratched his chin and Robert had to fight the urge to reach up and pull him from the seat. Didn’t the man understand the urgency?
‘Turned left on to Poplar Street,’ he said eventually.
Without stopping to thank the man, Robert dashed off. He ran down the entire length of Poplar Street. As he was approaching the end he wondered if the coach driver had sent him the wrong way. Surely he should have caught a glimpse of Louisa by now. She’d had a few minutes’ head start, but there was no reason why she’d be hurrying. He’d practically been sprinting for the last few minutes.
A cold ball of dread started to form in the pit of his stomach. What if she’d been snatched from the street, dragged into an alleyway, her screams muffled? He couldn’t stop the image of Louisa being attacked from settling in his brain and he felt the anguish rip through him. Another person he hadn’t been able to protect, another life destroyed because of his inadequacies.
Suddenly he was once again back on the battlefield, the unmoving faces of his fallen men surrounding him. He felt the darkness start to take over and his body start to shake.
A high-pitched scream drew him back to reality. Louisa. It had to be. No other woman would be foolish enough to be wandering the streets at this time of night.
He started running in the direction of the scream, all the time hoping he wasn’t going to be too late.
Louisa struggled against the hand that was pressed against her mouth, sinking her teeth into the fleshy palm. Her attacker pulled away from her for an instant and she took the opportunity to let out another scream.
‘Shut up,’ the man growled, slapping her across the face with such force her neck snapped back and her head hit the wall.
For an instant Louisa’s world went black. She fought the urge to let the darkness take over her, knowing she wouldn’t have a chance of escape if she lost consciousness.
As the world came back into focus Louisa opened her mouth to scream again, but quickly clamped her lips together as she saw the glint of light reflected off her attacker’s knife blade.
‘Good girl,’ the man murmured. ‘Just keep quiet and I won’t hurt you too much.’
Louisa very much doubted that. She didn’t know if this man planned to rob her or do something much, much worse, but she hoped she wouldn’t be around to find out.
She was just assessing whether she could outrun her attacker when a figure pounced from the shadows.
‘Oof,’ her attacker groaned as he received a fist to his abdomen.
Louisa backed away, glancing behind her and wondering if she should run. There was no guarantee her saviour was any nobler than the man he was now punching in the face.
She had just decided to make a run for it when a familiar voice growled, ‘Don’t even think of moving a muscle, Miss Turnhill.’
Her eyes widened with surprise. Her mysterious saviour, the man beating her attacker, was none other than Robert Fleetwood.
She didn’t disobey him.
The man who’d been attacking her managed to wriggle free from Robert’s grasp and without a backward glance scuttled off into the night.
Louisa was left alone in the alleyway with Robert.
Even in the darkness she could tell he was fuming.
‘I am going to escort you home,’ he said.
Louisa allowed him to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow and pull her along beside him. He walked fast, his long legs eating up the distance in no time. Louisa nearly had to run to keep up with him, taking two steps for his every one.
She glanced up at him as they walked. His jaw was clenched and his eyes focused straight ahead. He didn’t once look down at her.
Louisa opened her mouth to say something but immediately decided against it. She’d been scared in the alleyway, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. If she thought about it too much, she knew her legs would start to shake and give way beneath her. So instead she concentrated on keeping up with Lord Fleetwood.
* * *
It took only ten minutes to reach his house and within another thirty seconds they were behind a locked front door. Louisa was marched into Robert’s study and deposited unceremoniously on a comfortable leather sofa.
Still Robert did not speak. He crossed over to a decanter and poured himself a generous glass of whisky, which he downed in one gulp.
Then he turned to face her.
Louisa felt herself shrinking back in her chair. He was angry, furious even. She knew she was in trouble, but strangely she didn’t feel scared. At least not scared of him. Although she’d known Robert only a short time she somehow knew he wasn’t going to hurt her. He might shout and berate her for putting herself in such danger, but he wouldn’t actually physically hurt her.
‘Miss Turnhill,’ he started, ‘why don’t you talk me through your thought process when you decided it was a good idea to wander the streets of London in the middle of the night?’
Louisa swallowed. When he put it like that it did sound rather foolish. She’d been so preoccupied with leaving, with standing on her own two feet, she hadn’t thought through the consequences of her actions.
She cleared her throat and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
‘I thought the exercise would do me good before bed,’ she tried to joke weakly.
The stony silence that met her comment was enough to tell her he wasn’t amused.
‘No more jokes, please. Tell me what possessed you to leave in the middle of the night?’
Louisa swallowed. ‘I don’t want to have to rely on anyone else,’ she said eventually.
He looked at her as though she’d grown an extra head.
‘So you thought you would take off in the middle of the night with no money and no means of supporting yourself.’
She had to agree it did sound a little foolish.
‘London is a dangerous city,’ Robert said in a low voice. ‘What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t followed you?’
Louisa felt her hands start to shake. She knew what would have happened. She doubted she would be alive now, or if she was she would probably be wishing she was dead. It was only luck that Robert had seen her leave and had followed her, and reached her in time to save her from her attacker.
She felt the tears building in her eyes and tried