Free Magnificent Devices [5] A Lady of Resources by Shelley Adina Page B

nose made him drop both her and his illusions about her, which gave her just enough time to plant the leather heel of her dancing slipper hard between his legs.
    And then the second man saw his advantage just as Tigg realized she had been in danger. The man’s fist caught him square on the chin and Tigg went over backward, measuring his length on the gravel.
    “You beast!” she shrieked, realizing a moment too late that now all three were advancing upon her. She took to her heels. If she could get off the avenue and into the trees, she could lose them in the dark. After all, it wasn’t likely three bully-boys from the Victualienmarkt knew this park half as well as she and Maggie did. Her scream would alert the count’s watchmen, and they would be taken in a trice.
    But they were fast. She wasn’t going to make it. She dodged behind a fountain, the watch bumping against her thigh—
    The watch. Or the not-watch. Seacombe was going to have to sing for it, because the single advantage she had at the moment was her fine right arm.
    Running, looking over her shoulder to aim, she snatched it out of her pocket and flung it as hard as she could at the man slightly ahead of the pack. Except the chain wrapped around her gloved hand and the pin on the top of it came right out.
    The watch landed with a clatter on the gravel practically at the men’s feet, doing no harm whatsoever.
    Lizzie cursed in a manner that the banks of the Thames had not heard in some time, and flung herself sideways to hide behind a marble statue that had no clothes on.
    And the night exploded into a thousand pieces.
    Her hands over her ears, Lizzie hit the ground face first as the statue was torn from its pedestal and catapulted end over end right overtop her body. Half the water in the fountain rocked out of the basin in a huge wave, and drenched her.
    —the cold, the awful water—London Bridge is falling down—
    Screaming, her head ringing, she felt rather than heard a vibration in the ground, and tried to roll over to grab a rock, a branch, anything with which to defend herself. Hands went around her waist and she threw an elbow back, but as it connected she heard, as if from deep underwater, “Liz! Liz! My God, are you dead?”
    Her gloves were gone. So were those of the hands that held her. Smooth, caring, coffee-colored hands.
    Lizzie burst into tears and turned into Tigg’s chest, clutching his jacket in both fists. He pulled her into his lap and held her, rocking back and forth, back and forth, his wet face pressed to hers, as the night came alive with running people, swirling around them like a current.
    And then silk skirts descended like a cloud beside them, and Lizzie smelled the Lady’s rosewater and cinnamon scent as she wrapped her arms around them both, her voice urgent, nearly hysterical, as she demanded of Tigg whether they were hurt.
    But her own name on Tigg’s lips was all Lizzie could hear, in tones as broken and full of tears as her own had been. “Oh Lizzie, please don’t be hurt. Please, Lizzie-love, please be all right. I swear I will never do anything bad again, if you’ll only be all right.”
    She lifted her head, straining at the tightness of his hold. “You mustn’t swear,” she gasped, and fainted dead away.

8
    Claire Trevelyan had just finished instructing the count’s footmen as to the cabins in which their various trunks should be placed aboard Athena , when one of them returned from the gangway. “Your pardon, my lady, but there are two gentlemen here inquiring as to whether you are at home.”
    In social parlance, “at home” meant that one was available to visitors. One could quite conceivably be physically at home, and at the same time not at home to company … which was the case at this moment. Did these callers not see that the airship was preparing to lift? Or was it the investigators, come back again with one more question?
    “Who is it, please?”
    “The messieurs Seacombe, my lady. I have