Free Scandal Wears Satin by Loretta Chase Page A

much they can make off with if you look away, even for a second.”
    “Where do you hide the muscled fellows who work for you, then?” he said.
    “We don’t need ruffians,” she said. “We started in Paris, you know, and it was a family business, so we started young. Let me see. I think Marcelline was nine, so I was about seven or eight, and Leonie was six. When you’re absorbed in a trade from childhood, every aspect of it becomes instinctive. Drunks, thieves, men who think milliners’ shops are brothels—we’re perfectly capable of dealing with such matters ourselves.”
    He remembered the hard look that had flashed across her face so briefly, when she’d told him she’d dealt with messy situations. He hadn’t time to pursue that train of thought, though. As they were turning into Oxford Street, two boys ran out in front of the curricle. Swearing violently, Longmore turned his pair aside an instant before they could trample the children.
    His heart pounded. A moment’s delay or distraction, and the brats could have been killed. “Look where you’re going, you confounded idiots!” he roared above the neighing horses and the other drivers’ shouted comments.
    “Ow, you ugly bitch!” a voice shrieked close to his ear. “Let go of me, you sodding sow!”
    “O h, no, I don’t think so,” Sophy said.
    Longmore glanced that way.
    A ragged boy half hung over the back of the seat. Sophy had him by the arm, and she was regarding him with amusement.
    Longmore could spare them only a glance. His team and the traffic wanted all his attention. “What the devil?” he said. “Where did he come from?”
    “Nowhere!” the boy snarled. He wriggled furiously, to no avail. “I wasn’t doing nothing, only getting a free ride in back here, and the goggle-eyed mort tried to take my arm off.”
    This, at least, was what Longmore presumed he said. The Cockney accent was almost impenetrable. Nothing was “nuffin,” and aitches were dropped from and attached to the wrong words, and some of the vowels seemed to have arrived from another planet.
    “And you were trying to keep your hand warm in the gentleman’s pocket?” she said.
    Longmore choked back laughter.
    “I never went near his pocket! Do I look like I’m dicked in the nob?”
    “Far from it,” Sophy said. “You’re a clever one, and quick, too.”
    “Not quick enough,” the boy muttered.
    “I wish you could have seen it, Cousin ,” she said. “The two who ran in front were meant to distract you while this one jumped on and did his job. The little devil almost got by me. It took him two seconds to leap onto the groom’s place. Probably he would have wanted only another two to get your pocket watch—perhaps your seals and handkerchief as well—while you had both hands busy with the horses. I daresay he thought I was a gently bred female who’d only stare or scream helplessly while he collected his booty and got away.”
    She reverted to the boy. “Next time, my lad, I advise you to make sure there’s only one person in the vehicle.”
    Next time?
    Longmore nearly ran down a pie seller.
    “What next time?” he said. “We’re making a detour to the nearest police office, and leaving him to them.”
    The boy let loose a stream of stunning oaths and struggled wildly. But Sophy must have tightened her hold or done something painful, because he stopped abruptly, and started whimpering that his arm was broken.
    “As soon as I get out of this infernal tangle, I’ll give you a cuff you won’t soon forget,” Longmore said. “ Cousin , will you give him a firm thump or something to stifle him in the meantime?”
    “I don’t think we should take him to the police,” she said. “I think we should take him with us.”
    Longmore and the boy reacted simultaneously.
    The boy: “Nooooo!”
    Longmore: “Are you drunk?”
    “No, you don’t,” the boy said. “I ain’t going nowhere with you. I got friends, and they’ll come any minute now. Then