Free Heart of Courage by Kat Martin

fairly respectable hour. Perhaps his run-in with the police had made an impression.
    Lindsey tried on the trousers and jacket, which were loose enough to hide her slender curves. Checking her image in the mirror she figured that as tall as she was, she could surely pass for a man. Satisfied the clothes would fit, she stashed them out of sight in her armoire. As soon as supper was over and she could escape upstairs, she would call for her maid, undress, and go to bed. Once the household grew quiet, she would get up and change into masculine attire.
    She looked again in the mirror. What would she do about her hair? A woolen cap would hide it. A cap instead of a hat might look a bit strange, but where she was going wasn’t exactly a fashion-conscious neighborhood.
    At precisely eleven-thirty, she set her plan in motion. Dressing in Rudy’s old clothes, she stuffed her hair up under the cap and set out for the cab stand on the corner. As they had planned, Elias Mack was already there. The young footman grumbled and tried to dissuade her, but he liked his job and he seemed to like her, and in the end he resigned himself to helping her.
    Everything was set.
    Lindsey just hoped the plan she had come up with would actually work.
    Â 
    Standing in the shadows at the back of the garden, Thor stood with his shoulders propped against the fence. From his vantage point, he could watch the back door of the house, the exit Lindsey was sure to take. He still had trouble believing she would actually go through with her insane plan, that she would dress as a man and go into one of the seediest districts in London.
    He shook his head. He shouldn’t be surprised. Lindsey had always been strong-willed and now with the threat against her brother, Thor imagined there was little she would not do.
    He had been there nearly an hour when the back door opened and a slender figure walked into the darkness. She was dressed as a lad, just as Krista had said, and silently he cursed.
    The little fool was nothing but trouble.
    He understood her worry—though he wasn’t sure her no-account brother was worth it. Still, there were limits to what a young woman should do and running around in the middle of the night dressed as a man went far beyond that.
    He let her get half a block ahead, then started after her, pausing when he realized her destination was the cab stand down at the corner. A man stood waiting, the footman, Elias Mack that Krista had told him about. He looked too young, too inexperienced to be much good in a fight.
    If Lindsey got into trouble…
    His jaw clenched. Thank the gods, Krista had come to him for help. He might not approve of Lindsey’s behavior, but he didn’t want her getting hurt. He waited for the pair to climb aboard a hansom cab and set off down the street, then made his way over to the stand and caught another cab.
    â€œCovent Garden,” he told the driver. “Keep that other carriage in sight.”
    â€œAye, sir.”
    Thor watched tensely as the single-horse conveyance ahead of him rounded one corner after another, making its way deeper and deeper into a district of gin halls, gaming houses, and brothels. It was a place a man came for entertainment, certainly no place for a lady.
    And Lindsey was one, he grudgingly admitted, even if she was a little reckless at times.
    He watched her carriage pull over to the curb in front of the Golden Pheasant, a well-known, slightly disreputable, gaming hall that was hardly a place she should be, no matter how she tried to disguise herself. He fought an urge to storm up and toss her over his shoulder, cart her back home where she would be safe.
    He wouldn’t do it. She would only return another night and the next time he might not be there to protect her.
    Instead, he waited out of sight in the shadows in front of the building until she and her footman came back out fifteen minutes later, then followed them on down the street.
    A few blocks