To Kiss A Spy Read Online Free PDF Page B

with possibly deadly consequences.
    She tried to push her way through the group around her but they closed in tighter, gazing at her with hungry eyes, slack mouths that showed toothless gums. For a minute no one moved, then one of the men reached out and touched her arm. It was the signal for the rest. The women came closer, pushing, pulling, prodding. And now Pen was breathless with terror. She tried talking to them but they didn’t seem to hear her. Dirty fingers plucked at her cloak and the gem she wore at her breast was revealed, flashing a white light in the darkness. They came at her then, clawing, hissing, like evil wraiths robbing a grave.
    Pen heard her own scream even as she fought them with a frenzy she would never have believed she possessed. And then suddenly they were falling back with cries of pain, of alarm. Cries that now sounded human.
    A man in black was in their midst, wielding a rapier to deadly effect. He was silent, the silver blade slicing through the air with lethal efficiency. At his side a smaller figure plied a dagger with the same dexterity.
    Pen found herself freed from the circle. She had no weapon by which to add her mite to her rescuers’ efforts, so she gathered herself together, running a mental inventory over her body and then her possessions. Her cloak was torn, the index finger of her right glove ripped away. But she was still on her feet and for the moment aware of no injury.
    The alley was emptied as quickly as it had filled. Owen d’Arcy reached for her and, instinctively it seemed to Pen, drew her against him. For a minute she rested in the circle of his arm, hearing his heart beat beneath his cloak as slowly and steadily as if he’d never raised a rapier. She rested against him, realizing as she regained some measure of strength and composure that she hadn’t believed it possible to know such terror.
    “My thanks, sir,” she murmured finally, pulling out of his hold when it seemed to her that the longer she stayed so close against him the less will she would have to move away. “I had a torchman but the coward ran as soon as I was attacked.”
    “ ’Tis a bad road for a woman with only a torchman for protection,” Owen said, sheathing his rapier. “I saw you leave the water steps but couldn’t credit that you would strike out on your own in such fashion. Cedric, light a taper.”
    Cedric drew a tinder box from the leather pouch he carried at his waist. Flint scraped on steel, the tinder sparked, and a light glowed, a small golden circle that enclosed the three of them. Owen reached out and caught Pen’s chin as he had done earlier that evening. He held her face and examined her in the light of the torch.
    Pen shivered suddenly, her legs quivering so that she leaned against the wall of the hovel at her back. It had nothing to do with the strange power in the black eyes bent upon her, nothing at all to do with the compelling calm that surrounded him. It was simply the aftermath of her ordeal. It was perfectly natural to suffer a shock once the need for strength was gone.
    “You’re hurt,” he said in that lilting voice. “The kennel scum cut you with something.” He touched her neck, moved aside the collar of her cloak, and traced a line from her ear to her shoulder. His finger came away wet and sticky with blood. Pen felt the pain of the cut for the first time, just as she also became aware of many other spots of soreness on her body. She had fought hard for those few terror-stricken minutes and her body was telling her so.
    “It’s ragged. They must have used a sharpened stone or some such. Anyway it needs attention,” Owen said. “And soon. There’s no knowing what filth was on it.” He moved her cloak back over her shoulder. “There’s a place nearby.”
    “What kind of place?” Pen hung back slightly as he took her elbow and began to move her along the alley, Cedric holding the taper to light their way. She didn’t know this man and he unsettled her.