Wicked. Beth Henderson
he knew a smile wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
“Leave the contraption with me,” Hannah offered. “I’ll see that it doesn’t come to any harm, Miss Lilly.”
“And I’ll see that it is returned to you intact,” Deegan added. “Now, I believe it is time to get this ill-advised visit to the police over and done with.”
Lilly’s hands were knit tightly together, her eyes downcast, giving her a prayerful stance, but he didn’t miss the rapid beat of her pulse above her high edged collar. “Yes, of course,” she said, her voice little more than a sigh as she settled the ridiculous borrowed hat more firmly in place. At least she hadn’t taken umbrage at his designation of the trip as ill-advised. To his thinking it was more than that. It bordered on suicidal, a fact that should have had him running for cover. It would have if he had a lick of sense, but when it came to women, that was something he had never had.
When Lilly reached for the heavy satchels of photographic paraphernalia, Deegan stayed her hand. Beneath his fingers, hers quivered. As if startled at the sensation of his warm flesh covering her softer, cooler hand, she raised her eyes, which were wide and swirling with myriad emotions, to his. Such pretty eyes they were. So expressive. He wondered if she knew her soul shone in them.
Or that they reflected a stirring of awareness for him as a man.
Deegan released her hand. “Obscurity, remember, Miss Renfrew? I’ll return them along with the camera.”
Her lashes swept down—long, curling lashes a richer shade of brown than her hair. “Of course,” she murmured, and turned away, moving to take Hannah’s hands as she expressed her gratitude for her hospitality.
With the concealing veil draped once more over Lilly’s features and the slightly ragged muff covering her quaking hands, Deegan guided his now subdued charge back down the stairs to the gauntlet of streets and alleyways that lay between Hannah’s building and the nearest cab stand.
As they left the shelter of the building, a resurgence of fear stiffened Lilly’s carriage and lent wings to her heels. He kept a firm hand on her elbow, murmuring reminders to her to slow her steps and bow her shoulders. She was masquerading as Hannah’s neighbor, Mrs. Chandler, a tall but slightly stooped widow whose reduced circumstances had forced her to reside in the disreputable Coast. Deegan only hoped that his own escort would not tip the scales against them, but when their progress along the street drew no undo attention, the euphoria of success buoyed his spirits once more.
Flagging down a cab for the short ride to the station house, Deegan quickly bundled Lilly inside.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you, Mr. Galloway,” she said as she wrestled briefly with the enveloping folds of the cape and the unaccustomed weight of her fantastic chapeau.
“Your safety is all the reward needed,” he assured her smoothly, settling next to her as the cab lurched forward.
But it wouldn’t be enough. He already knew exactly what he was going to ask for. And a very pretty thank-you gift it was going to be.
Chapter Five
The building that housed the local police station was as soot-stained as those that surrounded it. Lilly had hoped that the sight of it would infuse her with the courage needed, but such was not the case. Perhaps if Deegan Galloway had agreed to escort her inside, her gumption would have felt bolstered, but it was not to be. He had adamantly insisted that, while he would wait for her, he would not step foot in the station house.
Knowing he watched her from a shopkeeper’s doorway across the way was better than being totally on her own, though. Although why she felt so safe with him—had felt so immediately—Lilly was at a loss to explain.
That she felt drawn to him was easy to explain—he was an attractive man paying attention to her. At times he even seemed to be flirting with her.
No man within memory had ever flirted with her before.
At the door to the police station, Lilly paused to glance back. If she hadn’t known where to find Deegan, she would never have seen the slight shadow he presented as he loitered in the sheltering alcove, his wide brimmed hat tilted low over his eyes as he lounged, one shoulder propped against the brick as he rolled a cigarette.
She’d watched him do so earlier and still marveled at the controlled, pantherlike fluidity of his movements and the unmistakably male action of cupping his hands around the cigarette as he lit it. He was like other men in the district and yet he was nothing like them. A gentle-mannered man with the bearing of an aristocrat and the steady gaze of a hunter.
A hunter? Perhaps it wasn’t all that amazing to have met him in the Coast, after all.
Beneath her hand the door to the station house moved. Lilly nearly jumped in surprise.
“Can I help you, miss?” a burly man in uniform asked. He looked to be in his early forties, his features hardened by time and circumstance, his complexion leathered by sun and wind, his girth widened by an obvious enjoyment of a hearty meal. His bulk blocked her from entering the building temporarily.
“Yes. Yes, you can, sir. I would like to report a murder.”
“A murder!” He looked her over from head to foot, his expression clearly skeptical. Lilly was glad her veil provided some privacy so he could not see her expression.
“A vicious murder,” she declared indignantly.
“Never heard of no other kind,” the constable said as he stepped aside and held the door open for her to pass. He jerked his head to indicate a man seated behind a tall desk. “Best you see the sergeant.”
Lilly resisted the temptation to steal a glance to where Deegan waited, simply trusting he would see her safely away once her lawful duty was done.
The policeman took her arm in his beefy hand and propelled her across the floor quickly. “A lady to see you,” he announced as they reached the sergeant’s desk. It was set on a riser to allow the man behind the desk to tower over anxious visitors. Lilly nearly lost her borrowed hat as she peered up into another stern, unwelcoming face.
“I would like to report a murder,” she said, peeling back the engulfing widow’s veil.
While the sergeant’s eyebrows rose, his surprise was not voiced. With barely a pause, he shifted the papers before him, drawing a clean sheet to the top of the pile. “Thank you, Bitner,” he said to the constable, clearly dismissing him before turning back to Lilly. “Now, Miss..?”
“Renfrew. Miss Lillith Renfrew of Franklin Street.”
The policeman scribbled the information down. “A bit far from your own neighborhood, aren’t you, Miss Renfrew?”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” Lilly admitted, “but the woman I saw murdered was—”
“Her name and direction?” he interrupted.
She quickly gave both and added a description of Belle’s building. “It isn’t far from Pacific Street, so—”
He cut her off. “And what was your reason for visiting the Tauber woman?”
The Tauber woman? Lilly seethed in silence over the dehumanizing label given her dead friend. “It was Belle Tauber’s birthday,” she answered.
“Do you make a habit of visiting prostitutes on their birthdays?”
Who had mentioned Belle’s profession? And what did it have to do with her murder? Lilly began to understand why Deegan had advised against seeking police aid. She was being treated as if she were the criminal, not the brutal-faced man who had wielded the knife. But if not to the police, to whom else could she go for help?
The answer surfaced immediately. Deegan Galloway. Although she knew nothing of his background or his life, instinctively she knew he possessed the talents and connections needed to do whatever was necessary.