The Impostor Prince. Tanya Crosby Anne
the footpad who’d been shadowing her, she hurriedly scanned the gathering throng.
She didn’t at once spy the footpad, but neither did she care to wait around for him reappear. She began to gather up her grandmother’s silver, agitated by her sudden lack of good sense.
The driver of the carriage rambled on, absolving himself of any fault for her injuries. “She ran in front of the carriage,” he explained to his master. “We did not hit her, denka—she fell!”
Claire cast the driver a reproachful glance.
How dare he settle the blame solely upon her! She hadn’t been watching where she was going, that much was certainly true, but he might have driven more thoughtfully, considering that this was London and the streets were riddled with women and children—even if some of those children were nearly as dangerous as the adults.
She shook a spoon at him. “You, sir, were traveling much too fast for these conditions!” she accused him. She reached out to seize the bottom half of her box and turned it over, slamming it down upon the street as she cast the driver a baleful glare.
His eyes slanted sadly.
Claire ignored the prick of guilt she felt.
Her box was a wreck, her silver scattered to the four corners, and he had the audacity to look crestfallen by her censure. She wasn’t about to ease his conscience so quickly.
“Any child might have run in front of your carriage, and how might you have felt then?” she added.
“Hardly any worse than he already does,” his employer said, coming to the driver’s defense.
Claire hurriedly gathered up the remaining silverware, grateful for the distraction of her anger to refocus her thoughts. She tossed the pieces into the broken box, annoyed that both men were still staring, neither of them helping.
Neither was anyone else, for that matter. The crowd was thickening around them, heads cocked like parakeets as they gawked down at her while she gathered her belongings from the street.
“How rude!” she exclaimed.
How morbid, to stop and simply stare. She wanted to tell them all to move on and to mind their own sordid affairs, but she knew it would be a waste of her breath.
She directed her anger at the driver, because his gaze was not nearly so unsettling as his employer’s. “At any rate, it seems to me, sirrah, that if you felt the least bit badly about running me down, you might be a little more inclined to help me pick up my belongings!”
Both men seemed to realize she was the only one cleaning up the gleaming mess they’d made of the street.
By now, carriages were backed up clear to the corner theater.
“Forgive me…allow me to help,” the employer offered.
His driver at once fell to his knees, gathering up her silverware, most certainly scratching the finish as he scooped them into a pile before him. She wanted to tell him to be careful, but in truth, she wanted him to hurry. What did scratches on silver matter when lives were at stake?
The crowd that had gathered began to disperse, apparently bored with the lack of blood and gore. Claire searched the remaining faces for the man who’d been pursuing her.
“Hurry!” she demanded, though not unkindly. “I must be going! It’s much too late!”
“A lady shouldn’t be walking the streets at this hour anyway,” the employer had the audacity to say.
Surely, he hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, but Claire took offense anyway. She glared at him. “I beg your pardon! I am hardly walking the streets, sirrah.”
He blinked, probably realizing what he’d implied. “I meant to say that it isn’t safe for a woman to be out and about at this hour,” he explained.
As if she hadn’t already realized that. “I was on my way home until you waylaid me.”
Claire ignored the rain smacking her in the face. She didn’t bother to wipe away the droplets. Her hair was doubtless a sad wreck—if not from the fall, then from the rain.
She wished they would both just go to bloody Jericho!
The blond man couldn’t begin to realize her present chaos of mind.
The sun was quickly waning and she did, indeed, have a long way to go if she couldn’t locate a hansom.
Lord, what if she couldn’t? She almost groaned aloud at the thought. What if the streets grew dark before she could make her way to safety? Panic took a firm foothold in her stomach.
Calm down, she commanded herself.
The footpad had surely fled by now. Anyway, he hadn’t been following her, she tried to convince herself.
“If you’ll allow us the pleasure of your company,” the employer said, “we would love to offer you a ride home.”
Claire tossed a pitifully bent fork into the mangled box. A ride home with perfect strangers was the very last thing she required at the moment. For all she knew, that’s how her brother had disappeared. “I can find my own way, thank you.”
And then she spied the man who’d followed her from the pawnbroker’s. He stood inside a little shop across the street, staring out the window, waiting.
Claire’s heart flipped.
Lord! He was following her.
“Well, then…please accept our humble apologies, madam. I suppose we’ll be on our way.”
Claire snatched up the last of her silver and lifted the box, thrusting it at the employer. “Be a gentleman,” she commanded him. “Carry my box to the carriage.” Then, without a word, fearing they would change their minds, she stood and hurried to their vehicle.
Chapter Three
I an watched her march to the rig and let herself in.
Evidently, she considered him the lesser evil.
The thought brought a wry smile to his lips. There were many folks who would disagree.
He glanced over his shoulder, trying to determine what it was she’d spied that had changed her mind so suddenly.
No one stood out.
Ryo, too, seemed a little befuddled. He scratched his head and they shared a look of confusion before Ian motioned for Ryo to return to the driver’s seat.
The instant Ian mounted the rig, his saucy little passenger snatched the silverware box from his hands and settled it atop her lap.
“Grosvenor Square, thank you very much,” she snapped, and then sat primly before him, doing her damnedest to ignore him, her lovely face a mask—all but the stark green eyes that betrayed her fear.
Ian willed her to look at him.
She refused, denying him even the slightest glimpse into those jade-colored eyes.
Her skin was flawless, save for the fresh scrape on her chin, and he felt aggrieved that he’d had a hand in marring her otherwise perfect complexion.
He eyed the silverware box balanced precariously on her knees, silver protruding despite her efforts to conceal it, and wondered to whom it belonged.
Stolen goods?
It wasn’t unheard-of, a female canter, but she didn’t strike him as one. And he should know a thief when he saw one.
So who was the little she-dragon trying so hard to ignore him?
One needn’t be a London native to know the address she had given him was prime. But why would a woman of her apparent stature walk about London completely unattended with a box full of silverware in tow?
Were the silver a new purchase, the box would have been delivered