Maggie MacKeever by Quin Read Free Book Online

deciding what she dared tell Mam, which wouldn’t be that his lordship was betrothed. Nor would she be blabbing about the bargain they had struck, lest Mam demand her cut.
    Claws scrabbled on slippery cobblestones. A cat, decided Liliane; or a large rat, or some other less appealing creature of the night. She stepped closer to Figg, slipped her hand through his arm. Beneath the fabric of his coat, she felt solid muscle. Definitely, there was more to the footman than met the eye. “Is this jujutsu something I could learn?” she asked him. “So if someone was to attack me, I could fling him arsy-varsy — er, head over heels?”
    Figg blushed, whether at Liliane’s language or her proximity it was impossible to say. She moved closer, so he could take in a good whiff of her seductive perfume.
    At least, Mam said it was seductive. Quin had not seemed to find it so. Mayhap there was also something wrong with his nose.
    “Have you worked for Lord Quinton long?” she asked. Figg allowed as he had. Further inquiry revealed, however, that the footman knew nothing about anything, or if he did, he wouldn’t tell.
    Liliane suspected that, with her decision to bamboozle the Black Baron, Mam might have gnawed off more than she could chew.
    The streets were no less empty here near Covent Gardens, resurrection men having temporarily abandoned their quest for corpses, and whores for customers, and footpads for drunken lordlings with more brass than brains. A vast variety of buildings made up this neighborhood: shops and townhouses and tenements, high and low public houses; theaters, taverns and coachmen’s watering houses, all closed at this hour.
    Figg was explaining how Japan’s first martial art had originated in 23 B.C., when Emperor Suijin ordered wrestling champion Tomakesu-Hayato to fight Nomi-no-Sukene, who then kicked Tomakesu-Hayato to death in a unique fighting style that developed into jujutsu. An alternate theory suggested jujutsu had its origins among the samurai between the eighth and sixteenth centuries as an unarmed fighting style, kicks and punches having little effect if a warrior had to defeat an armed and armored opponent without the advantage of a sword; and so pins and throws, chokes and joint locks on unprotected targets like the neck and wrists and ankles had evolved.
    Liliane halted on a street corner. “This is far enough.” She’d not be bringing Figg within arm’s reach of the nanny house where she lived with Mam.
    He looked as if he might argue. Liliane raised up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “ Merci. You have been most kind to escort me .” Figg blushed and bowed and fled.
    Liliane stifled a giggle. For all his skill at jujutsu, the footman had almost tripped over his own feet.
    She heard a sound behind her. No scrabbling of claws, this, but shoe leather on cobblestone. Slowly, Liliane turned around.
    Coffey stood beneath a street lamp, swathed in a greatcoat with as many capes as any coachman, the faint light making a halo of his fair hair. “Thought you were going to give the lad a tumble. It was you as lured me into that hallway with your artful glances, no matter what lies you told Quin.”
    “It was no lie to say you put your hands where they weren’t invited,” Liliane responded, edging backward. “And I did nothing of the sort.”
    Coffey begged to differ. He knew a short-heeled wench when he saw one, or so he said; and he saw in Liliane just the sort of female who needed only the slightest nudge to roll over on her back.
    “Crackbrain , ” hissed Liliane, indignant. “Have you already forgot I kicked you in your cullions and knocked you in the nose?”
    Coffey reached into his greatcoat and pulled out a fistful of banknotes. “Come down off your high ropes. I’ve a bit of business to suggest.”
    Liliane eyed the money. True, Coffey was a pig. However— “Talk to me, mon chou .”
     
    Chapter Ten
     
    Kate sat at the breakfast table, sipping chocolate