She opened her mouth and screamed.
Mountford snarled and grabbed her. Hands locking cruelly about both arms, he dragged her to the middle of the wide pavement and shook her.
“Hey!”
The shout came from the end of the street; Mountford paused. A heavyset man was running their way.
Mountford swore. His fingers bit viciously into her arms as he swung to look the other way.
He swore again, a vulgar expletive, a hint of fear showing. His lips curled in a snarl.
Leonora looked, and saw Trentham closing fast. Some way behind him came another man, but it was the look on Trentham’s face that shocked her—and momentarily transfixed Mountford.
He shook free of that killing look, glanced at her, then hauled her to him—and flung her forcefully back. Into the wall.
She screamed. The sound cut off when her head hit the stone. She was only vaguely aware of sliding slowly down, crumpling in a mass of skirts on the pavement.
Through a white fog, she saw Mountford racing across the street, avoiding the men running in from either end. Trentham didn’t give chase, but came straight for her.
She heard him swear, distantly noted he was swearing at her, not Mountford, then she was wrapped in his strength and hoisted to her feet. He held her against him, supporting her; she was standing, yet he was taking most of her weight.
She blinked; her vision cleared. Leaving her staring into a face in which some primitive emotion akin to fury warred with concern.
To her relief, concern won.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, swallowed. “Just a trifle dazed.” She put up a hand to the back of her head, gingerly felt, then smiled, albeit tremulously. “Only a small bump. No serious damage.”
His lips thinned, his eyes narrowed on hers, then he glanced in the direction Mountford had fled.
She frowned and tried to ease from his hold. “You should have followed him.”
He didn’t let her go. “The others are after him.”
Others? Two and two…“Have you had people watching the street?”
He glanced at her briefly. “Of course.”
No wonder she hadn’t felt threatened by the continuing observation. “You might have told me.”
“Why? So you could stage some witless act like this?”
She ignored that and stared across the street. Mountford had raced into the garden of the house opposite; the two other men, both heavier and slower, had followed.
No one reappeared.
Trentham’s lips were a grim line. “Is there an alley behind those houses?”
“Yes.”
He bit back a sound; she suspected it was another curse. He looked at her assessingly, then consented to ease the arm he’d locked about her. “I’d credited you with more sense—”
She raised a hand, stopped his words. “I had absolutely no reason to think Mountford would be out here. Come to that, if you had men watching from both ends of the street, why did they let him past them?”
He glanced again in the direction his men had gone. “He must have spotted them. Presumably he reached you in the same way he left, via an alley and someone’s garden.”
His gaze returned to her face, searched it. “How are you feeling?”