The next day, Zane set aside his research for more immediate concerns. First, he hunted down Lady Phoebe in her rambling animal shelter to ask about finding Jenkins and hiring her unemployed neighbors.
“Stalking a student is not precisely permanent employment,” she said with a worried frown. “Although I suppose earning a small sum might help one of our tenants find a better home.”
“Miss Dougall suggested you might also know a few people of the more respectable sort we could hire to guard the house. They would perform as butler and footman, but I do not require references. I just want strong, honest men willing to protect women.” Zane eyed the owl currently ensconced on a wooden pedestal. The creature’s leg wore a splint.
Phoebe gurgled with laughter. “You’ll need to provide the men I send with livery and appropriate attire, but I know a couple of rascals you can trust. Just don’t let them speak to guests. I don’t suppose you could use a housekeeper as well?”
With a sigh, he saw his quiet household turning into a menagerie for Phoebe’s human patients. Zane accepted the necessity. “Mary could manage when there was just two of us, but she’ll be overwhelmed if I am to start entertaining. I don’t think a non-speaking housekeeper, however, would be a good addition. Another maid, perhaps? And do you know where I might hire a cook?”
“Not in my neighborhood. Students might not mind mutton stew and hash, but entertaining adults requires a professional cook. I’ll ask my aunts. If you provide rooms for everyone, I can send you entire armies of help.” Phoebe fed a tiny kitten with a dropper as she spoke.
Zane knew Lady Phoebe was the daughter of an earl and had been raised as a proper lady, but her work with animals required rough clothes, old dusters and hats, and occasional flits about town on her penny-farthing. She was the most eccentric female he’d ever encountered, but she had her fingers on the pulse of Old Town Edinburgh and its inhabitants. He thought he could rely on her better than an agency.
One didn’t tell agencies they needed footpads and thugs.
While he was there, he inquired if Azmin was upstairs, and learned this was her time to teach. He’d been hoping for a bright spot in his otherwise gray day, but he set aside his disappointment. Apparently his life was more boring than he’d realized if he was looking forward to arguing with Azmin—one more bad habit from his wasted youth.
The hound followed him out the back gate in the no-longer vine-covered wall. Zane turned to shoo it off, but Lady Phoebe handed him more of her dog biscuits. “If you see your student, have Dog follow him. He’s a good tracker.”
Dog? She couldn’t come up with a more imaginative name? Taking the lady’s advice with a grain of salt, figuring she wanted someone else to feed the creature, he took the alley out to the main thoroughfare. There he found a vendor and bought Dog a meat pie instead of the nasty squares.
Satisfied that he had the search for servants underway, Zane returned to his office, where he made up lists of students to invite to his first dinner. He realized he had no real idea if they were wealthy or not. Azmin was right. He wanted to invite the interesting and engaged ones who might support each other in their studies.
And the dean was also correct—he’d shut himself off from his colleagues by burying himself in the laboratory. The urgency for finding a cure for Louisa, and the dean’s pressure to produce, had taken over his life. But having a little help at home—might lessen his burden.
The thought of unconventional Azmin leading the discussion at his dinner table lightened his mood considerably, if not his burden. His life had become criminally boring.
Septimus Jenkins finally put in an appearance in the classroom. The young man’s revolting attempt at sideburns and mustache reminded Zane of Azmin’s comment about kissing. He had to bite back an inappropriate grin and remember the reprobate might attempt to kiss Louisa.
Jenkins slept through most of the class, but he managed to fumble his required report from his pocket when Zane called for the papers at the end of the session.
He slipped Jenkins’ work into his coat pocket before depositing the others in his office. Once outside again, feeling like an utter idiot, Zane gave the paper to Dog to smell, then pointed out Jenkins as his student ambled off with a couple of muscular young ruffians.
The dog sniffed, yipped, and tottered off after the trio.
Now what? Did he believe Phoebe would read the animal’s mind and learn where Jenkins went? Absurd. Still, he decided to leave early so he could stop at the animal shelter and warn Phoebe that her dog was on the trail.
Would Azmin be out of class and on her way to teach Louisa at this hour? Zane pulled out his pocket watch. He thought she wasn’t due to be at his house for another hour. Maybe she would be at the workshop when he talked to Lady Phoebe—which was a ridiculous thought. Azmin was living in his home now. He’d see her at dinner. Why would it matter if he saw her now?
As he approached the Blairs’ peculiar workplace, Zane heard an altercation and Dog’s howl before he saw anything. Had Dog actually followed Jenkins to his favorite tavern, the one next to Phoebe’s animal shelter? Zane ran toward trouble.
“It’s her! It’s the colored photographer aping her betters!” a man’s voice shouted.
In an instant, Zane’s blood pressure spiked to explosive. He dashed around the corner to the side street lined with shabby businesses, gripping his walking stick in the middle. The crowd in front of the tavern confirmed his worst fears. Swinging his stick at the ruffians on the edge of the mob, he cleared a path to the center of the fracas.
Thugs from the tavern had Azmin trapped against the wall Jenkins’ friends had attempted to climb a few nights ago. He now knew Lady Phoebe’s animals were on the other side. Today, it was Azmin trapped against the stones.
Instead of screaming, the damned woman had one hand buried in a skinny, blond fellow’s hair, attempting to ram his head into the stones behind her while lashing out with her deadly boots at a second scoundrel. Connecting boot to shin to unbalance the shorter, sturdier villain, she drove the fingers on her free hand at his eyes. Her equipment rested at her feet, too heavy for her to swing. A valiant fight, but she didn’t stand a chance.
Especially since there were three of the bastards taunting and shoving at her. Dog howled at one who looked like Jenkins—who appeared to be inching toward Azmin’s valise. What the hell?
He’d ask questions later. Grabbing Jenkins’ collar, Zane sniffed the sickening-sweet scent of incense that came with opium smoking. Is that what was happening in that den of iniquity? But this lot was just drunk—in the middle of the day—judging by their reeking breaths.
In a fury, Zane hauled Jenkins off his shabby boots and flung him up against the tavern wall, then smashed his fist into his jaw. It felt good to finally lay hands on the bastard, but it wasn’t much of a fight. Jenkins slid down the wall, then scrabbled through the tavern’s door, out of sight.
Azmin released Stout Villain to turn and knee Blondie’s’ privates. The skinny thug emitted a high-pitched shriek. While he was off-balance, she rammed his head into the wall again. Zane wanted to cheer, except Stout took her distraction to jump back into the fray.
The bigger villain grabbed her waist and hauled her off the ground. “I like a woman who can hold her own. C’mon, darkie, give us a kiss.”
Zane’s skin crawled. Furious, he shoved aside the last bystander, breaking through just as Azmin reached for the deadly weapon in her hair.
Before she could stab out her captor’s eyes, Zane smashed the dolt’s cranium with the knob of his walking stick, bringing him to his knees. He had never derived pleasure from violence, but he did not regret kicking the howling bastard in the kidneys to topple him. The miscreant had the sense to stay in the filthy gutter, groaning.
With every intention of hauling the damned woman out of there, Zane swung around, only to watch with disgust as the cursing blond man recovered sufficiently to raise his fist.
Zane seized his arm and yanked it behind Blondie’s back. Katar finally in hand, Azmin ripped open the fellow’s buttons. The bastard was blamed lucky she didn’t take his guts out. Zane twisted the arm he held until he heard a crack, then flung him to join his comrade. The crowd in the street backed away. So it was just the three troublemakers involved and not a mob. Odd.
Tongue lolling, Dog sat down on his haunches and looked up expectantly. The animal had found Jenkins as he’d been told. Gathering Azmin into his arms, Zane fished one of Phoebe’s dog biscuits from his pocket and threw it at the hound.
Glaring in disgust at the muttering crowd, he helped Azmin right herself. Her redingote was hanging off her shoulder, she’d lost her hat, and she was trembling, probably with rage, but she seemed otherwise intact.
Zane shouted at the onlookers. “Will one of you dolts please call a constable? What’s the matter with you? A lady is attacked and you stand there gawping?”
“Ain’t no lady,” one wit shouted back.
“Blackies are good for only one thing,” another piece of scum shouted.
Fury escalating to red hot, Zane wanted to plow into the crowd with his fists, but he wanted to haul Azmin away more. Did she have to endure these insults regularly?
She pushed him off. “Don’t,” she murmured. “My driver is here. I need to find him. Let me go, please.”
Her driver? Zane glanced at the rickety carriage waiting down the street. Before he could question, he spotted Dean Reynolds’ portly figure bearing down on them, full steam ahead.
“Devil take it,” he muttered. Now he didn’t know whether to tell Azmin to run or to hang on for support.
“What is the meaning of this, Dare?” the dean shouted, gesturing at the crowd and the men on the ground. “I had students running to tell me you were fighting a mob. And who is this. . . this creature? You have a moral obligation—”
The creature yanked out of Zane’s arms, grabbed her equipment, and marched down the alley between the tavern and Phoebe’s garden wall, back straight, steam practically rising from the top of her uncovered head. Dark sable hair spilled like a waterfall down her proud back.
“She is a lady who has just been assaulted and insulted,” Zane replied, pouring every bit of scorn he possessed into his voice as he picked up her hat. “You would do better to ask the students why they didn’t help.”
Zane turned his back on the man who held his laboratory in his hand and raced after Azmin, his fury unabated.
“Don’t. . . touch. . . me,” she muttered as he caught up with her at the gate. “Just don’t. And you needn’t defend me. Go back and apologize to the important-looking man. He’s right. I’m no lady.”
“You’re related to half of British aristocracy! Of course, you’re a lady. What you aren’t is the names they were calling you.” He took the key from her trembling hand and shoved open the gate.
“Oh, well, one can’t expect the ignorant to differentiate between Africans and Hindus,” she said, sounding nonchalant, even though Zane knew she was no such thing. “And really, it shouldn’t matter if I’m a lady or not, not any more than it should matter what color anyone is. No woman should be mauled simply for walking down the street. Would they have attacked a man? But bigots will be bigots.”
She was distancing herself from him. Zane could feel it. He ought to let her go. He ought to go back and try to placate the dean. Perhaps he could explain. . . A stodgy professor would explain. Zane wasn’t feeling like a professor right now. He was feeling murderous.
And he wanted to shout some common sense into the fool woman, but she was unfortunately too damned right.
“And bullies will be bullies and punching them in the snout won’t change things, I understand. But recklessly walking alone doesn’t help either.” He tried not to shout, but he wasn’t certain he was successful.
“You were brilliant back there, by the way,” he added grudgingly, taking the damned heavy valise from her hand. He didn’t know how to express how he felt at the way she’d defended herself. Terrified, proud, and appalled that she should have had to learn such street fighting.
Her silence was troublesome. Azmin was only silent when she was plotting. With the gate open, she crossed the yard in determination instead of heading for the safety of the animal shelter.
Zane was desperate to have her in his arms. He wanted to promise nothing like that would ever happen again. But that was the youthful dreamer talking through his hat. Stodgy professor recognized the lie.
Shouts of alarm rose from the street.
Azmin wound up her hair, shoved the katar back into the mass of silk, and climbed the unorthodox steps she’d created for looking over the wall.
So furious she wanted to cry, Azmin cast off her concern for Wilson, and the trap she’d set. First, she needed the identities of the tavern bullies who’d attacked her. Except for Jenkins, they’d been too old to be students. She lifted her skirt and climbed the rocks and animal cages to the top of the wall. She had grown much too comfortable in these streets and had forgotten how evil men can be.
She would not think of gallant Zane standing up to the important official yelling at him—because of her. Those were his choices, not hers.
The shouts on the other side grew louder. A primal scream of pain sent shivers crawling up her spine. That could have been her. She clutched the top of the wall and lifted herself to peer into the street she’d just left and gasped.
The blond man lay bleeding in the street. She hadn’t done that!
He might have deserved murdering, but she couldn’t callously let someone die without offering aid.
She held out her hand to Zane. “My camera, quickly. You’d better go back out there. I think he needs medical attention.”
Instead of listening, Zane climbed up beside her with the valise. “What the hell happened?”
“I have no idea.” Azmin removed her camera, set it on the wall, and slipped in a dry plate. She kept telling herself she’d seen worse, that she could do nothing to help the man who had assaulted her except preserve the moment for authorities.
But her insides roiled with fury and humiliation, and she figured she was going to hell for taking photographs instead of helping.
She balanced the camera on the wall for steadiness, focused on the man in the street, and hoped she could capture some of the people shouting, running, and crowding around. “I didn’t have a chance to use my knife. I know I didn’t do that.”
“I know you didn’t either.” Zane stepped up beside her to study the scene. “He needs surgery and antiseptics, and I’m not even carrying my bag. I’m not about to abandon you to save his unworthy life. The constable just showed up. He’ll have him hauled to the hospital. It’s not far, and their doctors are more experienced than I am.”
Azmin hated that she’d driven him to such a declaration, but she took satisfaction in it anyway. Blondie deserved to suffer.
She’d feel better if a little suffering would teach abusive men not to use violence, but she doubted it would make a difference.
The familiarity of the camera steadied her hands. She thought the day was bright enough not to need further illumination. She found the focus and snapped before the constable figured out how to move the wounded man. If anyone wanted to pin murder on her, she’d at least have tried to capture an image of the victim’s spirit. She wondered if it looked black as Jenkins’.
Black, like they’d called her. They needed to learn their colors. Because of her mixed race, she wasn’t even brown. Maybe tepid tea, at best.
She still shook when she thought about their cruelty. So, she’d quit thinking about it. Covering the lens to protect the plate, she placed her camera back in the bag. “Climb down. I need to see if Wilson is inside.” And if her bait had been bitten. What worried her was that there was no reason for the aging driver to be anywhere but his carriage.
She waited for Zane to remove himself from her path. He was intimidatingly tall and broad and radiating angry intensity. She simply didn’t have the strength to fight him right now. She was too utterly, immensely grateful that he’d been there when she’d needed him. And that was foolish, but she still shook with terror and knew his greater strength had saved her. She wanted to spit just remembering the foul smell of the stronger man’s mouth as he tried to kiss her.
Zane took her valise and offered his hand to assist her down—as if he hadn’t just seen her beat up two men. As if she really were a lady. She was back to wanting to weep all over again.
Telling herself it was just nerves, she accepted the assistance, then dropped his hand, picked up her skirts, and hurried across the yard, wishing he would go away. And hoping he’d stay. If Wilson had left the messages as he’d been told—Keya’s stalker might be upstairs now. She wasn’t prepared for another physical battle.
She didn’t like the coincidence of Wilson possibly arriving with a stalker and the daylight attack. For once, she didn’t argue with Zane when he followed her inside.
Neither Lady Phoebe nor Mr. Blair seemed to be inside the large echoing space occupied by assorted animals and tools. But Mr. Morgan was always in his office. This should be safe enough. Drawing in a deep breath, Azmin steeled her shaky nerves, lifted her skirts higher, and ran up the stairs. Only when it occurred to her that Zane was being awfully quiet did she realize how much of her limbs she’d revealed as he politely followed her up.
She was definitely not a lady. And she felt better for acknowledging that, because it gave her a thrill knowing he looked at her ankles. She supposed she ought to like him more for not being a bigot, but that hurt was a little deeper and needed more time to repair.
She held a finger to her lips as they reached her door. It was ajar. She was pretty certain she’d locked it. If Keya hadn’t been hiding in Zane’s home, Azmin would assume her assistant was here.
Zane set down the valise and held his walking stick like a bludgeon. He stuck out his arm and pushed her back against the wall, then used the stick to nudge the door open.
A knife slammed into the paneling, burying into the wood almost up to its ornate hilt. “Where is she?” a male tenor shouted. “Where is my sister?”
Well, that was enlightening. Azmin eyed the now useless knife. Someone didn’t know not to waste weapons.
“Since I don’t have a brother, you’re in the wrong place,” she called from behind Zane’s arm.
A slender, brown-skinned youth materialized in the doorway, his eyes blazing with fire and a sword gripped with both hands. “I have come to rescue my sister from slavery.”
Ah, so the trap had sprung.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Zane muttered, eyeing the stripling unsteadily holding a sword almost as big as he was. “All he needs is a lance and a noble steed.”
“And flags flying,” Azmin reminded him, curiosity spoiling her impending temper tantrum. “Lion-Heart stomped all over other countries in his not-so-gallant Crusades. I suppose it’s fair to return the favor.”
“I am no Crusader,” the boy said, straightening his shoulders. “My sister was sold into slavery by her despicable husband and his second wife. I wish to take her home, where she belongs.”
“Do we invite him to dinner?” Zane asked dryly.
“Since he’s lying, I think not.” Azmin emerged from behind him.
“I am not lying!” the boy shouted. “I am Gopala Trivedi, and I know my sister is hidden here.”
Only because Wilson had told him so, the poor gullible idiot.
Azmin tried to find a resemblance between the young man and Keya, but she couldn’t. If Keya had left home twenty years ago, this young man couldn’t have been more than an infant. He’d have no memory of her.
“Maybe I should take his photograph, see if he’s evil.” Entertaining the idea of being able to identify evildoers bolstered her flagging morale.
“Can evil be stupid?” Zane asked, his patience wearing thin.
“We can find out, but not right now.” Developing negatives required a steady hand, and hers did not qualify at the moment. “But I suppose we should find out more. Tell me of your sister,” she demanded.
The slender lad managed to look defiant as well as confused. “She was married to a cruel man who called her an assassin and sold her. She is of good family. We will pay a ransom for her return.”
“Her name?” Azmin demanded.
“Her name is Keya Trivedi Yedhu. Where do you keep her?” the youth insisted angrily.
“Does she know you? Will she recognize you?” she asked.
The knife-thrower looked flustered. “I don’t know.”
At the sound of heavy feet coming up the stairs, Zane sighed in exasperation and brought his walking stick down on the young man’s arm. The sword clattered at his feet.
Then all hell broke loose. Again.