Elyza by Darcy, Clare

of it, and I come on it drawn up at a fair and you"—he glared accusingly at Elyza—"looking on at a prize-fight!" “ She wasn't looking on, old boy," Redmayne said. "She'd come to fetch me. Bit of an emergency, you see. And no harm done, after all. I suggest you forget the prize-fight.” The Colonel said huffily and with some emphasis that he would make a complete report—"a complete report," he repeated—to Mrs. Winlock of the circumstances in which he had found Miss Leigh when he returned the young lady to her. “Oh, I shouldn't do that," Redmayne said. All three of his auditors looked at him. He was smiling faintly, Elyza saw, but there was something in those blue eyes, fixed unwaveringly now upon Colonel Hanley's face, that, curiously enough, gave her a feeling of danger. The Colonel quite evidently felt the same. He looked as if he were remembering that moment when the bruiser had gone down before a blow so swift and punishing that it had made the mind boggle and the flesh wince in sympathy, and his face grew purple once more. To Elyza's surprise, however, Redmayne suddenly reached out and touched him lightly upon the shoulder. “ Much better to say you found her at a respectable inn, under the care of a lady she'd confided in, who was on the point of taking her back to London," he remarked simply. "I can make it worth your while, old boy.” Colonel Hanley was looking at him as if he were mes merised. "A—a lady—?" he gabbled. "But—" “ I'll provide the lady, old boy," said Redmay