Courting Trouble by Jenny Schwartz

the best of predators, was too perfect.
    Acquaintances caught Jed and Esme, holding them up with an exchange of courtesies and genial gossip while the young men and women mobbed Nazim.
    “I’m glad your burn is healing. Every garden should have aloe vera,” Esme said to elderly Miss Dalrymple. “Irons are so dangerous. Do you have a ride home? Jed and I can give you a seat.”
    But Miss Dalrymple had arrived with Mr. and Mrs. Helmsworth and “wouldn’t dream of intruding.”
    The gig was an open carriage, so there was no impropriety in their being together.
    No privacy, either.
    “Miss Smith, Mr. Reeve.” Taking in their evident intention to depart, Nazim shook off his admirers and descended. “May I claim a moment of your time? I shall walk you to your carriage.” His manner discouraged any other company.
    Outside the hall, the stars were bright overhead. A boobook called, quietly melancholic. The small owl was seldom visible in town. Down at the harbor, a steamboat whistled, departing with the tide.
    “Say what you have to say, Nazim.” Jed contemplated how satisfying it would be to punch him in his smirking face. There was the outstanding matter of all he’d lost in the workshop fire. A knockout punch to the jaw would go some way to leveling the score.
    “The affairs of India are none of your business. Believe what you will, but this girl you protect, Lajli, is a thief. What she stole from me, she must return. When she does so, she will be safe.”
    “That sounds like a threat. How can she—we—trust you?” He looked at Esme, who was studying Nazim through narrowed eyes. So she, too, noticed that he answered to Nazim, abandoning the pretense of the false identity.
    “I have no intention of staying in this dreary town a moment longer than I must. Do not think yourselves of such great interest to me that I would waste an instant’s thought on you, did you not stand between me and my rightful property. We are practical men, you and I. Return to me what is mine and we go our separate paths. Your little thief shall be safe.”
    Esme nodded fractionally and Jed agreed. Time to confirm that he, not Lajli, possessed the blueprints for Kali’s Scream. Then the girl would be safe. “I have your papers.”
    The Indian opened his hands and waved them in a generous, graceful gesture. “You have studied them?” His mouth tightened at Jed’s nod. “Such a beautiful design. My felicitations to you, sir, on this wondrous opportunity you have to study its principles. You conceive of its brilliance. My friend was very talented. Thanks to his sonic amplifier, deaf shall hear—”
    “It’s a weapon,” Esme corrected him flatly.
    Jed grinned. Challenging Nazim was dangerous, but he liked hearing her tell the man off.
    “What it is, is none of your business.” When he abandoned his flowery language, Nazim sounded ugly. “I want what is mine returned.”
    Jed moved forward, judging that the smaller man wouldn’t dare use a knife or gun so near a watching crowd. “You don’t like Swan River. Fair enough. I suggest you leave. Now. Without your papers. You see, Nazim, far from returning the blueprints for Kali’s Scream to you, I intend to demonstrate to the authorities the extent of the fatal treachery you plan to enact against your own people.”
    Satisfied by the shock that flickered across Nazim’s face—he was more accustomed to threatening than being threatened—Jed went to the horse’s head and unclipped the nosebag.
    “Miss Esme, you should be afraid for yourself and all you hold dear.”
    Jed turned swiftly.
    But Nazim had already retreated toward the light and audience of the hall. His final words drifted back. “Give me Lajli.”
    “Why would we do that?” Esme frowned. “Why would he want her?”
    Jed craved action not speculation. “I should pound him.”
    “Prove that Kali’s Scream is a weapon of devastation, and we can hand him over to the authorities. As it stands, he has shown tonight