Stranger At The Wedding by Barbara Hambly

the noises he made.
    She rolled, twisting, jabbing with elbows and knees as someone else bore down on top of her. She could hear the cab horse whinnying, smell its sweat and the stink of the blanket over her head. The second man was trying to lift her off her feet, and she felt the first one rolling about under her; furious, she began to scream at the top of her lungs. Folds of the blanket got in her mouth, linty and smelling like cats.
    Running footsteps. She was shoved sprawling forward onto the pavement, bruising her knees again and skinning the palms she threw out to catch herself. She heard the thump of blows landing, the crack of a whip, the rattle of hooves and harness. Then someone pulled the blanket and the spell-cord away from her.
    She looked up to see Blore Spenson standing over her with the articles of her kidnapping in one hand and a stout walking stick in the other.
    “Miss Kyra!”
    She scrambled to her feet, trod on her hem, and stumbled again, cursing as she banged her knees once more. Spenson dropped the blanket and cord and extended a hand to her. She shook free, furious at herself for reacting so slowly, for not realizing more quickly that she might be in danger in the first place… in fact, for not expecting something of the kind. “Thank you, I'm quite all right.”
    Her tone of assurance was somewhat marred by the need to pick flecks of dirt and cat fur out of her mouth. She pushed at her hair; it had come loose from its pins and hung like a crazy woman's down over her shoulders and around her face. A couple of chair carriers and a match vendor were running toward them but halted, uncertain, when they saw she was unhurt. She heard a woman loudly proclaiming that she was going directly to the local magistrate—why, they might all be murdered in their beds! So much, Kyra thought dourly, for the secrecy of her errand.
    “Did they hurt you?”
    “Do you wish they had so it could have been a more impressive rescue?” Her sister's haggard eyes still prickled in her mind, the question about a love-spell. Then she saw the chagrined look on his face and added, “No, I'm sorry. Thank you for coming the way you did. I don't expect I was in any genuine danger, you know, though you probably spared me a couple of days in uncomfortable quarters.” She brushed the dirt from her skirt and examined her skinned palms. "She'd want me out of the way, but she would hardly assassinate me.
    “Who?” Spenson asked, baffled.
    Kyra pulled a hairpin free, looped up what was left of a braid, and pinned it back into place. “Lady Earthwygg, of course.” Past him, a few yards down the road, she saw a two-wheeled gig standing, drawn by a beautiful liver-bay mare. Judging by the way Master Spenson was dressed, in a dark-green broadcloth suit, he had been on his way to call on Alix, though his catskin waistcoat looked like something a tout would wear and he had obviously tied his own neck cloth again.
    “At least I assume it was Lady Earthwygg. Spell-cord that thick—and that powerful, for it's quite high-quality—” She gingerly nudged with one toe the finger-fat silk braid lying like a crimson snake on the blanket at their feet. “—isn't cheap, and if it was the Inquisition who wanted me, they'd have come to the house and talked to Father.”
    “Well,” she added with a conciliating smile, “at least you aren't wearing that dreadful red suit anymore.”
    He was still looking at her as if she were speaking Old High Trebin.
    “Why on earth,” he asked, “would Lady Earthwygg want to have you kidnapped?” Automatically he bent and picked up the cord and blanket. He looked the kind of man, Kyra thought dispassionately, who'd pick up coins from the flagway, too.
    “Oh, because of you and her daughter.”
    He froze in midmovement, and slowly his whole blunt countenance flushed a furious red. “There is nothing between—” He couldn't even manage Esmin's name. “—between her daughter and me.”
    “Oh, I