Where The Heart Leads (39 page)

But with Smythe proving so elusive…what was the point in waiting? In putting off the inevitable?

Especially when, as they’d proved time and again over the last week, the inevitable held significant benefits for them both.

She couldn’t believe that the reality of their relationship wasn’t as clear to him as it was to her. She
could
believe, quite easily given her accumulated experience of gentlemen of his ilk, that he would vacillate over speaking—that even he would shy from declaring his heart.

She had no such reservations—was prey to no such hesitation. She felt perfectly able, and willing, to broach that particular subject.

But first they had to reach his parlor. She chatted blithely about this and that—curious about the gentlemen’s clubs she barely glimpsed as he whisked her across St. James—then they were strolling down Jermyn Street.

She felt her nerves tighten as his door came into view. He guided her up the steps, then released her to reach into his pocket for his key.

Hearing footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, she swung to face it.

Barnaby looked up as the door opened and Mostyn stood there, filling the doorway.

Before he could blink, Penelope swept in. Mostyn gave way, bowing respectfully.

“Tea, please, Mostyn. In the parlor.”

Tone and attitude were perfectly gauged; she was behaving exactly as if she were his wife. Leaving him gawping on the doorstep.

She glanced briefly back at him, then turned toward the parlor. “Your master and I have matters to discuss.”

What matters?
Brows rising along with welling hope, Barnaby took a step forward.

“Hist!”

Hist? Still on his front step, Barnaby turned and saw a man wait
ing by the area railings. The man beckoned, furtively glancing around.

Puzzled, Barnaby walked to the edge of the wide top step. “What is it?”

“You’re Mr. Adair?”

“Yes.”

“I was sent with a message, sir. Urgent like.” The man beckoned again.

Frowning, Barnaby stepped down. One step gave him a better perspective on the street. Abruptly he halted, staring through the darkness, premonition prickling across his nape. Seeing three—he glanced the other way—no, four—men hanging back in the shadows to either side of his house, he started to step back.

They saw—and flung themselves at him.

He caught the first with a kick to the chest, throwing him against the side railings, but before he could recover the others swarmed up the steps and over him. He downed another with a blow to the gut, but the others pressed up and in, hemming him in so he couldn’t move enough to get any force behind his blows.

They were trying to grab him, to wrestle him down the steps. To subdue and take him, but not to harm him. No knives, thank God.

He was wrestling with one, simultaneously trying to block the others from getting behind him to push, when he sensed someone else at his back. The heavy head of his grandfather’s cane appeared over his shoulder, striking at the head of the man he was wrestling with.

Mostyn had flung himself into the breach.

His attacker yelled as the blows connected; two others tried to intervene, but the cane slashed first one way, then the other, and they fell back.

The cane returned to hit the man still holding Barnaby; he put up a hand to protect his head—loosening his grip.

In the same instant, smaller hands clutched the back of Barnaby’s coat, steadying him—then hauling back with surprising strength.

A strength he used to help him wrench free of the man’s desperate hold.

With a hoarse bellow the man ignored the thumping cane, flung himself forward, lower to the step, and seized Barnaby’s flapping coat
again. He got a good handful and tried to tumble Barnaby down the steps, but with Penelope’s added weight to anchor him, Barnaby set his feet and wrenched his coat free, then whirled and pushed Penelope back over the threshold, gathered Mostyn—still slashing mightily with the cane—and bundled him back, too.

Flinging himself after them, he just had time before the wrestler picked himself up and his friends joined him, hurling themselves up the steps, to slam the door in their faces.

They hit the door with significant force.

Leaning against it, Barnaby reached up and threw the bolts. Mostyn quickly took care of the lower set.

The door shook under a fresh assault.

Mostyn rushed to add his weight to Barnaby’s. The pounding continued. Mostyn put their combined incredulity into words. “This is
Jermyn Street,
for heaven’s sake! Don’t they know?”

“It appears they don’t care.” Grim-faced, Barnaby fished in his waistcoat pocket. He pulled out a police whistle on a ribbon. Still struggling to bolster the shaking door, he held it out to Penelope. “The parlor window.”

Wide-eyed, she grabbed the whistle and rushed into the parlor.

In the warmly lit parlor, Penelope flung back the curtains, unlatched the casement window, swung it wide, dragged in a huge breath, leaned out as far as she dared over the area steps, put her lips to the whistle, and blew with all her might.

The shrill sound was enough to shatter eardrums.

She looked to see what effect it had had on the men pounding on the door—with a squeak, she ducked back just in time to avoid the brick that came sailing through the window.

Outrage welled. Furious, she dragged in a breath.

“Penelope?”

Eyes narrowed, she cast a dark glance at the window, then whirled and raced out into the hall. “I’m all right.” The pounding on the door resumed. Barnaby and Mostyn pressed hard against the shuddering panels. “I’m going upstairs.”

Grabbing her skirts, she held them up and took the stairs at a run. Racing into Barnaby’s bedroom, she rushed to the window overlooking the street, flung wide the curtains, wrestled with the sash. Eventually pushing it up, she hiked herself up onto the wide sill, leaned
out, glanced down at the men below, then put the whistle to her lips again.

She blew and blew.

The men looked up, swore, and shook their fists at her, but she was beyond their reach.

She grew giddy and stopped blowing, but by then she could see movement down the street. The sound of running footsteps—many heavy pounding footsteps—rolled up out of the night as constables of the watch converged from all directions.

With grim satisfaction, she watched as Barnaby’s attackers turned to face the police.

What followed puzzled her.

The attackers didn’t flee, as she felt attackers should. Instead, they flung themselves at the watch. In seconds, a melee had erupted, filling the street. More constables ran up—and, she noticed, a few more from the other side slid from the shadows to join the fight.

“How odd.” It was as if the attackers’ real target hadn’t been Barnaby at all, but the police…

Stepping away from the window, she stared unseeing across the room. “Oh, my God!”

Grabbing up her skirts, she raced for the door. She flung herself recklessly down the stairs.

The much-abused front door stood open. She ran out—and uttered a prayer of relief when she found Barnaby on the front step rather than in the heaving jumble of bodies that continued to swell, jamming the street.

As she had done, he was frowning at the melee as if he couldn’t work it out.

She grabbed his arm and hauled him around to face her. “It’s a diversion!” She had to all but scream to be heard over the grunts and shouts.

He blinked at her. “What?”

“A
diversion
!” She swung out an arm, encompassing the crowd. “Look at all the police here—all the watch constables from around about. They’re here—so they can’t be on the beats they’re supposed to be patrolling.”

Understanding lit his blue eyes. “They’re doing more burglaries tonight.”

“Yes!” She literally jigged with impatience. “We have to go and look!”

“I
know
it’s drawing a long bow, I
know
it’s potentially dangerous, but we can’t just sit at home and wait and wonder.” Penelope marched along at Barnaby’s side, scanning the houses they passed.

Although she’d kept her voice low, her words rang with a determination Barnaby couldn’t—didn’t have it in him—to dispute; he was no more inclined to passive patience than she.

It had been impossible to break up the melee. He’d waded in and collared a young constable; dragging the lad free, he’d sent him hotfoot to Scotland Yard with a message for Stokes. He had no idea whether Sergeant Miller would be on duty, or anyone else he could count on to act. And he had even less idea where Stokes might be; he had a sneaking suspicion his friend might be in St. John’s Wood, in which case he was too far away to be of any material help.

So here they were, just the two of them, wandering Mayfair’s streets.

December was around the corner, as evidenced by the crisp chill in the air; like the mansions they passed, the streets were largely deserted. An occasional hackney or town carriage clopped past. It was after midnight; the few couples still in town would have returned from their evening’s engagements and be tucked up in bed, while the tonnish bachelors wouldn’t yet have left their clubs.

These were the hours during which burglars struck.

They’d walked up Berkeley Street, and around the square, then down Bolton Street. They were presently walking up Clarges Street. Reaching the corner where it intersected with the mews, they turned left toward Queen Street. Ahead of them, a black carriage slowly rolled across the end of the mews, going up Queen Street.

Penelope frowned. “I could have sworn I saw that carriage before.”

Barnaby grunted.

Penelope didn’t say more. The carriage was a small black town carriage, the sort every major household had sitting in their stables, their second carriage. Why it had stuck in her head—why she was so convinced she’d seen that particular carriage earlier…she remembered
where. They’d been crossing the northwest corner of Berkeley Square when the carriage had cut across Mount Street a block ahead of them, trundling in that same slow manner up Carlos Place.

She’d turned her head and looked at it; the angle of her view of the horse, carriage, and coachman on the box had been exactly the same as it had been a few minutes ago.

But why such a sight—to her, in this area, such a common sight—should so nag at her, why the certainty that it was the same carriage should be so insistently fixed in her brain, she had no clue. She puzzled over it as they walked quietly along, carefully scanning shadows, glancing down area steps, but came to no conclusion.

Reaching Queen Street, they hesitated, then Barnaby tugged her to the left. Settling her hand more comfortably in his arm, she strolled beside him. In another season, anyone seeing them would have thought them an affianced couple taking a long stroll the better to spend time in each other’s company. With winter in the air, such a reason was unlikely, but their slow, ambling progress gave them plenty of time to examine the houses they passed.

Just like the couple she saw walking along the other side of Curzon Street.

Reaching the corner where Queen met Curzon, she stared, then tugged on Barnaby’s arm. When he glanced her way, she pointed across and down Curzon Street.

He looked, then snorted.

In unspoken accord, they crossed to the southern side of the street and waited until the other couple strolled up.

Stokes looked shamefaced. He shrugged. “We couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“Hostages or not, we couldn’t sit at home and do nothing at all,” Griselda stated.

“Anyway,” Stokes said, “I take it from your presence here you felt the same.”

“Actually”—Barnaby glanced at Penelope—“our presence here is more a response to direct action.”

Stokes was instantly alert. “What happened?”

Barnaby described the “diversion.”

“We sent a message,” Penelope said, “but if you’ve been out walking, they wouldn’t know where to find you.”

Stokes nodded. “But we’re here now—and you’re right. They
must
be doing more houses tonight.” He glanced around. “And most likely in this area.”

“Given the diversion was in Jermyn Streeet,” Barnaby said, “which beats in Mayfair are most likely to be currently deserted?”

Stokes saw his point. He waved to the south. “If we take Piccadilly as the southern boundary, then all the way to the Circus, then up Regent Street”—he pointed to the east—“up as far as Conduit Street. From there, across Bond Street to Bruton Street, along the top of Berkeley Square…and as your rooms are at this end of Jermyn Street, then they’ve probably come running from as far north as Hill Street, and probably”—he turned to look back along Curzon Street—“from all the areas out to Park Lane.”

“So we’re standing more or less in the middle of the deserted patch?” Penelope asked.

Jaw firming, Stokes nodded. “Depending on where in the beat they were, but I haven’t seen any constables since we headed this way.”

“We haven’t seen any, either,” Barnaby said, looking around, “but then we started from where they’ve all gone.”

Stokes swore beneath his breath. “Let’s divide the area and split up.”

He and Barnaby put their heads together and sorted out routes. Stokes nodded. “We’ll meet up again on the south side of Berkeley Square, unless either of us sights the beggars. You’ve got your whistle?”

Penelope patted her pocket. “I have it.”

Barnaby retook her hand. He nodded a farewell to Griselda, then met Stokes’s eyes. “If either of us see a bobby, or even a hackney, we should send word to the Yard and get them to send more men this way.”

Stokes saluted and reached for Griselda’s arm.

Barnaby and Penelope turned to head east along Curzon Street. Before they’d taken even one step a shrill shriek cut through the night and froze them.

Stokes was immediately beside them, searching the night. “Where?”

None of them was sure.

Then a second shriek split the silence. Penelope pointed ahead, to the left. “There! Half Moon Street.”

Picking up her skirts, she ran. In a few strides, Barnaby and Stokes had outstripped her; Griselda appeared at her shoulder.