Leslie Lafoy (14 page)

He looked at her and then the wall, nodded crisply, silently placed the lamp in the same hand in which he carried his valise, and offered her his other. Belle took it without hesitation, grateful for the warmth and strength of it, and let him lead her down the narrow stone stairs.

Their progress was careful and slowed even more by the necessity of having to stop every few feet to clear cobwebs from their path. As Barrett released her hand for the third time to sweep aside a sticky curtain, she glanced past him and into the stairwell ahead. The lamplight was meager and bounced palely back from the next whitish, wispy wall that lay ahead of them.

“Apparently it’s been a while since you’ve used this way out,” she observed as he wiped his hand clean on his trouser leg.

He grinned over his shoulder at her. “You’re not afraid of spiders, are you?”

“Not overly,” she admitted, putting her hand back in the warmth of his. “But if a grasshopper comes out of the shadows at me, you could go through the rest of your life deaf.”

He chuckled, said, “I think grasshoppers may be the one problem we don’t have,” and led her on down the stairs.

Isabella went, letting him clear the way, thankful that she wasn’t having to negotiate the passageway on her own, and realizing that the edges of her fears had blunted the instant Barrett had stepped into the passageway with her. It was most odd. Especially given that she had no idea where they were going—other than seemingly down to the center of the earth. That she was blindly following him, trusting him implicitly …

She shook her head, surprised by how quickly and completely she’d taken apparent leave of her senses. Logically, she should have let him flee on his own. The authorities didn’t suspect her of any wrongdoing, and living as a fugitive would make finding the treasure all that more difficult. Evading Mignon’s killer qualified as a pressing concern, but she did have some experience at disappearing into the shadows. And she was a very good shot.

No, all things considered, she didn’t absolutely
need
Barrett Stanbridge. There was no denying, however, that her instincts were very clearly propelling her to follow in his wake. On his heels, actually, she amended as she brought herself up short to keep from stepping on them. She blinked and deliberately pushed her awareness beyond her thoughts and the broad expanse of Barrett’s back. And blinked again, stunned to realize that she hadn’t been aware of the distance they’d covered while her thoughts had been elsewhere. Chastising herself for inattentiveness, reminding herself of the danger in doing so, she watched as Barrett cleared the cobwebs from the doorway, ducked under the header, then took all of two steps to place his valise on the bare mattress and the lamp on the small side table. She went after him, noting that, like the space on the back side of the bookcase, the room was tiny and damp.

“Are you frozen yet?” Barrett asked as she dropped her belongings beside his on the bed.

“I’m a bit chilled, but I’ll live,” she supplied, thinking that England had to be the coldest, most miserably damp country on the face of the earth. March, and it was like the inside of an icebox. At home the tulips, jonquils, and daffodils were up and blooming, the wisteria and bougainvillea were wildly leafing, and the cherry trees were budding. God, when she got back there she was never again going to—

“I’m going back up to get our coats,” Barrett said, interrupting her silent diatribe.

“Mine is right beside the front door,” she explained, shaking her head. “You can’t retrieve it without the risk of being seen. Given that, I can certainly live without it.”

“Not comfortably,” he countered, extracting a wad of folded money from his pocket and tossing it down beside the lamp. “I intend to come right back down. But if I don’t, take the lamp, go out the other door, and follow the pathway up and out. You’ll emerge on the back side of the carriage house. Go several blocks in any direction before you hail a cab. Have him take you to the Blue Elephant store in Bloomsbury. Tell Aiden and Alex what’s happened. Alex will take you in and Aiden will handle everything else.” Without waiting for her assent, he turned to leave, adding, “I’ll see you again by nightfall at the latest.”

“It won’t be necessary,” she firmly rejoined. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Optimist,” he laughingly charged as he disappeared into the blackness of the stairwell.

Alone, deep in the ground beneath the house, Isabella shuddered, turned up the wick on the lamp, and reminded herself that she’d been alone before, that she was perfectly capable of making her own way. There was absolutely no reason for the butterflies swirling around in her stomach. She didn’t need Barrett. She didn’t need him the least little bit.

*   *   *

It was hard to judge the passage of time without either a clock or natural light, but Isabella suspected that a man could be reasonably expected to retrieve two coats in the time it took for a woman to pace a tiny room twenty-five times. Staring up at the rafters, she strained to hear noises from above, not at all certain how long she should wait. She’d forgotten to ask and Barrett hadn’t said. Next time, she’d be clearer on the expectations. If there was a next time, she morosely reminded herself.

What if the police had burst into the house, surprised them, and arrested him? Would she have heard the commotion? What if he’d tried to escape and they’d shot him? Would she have heard the gunshot? Barrett could be seriously injured or even—God forbid!—dead. Damn Mignon for having placed him in danger. Of all the men her cousin could have picked at the theater, she’d chosen what had to be the most decent one of the bunch, the one who least deserved to have hell visited upon him.

Deciding that pacing and worrying weren’t accomplishing anything, Belle made her way to the door of the escape passage. It opened on creaking hinges and she flung it wide to make quick work of the task and the telltale noise. The light from the lamp beside the bed illuminated only the first foot or two, but it was enough for her to see that it was nothing more than a smallish, roughly chiseled tunnel. The air rolling over her was cool and damp, but delightfully fresh.

Even as she looked back over her shoulder, wondering how much longer she should wait, she heard the footsteps on the stairs. A single set, moving quickly and surely. Barrett, she knew, her knees trembling as the tension flooded out of her.

She met him at the base, saying as he ducked inside, “See? I told you it would be all right.”

“But you didn’t really believe it,” he countered, smiling broadly. “You look like you could melt with relief.”

“Only because I was dreading the thought of striking up conversations with strangers. I’ve never been very good at it,” she offered quickly, trying to salvage what she could of her bravado as she followed him to the bedside table.

“You’re not very good at lying, either,” he observed, chuckling, separating the coats. His own he tossed onto the bed beside their bags. Hers he righted and held out so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves.

“How did you manage this without being seen?” she asked as he settled the light woolen garment over her shoulders.

Leaning around her to retrieve his valise, he supplied obliquely, “A little diversion.”

“Involving?”

“An oil lamp,” he supplied, setting his bag on the desk, “an open window, and the perfect pitch into a small, old woodpile in the side yard.”

“Subtle, but effective.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” he teased, removing a small, portable writing set from his valise. He placed it on the table, flipped it open, and immediately uncapped the ink, saying, “Now that we don’t have an immediate crisis, you can avoid throwing yourself on the mercy of strangers.”

“Oh?”

“Eventually, Larson is going to pound on Aiden’s and Carden’s doors looking for me,” he explained, scribbling. “And I won’t put them and their families in the position of actively hiding us.”

“There’s my room at the boardinghouse. The rent’s paid through the end of the week. We can go there,” she offered, knowing even as she did that he’d turn it down.

“It’s too public.” He sanded the paper and then carefully poured it back into the pot as he continued, saying, “Carden bought an older town house a few weeks ago. His idea is to refurbish it for the day when his eldest niece marries and needs her own home. At the moment, it’s unoccupied. As a rat hole for us, it will do perfectly. No one will think to look for us there. And no one will think it the least odd if Carden and Aiden are seen coming and going.”

“And you’re sending them a note to let them know that’s where we’re going?”

Barrett nodded and waited for the next question.

“What if the constables intercept it?”

What a wonderful mind inside that lovely body, he silently observed. “Even if they do, it won’t mean anything to them,” he assured her. Placing the paper on the table, he used the edge to tear off the lower third of it. Straightening, folding both the larger and smaller pieces into neat squares, he smiled at her. “I’ll explain the rest of the plan once we’re in the cab and on our way to the train station. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” she replied crisply, hefting her valise as he slipped the papers into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

He pulled on his greatcoat, took up his own bag and the lamp, noting that she’d turned up the wick in his absence. It was an unexpected thing for her to do, he mused, moving toward the open door. She’d understandably started when he’d so suddenly awakened her, but she hadn’t squealed when he’d told her of the threat on the front steps. And she hadn’t dithered a single second when he’d laid down instructions. Not in her room, not when he’d left her alone in the room now behind them. And the way she’d moved to close the bookcase behind them to keep the odors from invading the study and giving them away …

The revolver under her pillow had puzzled him at first, but the soundness of her sleep had told him that it wasn’t there out of fear. No, Isabella Dandaneau wasn’t the sort of woman to be afraid of shadows or of being alone in them. And being armed had little to do with it. Exactly how she’d come by such stalwart traits intrigued him. As did the reasons they’d faltered in his absence.

Reaching the last, flat part of the tunnel, Barrett set aside his musings and blew out the lamp. Through the iron grate some three feet ahead and above them, a column of light, pale and gray, passed straight down and through the floor grate that let the rain and snow melt flow into the sewer. God help them, he silently growled, if one of the constables was wandering along the alley, wondering if the drainage line led to somewhere other than the Thames. After placing the lamp on the narrow ledge carved in the dirt wall, he half turned to his companion and pointed to the opening and then to his ear.

It was only as she nodded in understanding that he realized he’d instinctively fallen into the habits of his military years. His pulse racing, Barrett pointed to himself, the ladder leading up to the grate, opened his hand and splayed his fingers, then pointed to her and the grate. Again she nodded. And then bent down and snagged the handle of his valise.

He turned and strode to the base of the iron ladder, his heart hammering. God, the resolute look in her eyes, the set of her delicate jaw … He knew to the center of his bones that she’d done this sort of thing before—the skulking about in faint light, the need for silent, deliberate, coordinated movement. The realization surprised him. He’d suspected from the beginning that she’d been a spy during the war, but he’d assumed that she’d expended her efforts in parlors and on ballroom floors. Clearly, he’d presumed incorrectly. What, precisely, she’d done in the name of her country was one of the most intriguing puzzles he’d ever encountered. If the need to escape weren’t so pressing …

Climbing up the ladder, he glanced down to note that she’d stayed well enough back to allow him to drop and scramble out of sight. Oh, yes, she knew what she was doing. Which was more than could be said for him, he silently grumbled. If he didn’t stop marveling at her and put his attention where it needed to be, all of her skills would be for naught. Expelling a long, hard, steadying breath, Barrett willed her out of his immediate awareness and focused on the world beyond the grate above his head.

A faint whiff of wood smoke. And voices in the direction from which it was drifting. There was only silence in the alleyway before him and off in either direction. Again he listened to the sounds at the side of his house. Deciding that the constables weren’t moving much beyond the confines of where he’d wanted them, he placed his shoulders flat against the grate and quickly shoved himself, and it, upward. The grating gave with a tiny cascade of dirt and gravel and rotting leaves, but no great betraying sound.

Lifting it off his shoulders, Barrett laid it aside even as he quickly surveyed the alley. It was empty and silent and still and the shadows were deepest on the west side of the town house directly across the service way. Placing his hands on either side of the opening, he pulled himself up and out, then turned to squat and peer back down. Isabella stood on the lower grating, his valise sitting on the palms of her hands. She arched her head to the side in silent question and he nodded in reply. A second later, his bag came sailing upward. He caught it neatly by the handle, set it beside him, then turned back to catch hers just as expeditiously.

He’d barely set it aside when she started up the ladder. With a tight but appreciative smile, he scrambled to his feet, noting with ungentlemanly openness that she’d hiked her hems to her waist and shoved her hoops to the back to keep them all from hampering her ascent. She was wearing boots. Tall ones. And damn, if they didn’t mold around a pair of nice legs. Long and lean and apparently quite accustomed to scurrying up ladders. No hesitant, one-rung-at-a-time approach to things for his Belle. Not at all.

He knew what she’d do the moment her head poked out of the opening and she didn’t disappoint him. In the time it took for him to lean down and offer her his hands, her gaze swept the alley and settled on the same shadows, the same path he’d chosen.