best to catch his breath. How did servants loaded down with trays and whatever navigate such steep, narrow stairs? He’d damn near tumbled a few times, which would have thrown him into Dany, so that they would have ended in an inglorious heap on the next landing.
“How do you know? And put me down, for pity’s sake.”
“Only if you promise not to bolt.”
“I’m not a horse. And you’re crushing my ribs.”
Coop compromised. He turned about so that his back was against the door, and only then let her go.
She turned and looked at him, looked at the hat on his head. “You...you took time to retrieve your hat?”
“As I’ll be leaving now, yes. Are you ready to check out the knothole?”
“But...but why aren’t we chasing the hackney? I know we couldn’t catch it, so don’t look at me as if I’ve got two heads. But we may have been able to at least see the driver. Then we could go searching for him tomorrow.”
“Yes, out of the several hundred hackneys in London, that should be an easy enough job.” He held up the lit lantern he’d earlier requested Timmerly leave in the narrow hallway, opened the door and motioned for her to precede him. “I whistled twice, if you’ll recall. That was to warn Rigby our target was heading his way. We might have had some slim chance if the hackney had come in the opposite end of the alleyway and was headed toward Darby, but Rigby has had too many good meals to hold his own in a footrace. Catching up with a hackney is definitely outside the realm of his capabilities. We can only hope he was able to catch a look at its occupant. Yes, and its driver.”
“You don’t have to sound so smug.”
“Reasonable, not smug,” he said as they approached the large tree.
“You let me think we’d be able to chase him.”
“Hence the riding habit. Now I understand. Do you mind if I rethink your possible contribution to our small adventure?”
The lantern cast enough light for him to see the look of disgust on her face.
“The riding habit was easier for me to—oh, all right, yes. I chose it on purpose, but only as my second choice. Not to chase him if he showed up. I mean, not precisely. I made the first choice for its buttons. And we would have chased only if the opportunity should present itself. Mostly, I wanted to make certain I was dressed to accompany you when we retrieved any note he may put in the tree—and yes, I promise to stop babbling now, because I know I’m babbling. Go on, reach up and get it.”
“Yes, my queen,” he said, and then stopped, arm half raised to do as she’d commanded. “No. You get it. You put your sister’s note into the knothole, correct?”
“If you insist. But move aside. Mari’s tall enough to reach it, but I have to step on that old broken mounting step behind you, and then hold on to the branch and— Oh. Oh.”
Coop retrieved the folded scrap of paper. “Yes, oh. Do we have a hired lad in the hackney? A less than tall blackmailer? Or do we have a...”
“Woman! The blackmailer could be a woman? Mari may have been pouring her heart out to another female? No wonder how she could have found all the right, soppy things to say to make Mari think she had finally found someone who understood her anguish.”
“Some women have sympathetic, understanding sisters to confide in,” Coop couldn’t help but say as he tucked the note into his waistcoat pocket and moved Dany along, back toward the side door.
“I’d be insulted if Mari hadn’t begun her illicit correspondence before I arrived in town, and if I were silly enough to applaud her for doing anything so harebrained. She doesn’t need sympathy. She needs her letters retrieved before Oliver gets home. I’m being leagues more helpful to her than some sweet ninny who does nothing but pat her shoulder and say, ‘There, there.’ Of course, that also means we’ve ended up with you. So far, sad to say, that hasn’t seemed to have helped much.”
“Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, although at least you’re rid of the garnets. Let’s step inside and see what our mutual tormentor has to say for himself, or herself.”
“But what about the viscount and your other friend? Don’t you want to hear what they have to say?”
“They’ll be waiting for me at the Pulteney, hopefully with a glass and a bottle, and my mother safely snoring in her bed. Do you want me to read this or not?”
She jammed her fists against her hips. It was possible she was running out of patience with him. Strangely, he found that very attractive in her. She was the only female he’d met since Quatre Bras who didn’t all but drool over him.
“No, I want you to fold it into a paper bird, and then launch it out toward the mews.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” he told her, putting the lantern on the table beside the door. “But I’ll read it, anyway.” He unfolded the note, biting back a sudden curse. “Since it appears to be directed to me.”
“It is? Not Mari? Oh, God. That’s not good, is it?” Dany grabbed at his wrist, pulling down his arm so that she could see the note, read it along with him.
Naughty, naughty, my lord Townsend, meddling in business that does not concern you, although I will say taking yourself off the marriage market was inspired, if your choice a decidedly odd duckling. Thanks to me, beating the drum of your undeserved popularity, you could have held out for an heiress. In any case, my congratulations; your mama appears well pleased, and it will leave you more time to contemplate the consequences of your rash actions. Because, you see, a price must be paid. Please inform the countess that my kind offer is rescinded. The earl will receive the letters upon his return. Oh, and your price just went up by a thousand pounds. After all, I must recoup my losses caused by your interference. Ten days until a copy of Volume Three is delivered to the Prince Regent. Less, if you get in my way again. You can begin counting now... I’ll be in touch.
“He’s not going to let her pay to get them back? I can’t tell her that. What are we going to do?”
Coop looked at his brand-new fiancée. Her indigo-blue eyes were awash in tears.
He took her hands, her suddenly ice-cold and faintly trembling hands. “We’ll find him, that’s what we’ll do,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster. “Or her. Are you up to a trip to Bond Street at eleven tomorrow morning? I fancy buying you a betrothal present.”
“You want to go shopping? What good is that going to— Oh, wait. I forgot. Mrs. Yo—”
He clapped a hand over her mouth and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Nothing. Not another word. Not to your sister, not to your maid, not to anyone. And for God’s sake, if you keep a diary, don’t write in it about any of this.”
She pushed his hand away. “How did you know I keep a diary?”
At last, he smiled. “A fortuitous guess? Now wait until I’m outside, throw the latch and get yourself upstairs. I’ve got to go meet my friends, hoping at least one of them saw something that might help us.”
“I wish I could go with you.”
It would take a stronger man than he to look into those eyes, see the pain and worry and not respond.
“I know. But everything will work out. I promise.”
She nodded. “I think I’ll hold you to that. My hero.”
And then she went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, the same one she had repeatedly slapped with her gloves that afternoon.
“I thought you said I didn’t seem very much like a hero.”
“I know. But now you rather have to be, don’t you?” she said before pushing him through the doorway.
He stood outside, waiting until the sound of her footsteps on