Like Moses with the Red Sea, the crowd miraculously parted.
Lady Allegra wrapped her gloved hand around Ethan’s left elbow and all but dragged him across the street toward the Grecian facade of Gilbert House.
Voices rose around them as they passed,
“She does have gray eyes!”
“I could see her as a highway woman.”
“The Duke of Kendall’s sister? How scandalous. Wasn’t their mother Italian?”
Ethan and Lady Allegra had just reached the stoop with its run of six stairs when the mob’s forbearance broke.
“Wait!” a female voice shrieked. “We didn’t get a poem!”
Abruptly, hands grasped at Ethan’s coat, tugging on his right sleeve, pulling on his coattails.
Ethan swung his left arm forward, forcing Lady Allegra in front of him.
No slow-top, her ladyship raced up the stairs to the door, red skirts a poof of shimmering silk.
For his part, Ethan yanked his coattails free of the grasping hands and followed Lady Allegra through the front door of Gilbert House.
He slammed the door behind them, spinning the key in its lock for good measure.
Lady Allegra rested her back against the door, chest heaving.
Ethan joined her, slouching against the cool oak, trying to catch his breath.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their panting echoed off the gleaming marble of the impressive entry hall and mingled with the muted calls of the mob outside.
“That was . . .” Lady Allegra began, swallowing hard.
“Aye. No need . . . to expound. I ken . . . the feeling.”
“Are your excursions . . . about London . . . always like this?”
“Nae?”
Lady Allegra turned her head to peer up at him with those lovely gray eyes, her breathing still labored. “How is that . . . a question?”
Ethan swallowed, attempting to catch his breath. “I usually garner some attention . . . and admirers can be insistent, but this . . .” He waved a hand to indicate the rabble-rousers beyond the door at their backs. “This is another level altogether. That article three days past has all but trapped me at home.”
“I see.”
“I had nothing tae do with the informat—”
“I know.”
“Ye do? How?”
“Fabrizio.”
“Ah.” Ethan frowned. Sothatwas the source. “That man is a wee bit of a troublemaker.”
Lady Allegra snorted, an indelicate, guttural sound. Ethan smiled in delight.
“Says the man who is in desperate need of a bodyguard,” she shot back. “We should organize a Praetorian Guard for you.”
