Her eyebrows drew together. “Left?”
“It’s as good a direction as any.”
At the end of the alley, Percy scanned up and down the street. Then he heard it: the thud of heavy footsteps. He glanced back and spotted the doorman limping toward them, murder in his eyes. One had to admire the man’s tenacity in the face of possible permanent injury.
The door of a parked carriage flew open, and a head popped out. “Bretagne!”
Hortense.
Already on the run, relief flooded Percy as he, once again, grabbed Izzy’s hand. He couldn’t have her getting ideas of flight. He needed her alive and talking.
Once they reached the hackney, Tilly gave a great leap and dove in, followed by Izzy who, when she reached the top step, tipped backward. Without a second thought, Percy gave her rather well-formed rump a shove, and in she gracelessly lurched. He shouted up to the driver, “Go, go, go,” before following suit and slamming the door shut behind them.
Inside, he claimed the leather bench beside Izzy—Hortense and Tilly seated opposite—as the hackney jolted into motion. He peered through the tiny window at his back and found the doorman slowing to a defeated stop. The man never had a chance. Percy turned and met Hortense’s eye.
Unfazed by the events of the last thirty seconds, she asked, “Were these two your winnings?”
“The night got away from me.” It wasn’t untrue.
Hortense gave a slow nod and kept her thoughts to herself. Tilly exercised no such restraint. “Oh, we weren’t won. Or were ye, Izzy? Zounds! It ain’t me ’oo knows what’s ’appenin’.”
Percy kept his gaze fixed on Hortense. She was waiting. “The night was a trap.”
“Of you?”
“No.”
Hortense lifted a single inquiring eyebrow.
“I don’t know who—” It hit him. He did know. But he wanted confirmation first. He turned to Izzy. “You said I was the wrong man.”
Her jaw clenched, and she attempted to wrest her arm free. When had he grabbed it again? “Can I release you?” he asked. Her mouth pressed into a stubborn line. “Hortense, the door.”
Hortense nodded and wrapped her hand around the latch. There would be no brash escape. Percy released Izzy’s wrist. As she rubbed it, he asked, “Who did Montfort tell you was therightman?”
Surprise flashed in her eyes. “You know Montfort?” The question emerged in a voice the contralto of smoke. A seductive voice, if one was in such a mood. “I was never given the right man’s name.”
“Then how did you come to pickme?”
“I was told to approach the man gambling at the hazard table at the exact place you occupied.”
“Were you given a description of the man?”
She shifted in discomfort. “Tall, dark, aristocratic.”
There.Just as he’d suspected. “The Earl of Pembroke.”
Hortense started in surprise. “You don’t mean—”
“Nick’s brother.”
“He’s the future Marquess of Clare.”
“If he doesn’t drink himself into an early grave,” Percy said slowly. A bigger picture began opening before him. “Pembroke is a future Member of Parliament.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Montfort isn’t out of the game.”
“And we thought he was simply padding his pockets with earnings from dens of iniquity.”
“This is about influence. Setting up a future marquess is political.”
