Chapter 13
Madame Beaumont’s did not look at all like a house of ill repute. It was an ordinary grey house with white windows and a pale green door framed by two white colonnades.
Pen stood in front of the door for several minutes, shifting from one foot to another. She lifted her hand to knock, then dropped it again. Taking a deep breath, she tried to summon up all her courage. This wasn’t easy. She swallowed and raised her hand once.
Someone grabbed her arm from behind with an iron grip and pulled her back.
“So this is what you’re up to when I’m not looking,” a voice hissed into her ear.
“Let me go!” She kicked him in his shins.
“Dash it, Pen, was that necessary?” Alworth rubbed his knee with his free hand.
“Why are you following me?” She scowled at him to cover her relief that he was here.
“I noticed that instead of going to your home, the carriage took a different turn, and so I decided to follow you.”
She writhed in his grasp. “Stop following me.”
“This is what you’ve been planning all along, haven’t you? I can’t let you for a minute out of my sight.” A muscle flicked angrily at his jaw.
“This is none of your business. Let go!”
Alworth seemed to battle with himself. Then he released his grip on her. “Very well. We will proceed as follows. I will go inside and ask for the Duke of Rochford. You will wait outside.”
Pen rubbed her arm. “No. You will wait outside, and I will go in. I am, after all, the one who has to recognise him, not you.”
“By Jupiter, Pen, I have better things to do than stand outside in front of a bloody bawdy house and argue with you.” His mouth was tight and grim. “You will not set a foot inside the house and that is final.”
She poked her finger into his waistcoat. “You’re neither my father nor my guardian! You don’t decide what I do.”
“No, thankfully I am not. But on my honour as a gentleman, I cannot let you set foot in this house. You know very well why. Do not challenge me in this matter, or we shall call this charade of yours over, once and for all.” His voice had turned deadly cold, his eyes slits of steel.
Pen shivered. Who would’ve known that Alworth turned frightfully intimidating when angry?
“They will eat you like trifle for dessert,” he added more mildly. “Then I have to go anyway to rescue you. I don’t relish that thought.”
Pen struggled with herself. Her reasonable half knew he was right. She had no business being here. But her stubborn self wouldn’t give in so easily.
“Penelope Reid.”
She gasped. Her eyes shot up to meet his. A fire burned in his depths.
“Would you consider me your friend?” There was something in his face, as though her answer mattered to him.
“I trust my friends with my life,” Pen hedged.
“In other words, no.” Alworth sighed. “What, ye gods, would it take to get accepted into the Almighty Pen’s circle of friendship and trust?” He tapped his stick on the ground. “For it comes down to that, whelp. You will simply have to trust me. I will go in there and ask for your duke’s whereabouts.”
“And then?”
“If he is indeed there, I will do my utmost to persuade him—” he pulled a grimace as if the thought was distasteful to him, “to leave his pastime and come outside. So you can identify him. It will be a bit of work. Not to say, the Abbess might disapprove.”
“In which case it might simply be easier for me to go in to begin with—” Pen started anew.
“The matter is settled.” Alworth pushed Pen aside and knocked on the door.
It opened on the second knock, and a maid with a peaked face looked out. She assessed them with one glance. “Come in, sirs.”
