She grabbed her errant hat off the seat and followed, eager to once again grasp his hand as she descended.
Outside, however, that plan changed. She barely noticed his grasp. All she could do was gawk at the magnificent town house they’d parked in front of. The white stone walls shone fresh as if they’d been recently scrubbed of coal dust, as did the ornate cornices and mouldings up near the roofline. Lavish draperies peeked out at the edges of the many windows, and standing at attention on each side of the front door, tall columns reached to the heavens. It was a grand home, surprisingly more pretentiousthan Price House, as if it were a darling child who knew her ringlets and cherub cheeks inspired a second look. The renovators had done a brilliant job.
“What a beautiful house,” Ami breathed.
“I am sure Miss Woolsey will love to hear you say so.” Edmund guided her toward the front door with a touch to the small of her back.
Ami cocked her head. “Miss Woolsey?”
“Indeed.” He rang the bell, then glanced at her. “The renovations on my town house are not yet finished, so we are staying at the viscount’s.”
Leaning heavily on his cane, Brudge wheeled about, a curse launching off his tongue. Just as Scupper had said, there she was. The wily little Shadow Broker. The swirl of her plaid skirt and flash of her flowery jacket disappeared into the crowd. Scowling, Brudge pressed light fingers to his swollen eye, where a headache now throbbed beneath. Blasted woman. He had her to thank for this aching blinker. Her and Wormwell. If he’d been able to wrest that little statue from her, he wouldn’t have had to go to Wormwell begging for an extension of time.
And he wouldn’t have had to bear the knuckles of Wormwell’s henchman.
Scupper shoved his way closer to him. “Well now, guv’ner, we goin’ after the woman or the statue?”
“Shut up! Let me think.” Planting both hands on the cane’s head, he anchored the thing front and center, a rock in the stream of station patrons. As people flowed around him, he debated what to do.
Yesterday’s meeting with Wormwell had not gone as he’d hoped. The codger wouldn’t budge a tittle on extending the deadline to pay back his debt—which only gave him until midnight tomorrow night. Worse, though he had yet to actually lay eyes on Wormwell’s face, he had caught a glimpse of his own boy, Neddie. The young man was all knobs and sticks beneathhis shirt and trousers, as if he’d not been fed a thing for days. A fresh hump disfigured his nose from a right hook. And when Brudge had complained to Wormwell about the treatment of his son, he’d taken a walloping himself.
No, it hadn’t gone at all as he’d hoped. He never should have entangled himself with such an infamous antiquities runner. Though Wormwell was the most well-known buyer and seller of questionably acquired relics, he was also the most dangerous.
He glanced at the train ticket poking out of his coat pocket. Should he risk wasting time on a trip to Oxford knowing that the woman was here in London? She might very well have brought that golden trinket along with her, intending to sell the piece to a more lucrative market. Butheneeded that little statue!
And he needed it now.
“Come on, Scupper.” Using his cane to knock travelers out of the way, he ignored the complaints and hastened to the door. And just in time too. The flash of a plaid skirt followed by a dark-suited man hiked into a cab.
He waved his arm, hailing a coach. “Cabbie! Over here.”
The nearest black hackney rolled on by, the driver oblivious to his call.
“Hang it all!” He pounded his cane against the cobbles as the woman’s coach lurched into motion.
An ear-breaking whistle ripped out behind him, Scupper’s baritone voice tailing the obnoxious sound. “Oy! Cabbie!”
Sure enough, the next hack pulled over to the kerb. Irritation burned up Brudge’s neck. Leave it to the long-limbed brute to get noticed.
“Follow that cab that’s just turning the corner now,” he shouted to the driver as he hoisted himself up. Pain shot through his leg as he landed on the bench seat, and even more so when Scupper banged into it as he folded his big body inside the coach.
The cab jerked into motion, and he bounced against the wall, adding further insult to his injury. “Blast it!” he howled. Would to God the festering gun wound would just heal already.
Across from him, Scupper ran his thumb and forefinger along his moustache, twirling it up at the ends. “So what we gonna do, guv’ner?”
“We’ll find where that scrappy little Shadow Broker is staying and see if she’s got that statue for us.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
He dropped his head against the wall, staring up at the stained fabric of the ceiling as he thought. If she didn’t have that relic to steal, then he ought to just steal her out of vengeance.
Now, there was a thought!
Obviously she was a favorite of the rich fellow, and he just might pay a pretty penny to get her back, enough pennies, in fact, for him to get Wormwell off his neck.
He straightened. It would take some doing to get a forger to match Dandrae’s handwriting, but in a town this size, he ought to be able to find someone to write her a note for a rendezvous she couldn’t refuse.
24
