“For me,” Cordelia corrected. “You may share.”
Adeline made for the refreshment stall. The night had that odd London softness in it. The air was damp without rain, the ground sound underfoot, noise made gentle by distance. She kept to the edge of the walk, collected the lemonades and a small, iced bun, and turned back. An elbow brushed hers. A man in a laborer’s coat shouldered past, jostling her a tad; not hard enough to spill the drinks, but enough to make her step to the side. When she did, another figure separated from the hedgerow.
“Miss…Lady Adeline.”
Robert Grebe. He looked nearer to vagrant than clerk with lank hair, collar stained, and a bruise yellowing at the edge of his jaw. His smile had not improved with hardship. It had sharpened.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he said without greeting. “I’ve been generous.”
“I do not think appearing suddenly and accosting me at every turn are the actions of a generous man.”
“Lord Harston is in town,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder. “I know it. He’ll find you. When he does, I’ll be very useful to him. Unless you pay me for my silence.”
“I won’t give you a farthing,” she said, and was surprised by the calm in her voice. “Do what you like.”
“You don’t seem to understand your position,” he said, moving closer. The sourness of his breath made her stomach turn. “I can put a note in his hand before midnight. I can tell him where you sleep, what name you use, and with whom you share your house. The Duke will have you out in the street before morning and thank me for it.”
“You speak of what you do not understand,” she countered. “If you talk to Lord Harston, you won’t be paid. You’ll be used and thrown aside. That was always his way.”
He sneered. “I’m done with your family’s lectures. I want money. Now.”
“No.”
He reached for her wrist. She stepped back. The lemonade slopped, cold against her fingers. He moved again, quick and ugly, trying to pin her between the hedge and his body.
“Grebe,” she said very quietly, “if you don’t leave, I’ll make you sorry.”
That made him grin. “How? Cry for help? No one will believe a woman who…”
She thrust the tumblers into his chest. He grabbed for them by reflex. That gave her both hands freedom. She pushed hard at his shoulder and hip, used his surprise, and turned him with the force of it. He flailed for balance, failed to find it, and went backward in an awkward, sinking sprawl into the ornamental pond behind the hedge.
The splash was not dignified. It was a child’s splash magnified, wide and loud and satisfying. The lemonades went with him. He came up cursing, weeds in his hair, water streaming from his sleeves. Two attendants in blue coats were there almost at once, drawn by the noise.
“No riot,” one said briskly. “What’s this?”
“Pickpocket,” Adeline said, choosing the lie that would end this quickly. “He tried to catch hold of my reticule and lost his footing.”
The attendants took in Grebe’s state, Adeline’s calm, and made a decision any sensible man would make when a lady spoke plainly, and a wet man shouted.
“Out you go,” the other said, seizing Grebe by the collar. “Save the lungs for the street.”
Grebe spat pond water and fury. “You’ll regret…”
“You’ll be quiet,” the first attendant said, and he was. The two of them marched him toward the gate, Grebe stumbling and sliding, his boots leaving a thin trail.
Winston appeared on the walk as the little procession passed. “What’s happened?” he asked, looking at Adeline first, then scanning the crowd.
“A thief,” Adeline said, feeling the edge of her fear afterwards, not during. “Lurking in the bushes. He fell into the pond. The attendants are very efficient.” She led the way back to their table, where Louisa and Cordelia sat.
Winston’s gaze moved over her swiftly, cataloguing. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Only a little damp. And in need of fresh lemonade and another bun.”
Louisa tugged at Winston’s sleeve as he slunk slowly into his seat. “Papa, the man, he looked like…”
“Like every scoundrel in London when he’s wet,” Cordelia said from the bench, which she had not left and would not. She had seen nothing and knew it. She patted Louisa’s hand. “We shall not allow criminals to spoil the lemonade.”
Louisa looked back toward the gate. Her eyes narrowed with the suspicious memory of a child who notices faces better than adults. “I think I’ve seen him,” she said. “His chin is wrong.”
