"Merci.Carry on."
The brunette winked and then said in the high, strident tones of a schoolmistress, "Now, my naughty Johnny, did you forget your homework again?"
Pleasured yelps rang behind them as the bawd took them to the back of the temple and through a curtain. Doors lined both sides of a hallway; Madame stopped at a closed door on the right. She placed her ear against the door and then knocked discreetly. When no answer was forthcoming, she frowned.
"Excusez-moi, messieurs," she said, fitting her key to the lock. "Wait here a moment. I shall return shortly."
As the bawd went inside, closing the door behind her, Stewart said in a low voice, "Wait my arse. I say we go in there an' take 'im now. We can buy the bawd's silence."
Gavin nodded. He readied to shoulder the door down—at that instant, a scream rang through the walls. With a quick glance at one another, he and Stewart knocked the door off its hinges. They rushed through an antechamber, into the back and there...
"'Oly Mother o' God," Stewart said.
Gavin had seen plenty of violence in his life; even so, the scene lurched his stomach. On her knees, the bawd clutched a pink wig, rocking beside the small figure lying on the floor. With shorn brown hair and open yet unseeing eyes, Miss Whippit resembled a pretty doll whose neck had been snapped in a childish temper. Behind her, spread-eagled upon a wooden rack, lay a more grotesque end, if death could be compared.
Robbie Lyon's throat had been sliced, ear to ear. His eyes bulged from their sockets in an expression of unholy fear. He'd likely watched as his life had gushed from him, bathing his wiry nude form and pooling onto the floor beneath. Flies had already begun to gather and feast; Gavin's gaze shot to the open window.
He and Stewart exchanged a grim look. Apparently, they had not been the only ones looking for Lyon. And someone had gotten to him first.
"There's going to be hell to pay," Stewart said softly.
"Aye." Gavin could feel the storm rising.
23
"Lord above,Miss Percy, is that any way to tidy up?"
Percy paused in the act of nudging a book beneath her bed with her foot. From across the chamber, Lisbett pinned her with a rheumy yet eagle-eyed gaze. 'Twas a look Percy knew well; after all, she'd grown up under the housekeeper's firm auspices—and Lisbett had been old even back then. Still spry and tough as a soup chicken, the good woman continued to rule the roost and keep the Fineses in line.
"Caught red-handed," Percy said with an affectionate grin.
She retrieved the offending object and went to shelve it in its proper place. 'Twas after supper, and Lady Tottenham was already abed. Lisbett had come up for a bit of a chat, but being the housekeeper, couldn't help but try to bring order to the chaos that was Percy's bedchamber.
"Away but a few weeks and the place goes to pot." Shaking her snowy head, Lisbett carried a basket of fripperies over to the armoire. "I'll have a word with Violet, I will—" She broke off as she stumbled. The bin thumped to the floor, scattering items everywhere.
"Are you alright, dear?" Percy rushed over to steady her. With a stab of worry, she felt the frailness of the bones beneath the black bombazine. As a girl, that shoulder had been invincible and a resting place for all hurts. "You mustn't over do. Sit down and have a rest."
"'Tis my dashed joints." The housekeeper gave a disgruntled sigh as Percy helped her into a chair. "Aging is a petty business, miss, and made tolerable only by its alternative."
"You're not allowed to grow old on me," Percy said lightly.
Lisbett snorted. "You aren't a girl any longer. Soon you'll be married to a fine lord with a home of your own. You'll have no need of old Lisbett and her managing ways."
An odd panic clutched Percy's heart. After all she'd experienced with Gavin, she knew she was no longer the girl she'd been even a few short weeks ago. Her life's course had altered: she was falling for a man more complicated than she'd ever imagined. Who answered every need in her—including some she hadn't even known existed—and who made her want to do the same for him.
Everything was changing; she both feared and anticipated what lay ahead. Could her family accept her choices? Would they support her decisions, whatever the consequences?
She crouched down next to the woman who'd taken care of her all her life. Who'd crooned Gaelic lullabies to put her to sleep and who'd seen her through many a scrape. "I'll always need you, Lisbett. And I shan't be married so soon as you think." With a tremulous smile, she said, "Not to a fine lord, at any rate."
"Is that the direction the wind blows now, my girl?" When Percy gave a small nod, Lisbett peered at her closely. "So in the time I was gone you threw over Lord What's-his-name?"
"I discovered Lord Portland and I were not suited." Percy cringed at the memory. "In fact, he was not at all the man I thought him to be."
"I could have told you that, missy, and spared you the trouble."
"But you never met the viscount," Percy said in surprise.
"Didn't need to. Know you, don't I, like the nose on my own face. You were chattering on like a girl with her head in the clouds,"—Lisbett patted her on the cheek with a wrinkled hand—"not a woman readying herself for marriage."
