The scream came from his left. Monty saw a woman looking to the second floor of the house before her. His heart sank as he saw a boy hanging out of a window.
“My son, he’ll fall!” she cried. “I can’t go up! I need to catch him!”
Monty ran to where she stood.
“I just left for a minute,” she said.
“Go inside and pull him back in. I will stand here in case he falls,” Monty said. “Hurry, go now.”
The woman ran.
“He’ll die if he falls,” a man said, coming to stand next to Monty.
Monty shrugged out of his jacket and threw it to the ground. He then moved closer to the house. It was near to the road, but there was a railing and a path on one side, and the road on the other.
“You stay outside, I’ll go in,” Monty said to the man.
“Right you are then,” the man said.
He ran through the gate and looked up. Monty watched as the boy’s fingers slipped seconds later, and he was falling. Plummeting toward them at speed, the little body wriggled. Monty adjusted his position and held out his arms.
“He’s coming to you!” the man called.
He caught the boy and staggered backward for several steps. There was a brief silence and then a scream from the mother, who was now looking down at Monty and her son.
Applause broke out behind him.
“He’s all right,” Monty managed to get out.
The boy wriggled, and he lowered him to the ground.
“Are you unhurt?”
Big blue eyes filled with tears looked up at him, and he nodded.
“You’re all right, lad,” Monty said gruffly.
“Teddy!” The woman burst back out the front door of the house.
“Your mother is going to be angry with you for a while now, Teddy. You take that, and then you never climb out that window again, all right?”
The little boy nodded. He then hugged Monty hard around the legs before releasing him. In seconds, he was in his mother’s arms.
He turned to the street again and saw they’d drawn a crowd.
“Well done. You saved him,” a woman said.
Monty pulled on his jacket and walked back to the street, hoping no one he knew had seen the incident. It was a faint hope at best.
“Good lord, did you see that? Lord Plunge saved that boy.”
The words came from Lady Cagney, one of a group of ladies who were notorious for gossip. Monty ignored her, pretending he’d not heard what she said, and walked away at speed. He needed to get to his town house before anyone else saw him doing anything unPlunge-like.
Finally, a hackney appeared, and he waved it down. Climbing inside, Monty thought that perhaps today he would simply not leave his house again. It was not even midday, and already he was exhausted.
First, Iris had brought him a note that was likely another clue to finding his parents’ killers. Then he’d kissed and held her. And now, he’d just saved a boy in front of one of society’s infamous gossips.
“Definitely not leaving the house again today,” he muttered.
