Raven inched closer. Spotting a papery flicker as the gentleman withdrew a packet of folded documents, the boy darted forward and snatched it from his grasp.
Snarling an oath, the gentleman grabbed Raven’s jacket, but as he fell to his knees, the boy twisted and kicked free. Scrambling to his feet, he skidded on the blood-slick stones, teetering off-balance for an instant, and then broke into a run.
Quick as a snake, the gentleman was up and after him. A lunge, and his fingers hooked in Raven’s collar.
“Oiy, oiy!”
His feet suddenly entangled in a dung-encrusted broom, the gentleman went sprawling. He was up in a flash, but Raven had already disappeared down one of the side streets.
“You miserable little piece of filth.” Spinning around, he lashed out a blow that caught Skinny flush on his bony shoulder.
“Oiy, oiy!” he howled. “I wuz jest tryin’ te help!”
Fixing the urchin with a venomous look, the gentleman cocked his fist to strike again.
“Here, here, sirrah!” A portly fellow dressed in a navy coat and biscuit-colored pantaloons stepped between them. “Shame on you. No man of honor should ever beat a helpless little child.”
The gentleman spat out another oath.
“Are you hurt, lad?” asked the portly fellow.
Skinny, tears rolling down his face, gave a theatrical wince.
Spotting two officers from Horse Guards striding from Whitehall, the portly fellow let out a sigh of relief. “Ah, here come the authorities ! We shall let them sort this all out, eh?”
But the pearly-white-gloved gentleman had already melted away into the crowd.
* * *
Wrexford left the dowager’s townhouse early, intent on arriving at White’s with time to spare. Sheffield hadn’t shown up, but as the earl’s note had explained about the foray to East India House and Alston’s murder, he suspected that his friend had chosen to stop first at Woodbridge’s residence to inform Lady Cordelia and her brother of the death blow to their plans.
For without the official documents showing Woodbridge as the owner of Argentum Trading Company, there was no chance of recovering the money held in the company’s bank account before the dastards withdrew it as a bill of exchange.
Copley, he admitted, had outmaneuvered them and now held the upper hand. Which begged the question of why he had asked for a meeting.
Unless it was to gloat.
A sense of profound failure shook him to the bone. For all his so-called reason and logic, he had done naught but chase after shadows, only to be left lost in the dark. His friends had looked to him for help.
And I let them down.
Wrexford quickened his steps, trying to shake off his self-loathing and concentrate on what bargaining chips he might have to play in the coming meeting.
“Wrex!”
The earl looked up and felt a spasm of fear on seeing Sheffield’s face.
His friend took his arm and drew him into the shade of a bookshop’s bowfront window. “There’s been an accident on Piccadilly Street.”
Raven.His heart leapt into his throat.
“A gentleman somehow stumbled into the path of an oncoming carriage and was crushed to death.” Sheffield’s voice dropped to an even lower pitch. “I couldn’t get close enough for a look, but word is, it’s Copley, though that may be mere crowd rumor.”
The earl spun around. “I had Raven following him. If anything. . .” No, he refused to contemplate the worst. “If anything has happened, the boy will fly back to Berkeley Square.”
CHAPTER 28
Lungs burning, pulse pounding, Wrexford raced up the front steps of his townhouse and flung the door open, Sheffield right on his heels. The sound of their boots echoed like gunfire as they crossed the entrance hall’s marble tiles and skidded into the main corridor.
