Eleanor’s gaze tightened. “He keeps his right hand in his coat,” she murmured.
“Good,” Graham said softly. “Keep talking.”
Two more men appeared in the doorway.
Plain coats. Polished boots. Both carried themselves with unnerving confidence. They spoke briefly to the proprietor, then moved with purpose toward Mercer’s table.
Eleanor’s fingers tightened on her pencil until the wood protested as the men bore down on Mercer.
Graham’s voice was barely a breath. “Stay.”
He rose and crossed the room before the men could put a hand on Mercer. He did not shove. He did not shout. He simply stepped into the narrow space between them and the clerk and looked at the nearest man as if he were a lesser nuisance.
“Is there a reason you are bothering my cousin?” Graham asked mildly.
The man’s eyes flicked, quick and assessing, to Graham’s face, then away again.
“We have orders,” the man said.
“From whom?” Graham asked.
The second man produced a folded paper—warrant-shaped, official-looking. The seal was wrong. Too new. Too crisp.
Eleanor saw it at the same instant.
A tiny blue mark at the corner of the page. A forget-me-not no larger than a fingernail.
Her stomach dropped.
Graham’s attention did not change, but his voice cooled. “That is not a Crown seal.”
The men exchanged a glance, and Mercer’s cup rattled against its saucer.
Graham’s smile was pleasant and empty. “If you wish to remove him, you may try. But you’ll do it over my dead body, and you will explain that inconvenience to the man who sent you.”
The first man’s jaw flexed.
The older gentleman with the folio shifted nearer.
Eleanor’s mind raced. There were too many moving parts, too many eyes. A fight here would be loud. Draw to much attention. And what of Collin’s orders? Do not intervene. But how could they not?
She rose.
Graham’s gaze snapped to her full of warning.
Eleanor ignored it and moved toward a group of tables. She leaned toward one as if to steady herself. Instead, she tipped a tray. Cups crashed. Coffee fountained. The room erupted as Men leapt up, swore, and shoved. A chair scraped. A voice rose in outrage. A fist lifted—not to strike, but to punctuate indignation.
Eleanor murmured apologies so profuse they sounded sincere, and that was the point for it drew every gaze that mattered.
Graham seized the moment.
“Move,” he said to Mercer.
Mercer hesitated.
Graham grabbed his sleeve and hauled him toward the rear.
The false runners lunged after them, but the crowd had become a sea of coats and elbows and righteous annoyance. By the time the men shoved their way through, Graham had led Mercer into the alley behind the coffeehouse, Eleanor at his heels.
