“Dark cloak pulled over her head almost covering half her face. Constantly looking about her to see if anyone was watching. Also, she didn’t call for her carriage but slipped out alone and then walked until she could hail a hackney. A lady of her rank—if you’ll forgive me for saying—shouldn’t be out alone and definitely not in a hackney.”
I’m going to roar at her for an hour until she has a good grasp on not walking into a dangerous situation.
“I thought about following her, my lord, out of concern, but thought you would want to know with some expediency what she was about,” the man said in a calm manner that Jamie was sure settled his clients. It did not settle him one bit.
“What address did she give the driver?” The words came out cold and hard.
“Well Yard, off Marylebone Lane, St Marylebone,” Mr. Jonas said.
Not the worst street in London, Jamie thought, but still, she should not be out alone.Where was her hulking footman?
“Many thanks for this information, Mr. Jonas.” Pulling some notes out of his inside pocket, he handed them to the man.
“Do you wish me to call your carriage, my lord?”
“No thank you, Radley, I shall take a hackney,” Jamie said, already heading up the stairs.
Once he was dressed and armed with weapons and more money, Jamie headed out the door and hoped he reached Alice before more trouble befell her.
He ran to the end of the street and then down the next to a busier road and hailed a hackney. After giving the driver the address, he climbed inside.
Hands fisted on his knees with his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth, he ran through several different scenarios that could be happening to Alice. None of them made him any calmer. He had always prided himself on being a man of order and restraint, but Alice had reduced him to a raging fool who had hired a man to spy on her. Now he was rolling through London to chase after her.
Opening the hatch above his head, Jamie said, “I will pay you double if you pick up your pace, sir. It is of the utmost importance I reach my destination with expediency.”
“Right you are!” the man replied.
Seconds later, Jamie felt the vehicle increase its speed.
“You’d better be safe when I reach you, Alice,” he muttered.
The hackney jolted to a halt long minutes later. Jamie stepped down and paid the driver. He then took a deep breath of damp air. Marylebone was not the rookeries, but neither was it Mayfair. Shadows pooled in the narrow lanes, and the smell of coal smoke was thick.
Jamie reassured himself of the weight of his pistol before moving silently down Well Yard. A little cul-de-sac, hemmed in by crooked brick houses that leaned toward one another, it had no light except what the moon offered, or lights from the small windows of the buildings flanking it.
A burst of noise came from an open door as Jamie passed it.Where are you, Alice, and why are you here?
Well Yard, off Marylebone Lane, was a narrow, ill-lit close. A thin ribbon of fog crawling low on the ground curled around Jamie’s boots as he walked.
Three tall buildings, with little ones wedged between, lay ahead of him. Number22 stood at the far end, the last on the right, its brickwork dark with soot. A narrow iron external staircase ran up one side. Jamie slowed as he approached and turned up the collar of his coat against the wind.
He then made himself walk the length of the lane once more, boots silent on the stone, to see if he could locate Alice. He turned into the shadows behind the buildings, checking the narrow passage that ran between Number22 and its neighbor. His eyes strained against the gloom as he searched for movement, or the familiar outline of a woman he could not forget. Alice.
There was no sign of her.
Returning to the front, he took the staircase up.
At the first landing, Jamie paused. The numbers on the doors lining the corridor were faintly visible where the moonlight pooled. Seventeen. The next, nineteen. Too low. He’d have to go higher.
He stepped back toward the railing and tilted his head. The upper floors loomed above, the staircase zigzagging into darkness. A flicker of movement caught his eye at the next level. Someone was looking down at him.
For one suspended moment, he could make out the faintest silhouette. A woman, maybe? Before he could call out, they vanished, the figure swallowed by shadow. Then came the sound of running feet. Light, and quick.
“Alice?” His voice came rougher than he intended.
No answer.
Jamie took the stairs up two at a time. The iron rattled beneath him and the cold air burned his lungs. At the secondfloor, the first door bore the number20. He strode along the corridor—21, 22—and kept going to the end where another set of stairs descended at the back.
