It didn’t matter.
A kernel of truth in every lie.A rule all good charlatans practiced.
Jackson’s feet ate up the ground, carrying him across the street to the stable to retrieve his horse. A toss of a coin to the stableboy. He swung up into his saddle and spurred the beast into a quick canter in the direction of Roberts’s apartments.
He’d need the man’s sleuthing skills—and possible fists—if Jackson’s inquiry into the cousin’s recent movements turned up suspect.
If there was the slightest chance the new baronet’s designs on his cousin’s title had turned into actions, Jackson would ferret out the man’s guilt. And if the man himself had harmed Anna’s brother—and by extension, Anna herself—he’d see the bastard bleed.
Anna was lost.
She’d been combing the streets for hours, talking to every painted lady, street urchin, and wayward gentleman this side ofLondon. The streets may not have frightened her, but she knew the dangers of the alleys and rookeries this time of night. But as she’d gone on through the night—not a whisper of a man matching William’s description seen in the area—she’d gone farther and farther from the townhouse. She trudged on, her feet aching, a chill in her bones, and any hopes of discovering a new lead into William’s disappearance dwindling as the hours crept closer to dawn and the streets grew deserted.
Whatever man Jackson had following her clearly did not see a need to step in and give her directions. And there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d call out loud and ask.
Hence, lost.
Not,lostlost. She was still in Westminster, surely. A glance at the building to her right, the sign some kind of scissor and comb in rusted iron and nothing familiar. Another look down the deserted street, too far from the small circle of light from the lamp to make out.
Anna threw her hands up in frustration. “Lamppost signs, is that so much to ask?”
She glanced at the misused things and tilted her head at a mark, there, about halfway up the post. Some kind of red smudge. “Ha!” she laughed at the expense of no one but herself. The lamplighters couldn’t even be bothered to clean off the metal while lighting.
Anna started down the next street, and another, studying the buildings as she passed for anything that looked familiar.
Something did look familiar; that same barber sign from before.
Great!She was going around in circles.
Taking a moment to rest against the nearest post, she leaned her head back and sighed. She needed to carry a map in her reticule.
Opening her eyes, she made to step away and frowned at an identical red smudge on the lamppost. But she’d been on the other side of the street when she’d come around the first time.
She glanced at the mirroring post across the thoroughfare.
No smudge.
She frowned and retraced her steps back to the first post. Instinct had her moving to the next. Another smudge. And another.
She followed the sidewalk, checking lampposts along the way. Some were smudged. Some were not.
Across another street, around a corner and—
There. The milliner’s shop she and Elise had stopped at after the modiste before she’d left for the country.
She stopped in front of the window, hats and ribbons on display with everything from dyed silk to peacock feathers. She hazarded another glance down the way.
Yes, the townhome with the blue door.
Smudges on every lamppost on both sides of the street now, like a runway leading her... home.
A tug on the heart in her chest.
Only one stupid liar would think to do this.
Jackson had left her a trail.
Clues to find her way home.
