Tristan shrugged. “Asfar as I know.”
“I see, I see. Tell me, Gray, did you happen to get the youngwoman’s name?”
“Just her first name. Sophia. As you can imagine, she wasn’t particularly forthcoming.”
“No, I imagine she wasn’t. You’d recognize her if you saw her again, though? You remember her face?”
Green eyes flashed in Tristan’s mind. The better question was, would he be able to forget her? It was damn unlucky he’d thought her a boy at first. If he’d known she was a woman right away, it would have saved him that dramatic moment when her hair fell over her shoulders and he got his first glimpse of a face that now haunted his dreams. The suddenness of her appearance before him was, in a word, inconvenient.
But then a pretty face might hide a multitude of sins, and despite those wide green eyes, she was far from innocent. Innocent ladies didn’t scale townhouse facades. They didn’t slip through the bars of a wrought iron fence as if they were made of mist, and they didn’t navigate the streets and alleyways of London with the ease of a master moving pieces across a chessboard.
Tristan met Willis’s gaze. “Certainly. I’ll have her full name soon enough, as well.”
Willis eyed him. “Are you needed in Oxfordshire at once? Or is it possible for you to remain in London a while longer? It might be wise for us to keep a close eye on this young woman. Nip any mischief she might cause in the bud before Lady Clifford manages to set it all atilt, you understand.”
“I do. That’s why I’m here.” His mother would put up a fuss, but there was no way Tristan was going to scamper off to Oxfordshire and let Lady Clifford interfere with Jeremy Ives’s appointment with the scaffold.
He owed Henry that much. At least that much.
“You’re no longer a Bow Street Runner, but I daresay you haven’t forgotten how to chase a criminal down in the few weeks since you were. Keep an eye on the girl, that’s all, and report what you find back to me. Can youdo that, Gray?”
Tristan nodded, and rose to his feet. “Ofcourse I can.”
“Good. Go on, then, and make sure you report anything of interest to me at once. Oh, and send Poole in on your way out. He’s been lurking outside my door all morning.” Willis waved a hand in dismissal.
Richard Poole, another of Willis’s Bow Street Runners was slouched on a bench outside Willis’s office, tapping the tip of his walking stick impatiently against the heel of his boot and grumbling irritably to himself. Tristan paused beside him and nodded toward Willis’s door. “He’s waiting for you, Poole.”
“Right.” Poole shuffled to his feet and made his way toward Willis’s office, but before he went inside, he turned back to Tristan. “Shame what happened to Henry Gerrard, my lord. He was a good man.”
Tristan glanced at him in surprise. Poole hadn’t been a Bow Street Runner for long, and Tristan didn’t know him well, but Poole had known Henry, and they’d been friends, of a sort. Sometimes Tristan became so lost in his own grief, he forgot others were grieving, too. “I…that’s kind of you, Poole. Thank you.”
Poole nodded once, then went into Willis’s office and closed the door behind him.
Tristan left No. 4 and headed north toward Brownlow Street. He’d go see Abigail and the baby, see they didn’t want for anything, and then he’d find out everything there was to know about Sophia, the dark-haired, green-eyed ghost fromhis nightmare.
She wouldn’t haunt him for much longer.
For a few weeks more, he’d be a Bow Street Runner, and oncethat was done…
He’d retire to Oxfordshire, marry a lady whose face he couldn’t recall, and spend the rest of his life being Lord Gray.
Chapter Five
One week later
Old Bailey Courthouse, London
Sophia peeked out from under the brim of the monstrously ugly hat she wore and shuddered at the hideousness surrounding her. Everywhere she turned she saw clenched fists, bared teeth, and dozens of gaping mouths filthy with curses. The stench of unwashed bodies crowded into too small a space was so overwhelming she feared she’d swoon like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s fragile heroines.
Lady Clifford had warned her not to come to Jeremy’s trial today.
Perhaps I shouldhave listened.
Bloodthirsty spectators swarmed the Old Bailey’s gallery this morning. The good citizens of London enjoyed a gruesome hanging every now and again, and there wasn’t a single person here today who didn’t want to see Jeremy sentenced to swing. The crowd shoving at each other in the yard was no better. It looked as if half the city was out there, all of them panting to see the notorious murderer condemned to the noose.
No one seemed to care much what Jeremy might have to say in his own defense. He’d already been triedand sentenced.
Sophia dove back under her hat, her throat tightening with dread. Lady Clifford had tried to warn her it would be like this, but Sophia hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Jeremy facing such brutal hostility alone. He wouldn’t be able to see her, tucked into the back of the gallery as she was, but maybe he’d sense her presence, and would know he had at least one friend among the crowd.
