Still, since fate had doomed him to a lifetime of aristocratic idleness, he was obligated to do the thing properly. So, after weeks spent haunting his townhouse, Tristan had reluctantly agreed to accompany his friend Lord Lyndon to White’s tonight. He’d had vague notions of engaging in activities earls were meant to find amusing—drinking, wagering, that sort of thing—but Tristan hadn’t been amused.
He’d found it all utterly pointless. He’d left early, and was nearly home before it occurred to him White’s wasmeantto be pointless.
Pointlessness was, in fact, rather the point.
Given that the evening had been a spectacular failure, Tristan didn’t hold out much hope for any of the other gentlemanly pursuits London had to offer. Indeed, after tonight, he couldn’t think of a single reason to remain in the city at all.
Aside, perhaps, from the boy on LordEverly’s roof.
Tristan retrieved his port, sank down into his chair, and tipped his glass against his lips. A proper earl didn’t waste perfectly good port. The boy was bound to do something interesting sooner or later. Tristan was content to sip his port, and wait until he did.
And wait, andwait, and wait…
Time didn’t hesitate to take liberties with Tristan—the past few weeks had dragged on foryears—but never had the minutes crawled by as reluctantly as they did now. The shadows lengthened, the fire burned to embers, the long-case clock on the first-floor landing chimed the hours, and somewhere, an entire civilization roseand fell again.
And still,Tristan waited.
Surely it was unnatural for any boy to remain motionless for so long? But even when it started raining, the lad never twitched. He simply lay there, still as a corpse—
Tristan jerked to his feet, his empty glass tumbling to the floor. He peered down at the still figure, but it was too dark for him to tell if the boy’s chest was moving.
Was it possible hewasa corpse? How the devil would a corpse end up on Lord Everly’s roof? Then again, if a phantom thief could appear on a roof, mightn’t a phantom corpsedo so, as well?
No, no. That wouldn’t do. There were limits to what Tristan would tolerate in his delusions. A phantom thief was one thing, but a corpse quite another. That was one hallucination too far. And so, Tristan was left with a single, unavoidable conclusion.
There was a dead boy, lying on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment.
A dead boy on one’s neighbor’s roof wasn’t the sort of thing a gentleman could overlook, and that, Tristan would later reflect, was the cause of all the chaosthat followed.
If the situation had been even a trifle less alarming than a dead boy on a roof, he might not have ventured out at all. He might have remained in his library, helped himself to another glass of port, and gotten sotted, like a proper earl was meant to do.
As it was, chaos found him, and once she had him, she showed him no mercy. She seized him by the neck, sank her talons into his flesh, and hurled him headlong into a tumult without even the courtesy of asecond glance.
* * * *
If Sophia Monmouth had realized how easy it would be to scale the front of a London townhouse, she’d have left her footprints across every rooftop inMayfair by now.
A single leap, and she was balanced on the top edge of the wrought iron railing flanking the stone steps. A bit of a scramble and a discreet shimmy or two, and she was clinging to one of the columns on either side of the front door, her arms and legs wrapped around it, albeit in a most unladylike fashion. From there it had been easy enough to haul herself up and clamber over the edge of the pediment.
Unnecessary risk, Sophia.
Lady Clifford’s voice often found its way into Sophia’s head at times like these. If ignoring it caused her thetiniestpang of guilt, Sophia had nonetheless become accustomed to shrugging it off.
It wasn’t that Lady Clifford waswrong, exactly. Strictly speaking, Sophia hadn’thadto scale the front of Lord Everly’s townhouse. She could have hidden around a corner or behind a tree like an ordinary intruder, but she’d been curious to see if she could manage the thing. After all, a lady never knew when she’d be obliged to make use of some lord or other’s rooftop. It was a simple matter of knowing one’s capabilities.
Besides, where was the fun in being ordinary? She was here now, snug as you please, lying on her back on Lord Everly’s roof. Goodness, he had a great many windows, didn’t he? Six of them on the first floor alone, marching in a tidy row across the front of the townhouse. The symmetry was pleasing, but then aristocrats did like for things to be in theirproper places.
All things, not justtheir windows.
Curious, she nudged the toe of her boot into a tiny gap at the bottom edge of the window above her and pushed. It slid open, and an amused snort fell from her lips. Heavens, the nobility were foolish. It would be the easiest thing in the world for her to slip inside the house and pinch thefamily silver.
Truly, it was a pity she wasn’t a thief, because she would have been a tremendously good one. Most of the townhouses on Great Marlborough Street boasted wrought iron railings and columns on either side of the doors with lovely, wide pediments on top. No doubt the aristocratic owners were proud of their pediments, and considered all the cornices, columns, and canopies to be the height of elegance.
Ah, well. Pride was a wicked,detestable sin.
Really, what was a wrought iron railing but a footstool, a column, a makeshift ladder, and cornices and decorative arches footholds and finger grips? Rooftops all across Mayfair were now crooking their fingers at Sophia, daring her to attempt them. That was the glorious thing about London, wasn’t it? Just when one thought they knew her, she offered an entirely new landscape, ripe for exploration.
As for Lord Everly, his silver was safe enough from her. Fortunately for him, Sophia wasn’t here to steal. She wasn’t here for LordEverly at all.
