No, she’d come for someone else, and now there was nothing to do but wait for her quarry to venture out the door. He might not do so tonight, but she’d happily come back for him tomorrow, and every night afterwards until he did.
Sophia hummed to herself, gazing up at the dark sky as she waited. After a short time, it began to drizzle. The fat raindrops struck the slate roof in varying notes, transforming what might otherwise have been a dreary evening into a symphony.
She lay still, listening to the rhythmic patter. She’d never minded the rain, but neither had she ever noticed how pleasant the sound of it was. Then again, she’d never been as close to it as she was now. It didn’t have the same pleasing resonance when it hit the pavement, but from up here it was like music, orclocks chiming.
The sky above Sophia deepened to an opaque midnight blue as the moments slipped past. The clouds that had been hanging over the city all day skidded this way and that, playing a game of hide and seek with the moon. Yes, she’d be spending more time on London’s rooftops, once this business was done.
Her heartbeat took up the soothing tempo of the rain, and it might have lulled her into a doze if the creak of a door opening below hadn’t roused her. Sophia kept her head down, but rolled over and slid on her belly to the edge of the pediment and peered over the side, taking care to keep out of sight. The street was thick with shadows, but the faint light from the entryway briefly illuminated the figure of a man before he slammed the door behind him.
Sophia’s lips curled into a smile.
He was a small, rat-like thing, stoop-shouldered and twitchy, easily distinguishable. A flaw, in Sophia’s opinion. Far better to blend, if onewas a criminal.
He had a pipe between his fingers, and he paused to suck on it before he ambled down the steps and turned left onto Great Marlborough Street, toward Regent Street. A thin stream of smoke trailed after him like a second shadow as he disappeared around the corner.
Sophia let him go. There was no need to rush after him. She’d never once lost her quarry, and she wouldn’t lose him now. She waited, still humming, until the sound of footsteps faded and a glance revealed nothing but the empty street below.
She threw her leg over the side of pediment and dangled there for a moment before her foot found the narrow edge at the top of the column. She steadied herself, then shimmied down in the same shocking manner as she’d gone up. She didn’t bother with the railing this time, but dropped lightly down onto the top step, and tugged her dark cap downover her face.
She’d been following this man for several weeks now, and knew far more about him than she ever cared to know about any man—which public houses he frequented, which Covent Garden prostitutes he preferred—allto no purpose.
But Sophia had been patient, knowing he’d return to the scene of his crime eventually.
They always did.
* * * *
The corpse had moved.
That is, the boy—he was very much alive, as it happened—was of an acrobatic turn. He’d rolled across the roof with the ease of a billiards ball across the baize, and now he hung over the edge of the pediment, his legs braced on the roof while his torso hung suspended in midair.
He might yet end up a corpse. An unexpected twitch of a muscle or a sudden breeze and he’d topple over the side like overripe fruit from a tree. Tristan might have put a stop to the business right then—thief or not, he didn’t care to see the boy plunge to his death—but before he could stir, Lord Everly’s door opened anda man emerged.
He closed the door behind him, snuffing out the faint light coming from the townhouse, but Tristan got enough of a glimpse of him to determine it wasn’t Everly. He was much smaller than his lordship, who was thick and squat, more spherical than otherwise. Tristan couldn’t see the man’s face, and given the number of people who went in and out of Everly’s townhouse on a given day, he didn’t bother to hazard a guess as to his identity.
The man paused to raise the pipe between his fingers to his lips, and then he was off down the street, his gait cocky. Too cocky, the fool. He hadn’t the least idea he wasbeing watched.
Tristan didn’t bother to note his direction. His gaze darted back to the boy, who’d turned his head to follow the man’s progress. He hadn’t moved, but Tristan sensed a sudden tension in that slight frame, the taut stillness of a predator in the seconds before it burstinto movement.
What were thieves, ifnot predators?
The familiar, restless energy Tristan had given up as lost was now rioting in his veins. A few minutes passed, then a few more, and then…quickly, but as cool as you please, the boy was on his feet and over the side of the pediment.
Tristan’s muscles tensed instinctively, as if preparing to catch the boy midfall, but he needn’t have worried. The lad made quick work of the column, scampering down like a monkey. In the next breath he’d dropped onto the street and was gliding after his prey, dark and silent as a shadow.
Not a phantom, then, and not a figment. Not a corpse, and not a thief. Oddly, it was this last that surprised Tristan the most, but it didn’t appear as if the boy had beenthere to steal.
At least, not from Everly. He might intend to pick the pocket of the man he’d followed, but there were plenty of pockets in London ripe for the picking, none of which required a rooftop adventure.
Why would this boy risk his neck for the privilege of picking the pocket of a man who, though small, was several heads taller than he was, and outweighed him by at least two stone? Tristan hadn’t the vaguest idea what the boy thought he’d do when he caught up to his victim, but he’d find out soon enough.
He was still wearing his boots, and didn’t bother withhis greatcoat.
Ten seconds later he was on the street in front of his townhouse. By then there was no sign of the boy, but he couldn’t have gotten that far ahead. Damned if the little imp hadn’t perfected the art of disappearing, though, just like aproper phantom.
But phantom or not, in the end it wouldn’t matter.
Tristan could cross from one end of the city to the other as easily as strolling from his library to his study. He knew every road, every hidden alcove, and every filthy back alley in London.
