“Look at me if you please, miss. What you were doing on Lord Everly’s roof? No sense in denying it. I saw you from my window, and followed you here. I took you for a thief, and I imagine the magistratewill, as well.”
At mention of Lord Everly’s roof her face paled, but if Tristan expected a confession to cleanse the lies from those plump lips, he was disappointed. “That would be a damning charge indeed, sir, but there’s the small matter of mynot having stolen anything. Insignificant, butthere you are.”
He gave her a cool smile. “Not this time, no, but given the rash of recent thefts in London, I feel certain the magistrate would choose to question you. But perhaps you’ve changed your mind, and would rather speak to me than him?”
She didn’t seem to find that option appealing. She remained stubbornly silent, but by now, Tristan had run out of patience with her. “Let’s try this one more time, shall we? Who did you follow here, and what do you want with Lord Everly?”
“Lord Everly? Why, not a thing.”
She might deny it all she liked, but Tristan could see he’d struck a nerve. “This is your last chance to tell me before I take you before the magistrate.”
“A kind offer, I’m sure, but I believe I’ll save my confessionfor my vicar.”
Tristan studied her, but not a crack appeared in that smooth façade. Whatever her reasons for tonight’s adventure, she was determined to keep them to herself.
Unfortunately for her, he was as determined to find them out as she was to hide them. “Very well.” He took her by the arm and half-turned, easing her away from the fence. “Perhaps you’ll be more forthcoming with the magistrate.”
He was hard-pressed to account for what happened next. He didn’t feel her twist out of his grip, but one moment he had a hand around her arm, and the next he was grasping at air. He whirled back toward her, but somehow in those few seconds of freedom, she’d slipped through the wrought iron bars of the fence, and was standing on the other side of it.
Tristan gaped at her, open-mouthed. “How thedevildid you manage that?”
The bars were generously spaced as far as fences went, but not so far apart it ever would have occurred to him she could slip between them. It would take some clever twisting and maneuvering to do it. Even now, with her on one side of the fence and him on the other, he couldn’t see how she’d managed it.
Scaling townhouses, climbing columns, scampering about on rooftops, and now slipping between the bars of a fence? Good Lord, whowasthis woman?
“As I said, I believe I’ll save my confessions for my vicar.” She dropped a curtsy so mocking it might as well have been a rude hand gesture, and backed away from the fence, out of his reach. “I wish you a pleasant evening, sir. Oh, I beg your pardon. Imean,my lord.”
Without another word she melted into the shadows, her delighted laugh echoing in the darkness. Oh, she was pleased with herself, wasn’t she? But the lady was premature in celebrating her escape, because Tristan would be damned if he let her getaway from him.
He was much too big to pass between the rails as she had, but the fence wasn’t more than eight feet high. Tristan gave the wrought iron a shake, frowning when the rails gave a protesting squeak. A bit flimsy, but it would have to do, because there was only one way to go from here.
Up, and over.
* * * *
His exalted lordship—the Earl of Great Marlborough Street, or whoever he was—was utterly furious. Pity, but that was what he got for creeping about and making things difficult for her instead of squandering his fortune at the clubs or trifling with his mistresses, as an earl was meant to do.
Sophia tried to smother her laugh, but the look on his face when he realized she’d slipped through the bars of her makeshift prison was the most delicious thing she’d ever seen. She would have liked to draw that lowered brow, the glittering fury in thosecool gray eyes.
He did look rather like a painting—one of those terribly elegant ones, where the gentleman posed rakishly at the bottom of a grand staircase, with a half-dozen hunting dogs sprawled at his feet. Yes, she could easily imagine him on a handsome stallion, clad in a pair of buckskin breeches and a dashing hunting jacket, on a quest to ruin somepoor fox’s day.
He certainly didn’t belonghere, though to his credit he knew his way about well enough to track his quarry from Great Marlborough Street to Westminster. His quarry beingher, of all the devilish bad luck. But then he hadn’t succeeded in catching her, had he?
Not for long, at any rate.
Like most hunters, he wasn’t reconciled to losing his game, but short of climbing the fence there was little he could do about it. He couldn’t come after her. The fence was quite high, and the wrought iron had been fashioned into spikes along the top edge. She hadn’t come across many aristocrats who could match her for agility, and this one wasn’t likely to be anexception, so—
Blast him, what was he doing?
Sophia stared, the hair on her arms rising in alarm as he grasped the iron rails and gave the fence a determined shake. If she didn’t know it to be impossible, she’d almost think he was testing it for stability before he—
Climbed the fence.
She watched in horror as he swung himself up and reached out to wrap two impossibly large hands around the spiked tops. “What do you thinkyou’re doing?”
Perhaps the better question was, what wasshedoing? It was pure foolishness to stand about gaping and asking questions when it was plain to see he was about to clamberover the fence.
“If you intend to flee, I suggest you do so now.” His gray eyes met hers through the iron bars. “After such an impressive escape, I’d be disappointed indeed if you didn’t leadme on a chase.”
