Page 28 of His Sinful Touch

“Would you stop calling me that?” Alex said in exasperation. “I’m five years younger than you.”

“Ooh, I can’t do that, sir. Wouldn’t be respectful.” Tom grinned cheekily.

“Wouldn’t be irritating, you mean.”

Tom’s chuckle as he went out the door was agreement enough. Alex, shaking his head, began to put away his materials. He’d done enough on the plans for the moment. He needed to let it settle in his mind before he made any changes. Besides, he was too eager to go by this address.

He had the hansom drop him off a block before they reached the house, then walked past it. His heart picked up its beat when he saw it. Tom was right. This was the place he’d seen. There were some low bushes missing along the foundation, and the shutters and front door were black. Changes, he thought, since the man who owned the watch had seen it last. Somehow, seeing it, he felt even more sure the home had belonged to the owner of that watch.

It was a graceful house. Alex would have liked to linger for a moment in front of the house and examine it, but he didn’t want to draw any attention to his interest. One set of the neighbors, at least, were a gossipy lot. He contented himself with a quick glance that encompassed the area, including the narrow walkway along the house to the less elegant side door.

He walked the rest of the way home. It served to eat up some of his energy. He was eager to tell her his news. Eager to finally get to do something for Sabrina.

Alex’s vision of a dramatic announcement was rather diminished by the fact that Sabrina was not in the cozy sitting room upstairs, nor even the sultan room, so that he had to prosaically hunt through the house for her, finally stopping one of the footmen to ask where she was. Denby told him she had gone for a walk in the back, so he headed into the garden.

He spotted her on the other side of the formal flower beds, strolling across the grass toward the high back wall. She was wearing one of Megan’s dresses, striped in white and a deep vivid blue, with a practical narrow skirt, devoid of ornamentation except for a wide sash that turned Sabrina’s waist into nothing. The sash tied in the back in a huge, saucy bow that made a man’s hands fairly itch to reach out and untie it.

She must have heard his footsteps on the gravel path of the garden, for she turned and saw him, her mouth widening into a smile. Her pace quickened as she came forward to meet him, and he thought she must have seen something in his face, for she called out, “What is it? Have you found something?”

“That I have. Or, rather, Tom did. It’s the house that—” He paused, realizing he was suddenly on shaky ground. “Uh, it’s a house that I think may be connected to you.”

“A house! But how did he know? How did he find it? Is it my home?”

Why hadn’t he thought to have a story prepared? He needed a plausible reason why Tom had been searching for a certain house, one that did not involve himself getting “emanations” from some inanimate object. But at the moment he could not come up with one, so Alex sidestepped the issue and said, “No, I’m sure you don’t reside there, at least not recently. It has no one living in it right now, but for the past few years it has been let to various people.”

“It’s a rental house? But what does it have to do with me?”

“I’m not really sure. That’s why I thought I’d go there this evening.”

“But how can you find out anything? You said there was no one living there.”

“That’s the best time to search a house.”

“Alex!” Her eyes widened. “Do you mean you intend to...to break into the place?”

“I’m not going to break a window or anything.” Alex grinned, inwardly congratulating himself on successfully diverting her attention.

“But you haven’t a key,” she pointed out. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to pick the lock? Where did a duke’s son learn how to pick a lock?”

“From Tom Quick. Con and I often hung around him when we were young. He was actually more a pickpocket when he was a lad, but he’d also learned a number of other useful ways of availing himself of money.”

“Your employee is a thief?” She stared.

“Not any longer. The last wallet he took belonged to my brother Reed.”

“He stole your brother’s money? Then Reed hired him?”

“Well, first he sent him to school. He saw better qualities in Tom than a number of others had.”

“Clearly.” She came closer. “Alex, I insist on going with you. It is my future—well, my past, really—and I should be there, too.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because...well, I thought you’d object. I thought you’d say it wasn’t the sort of thing for a lady, that it was too dangerous or ‘just not done’ or something of that sort.”

“Oh.” Alex paused. “I suppose it could be dangerous. I hadn’t thought about that. It’s just that Kyria would probably have boxed my ears if I’d said something like that to her. Olivia and Thisbe, too. And I shudder to think what Megan would do to me.” He frowned. “But perhaps you shouldn’t go. I don’t think anything untoward will happen, but it is breaking and entering.”

“Don’t you dare have second thoughts about it,” Sabrina warned, fixing him with as stubborn a look as any of his sisters. “I’ll do worse to you than they would.”