The butler tried not to stare at the sword stick, but he could also see the unmistakable bulge in his lordship's coat. The night streets were not particularly safe, it was true, but these precautions seemed rather extreme for a late-evening stroll to St. James's or some such gentlemanly destination.
Drawing on his gloves, the Earl of Stoneridge left the house. He was going to the Fisherman's Rest on Dock Street.
Theo was standing at her bedroom window as he went down the front steps. She'd expected him to come up to her… to drive away her confusion and dismay with his body as he drew from her the deep, ecstatic responses that made her forget all but shared passion. Instead he was going out. Had he finally wearied of her storms?
The thought stunned her. She saw life without Sylvester, and what she saw was a wasteland.
How had he hurt her?
Suddenly she turned back to the room. "My cloak, Dora. I'm going out."
Her abigail blinked in astonishment. She'd just hung the cloak in the armoire. "But it's eleven o'clock, my lady."
"So?" Theo said impatiently, drawing on her gloves. "Quickly." If she delayed much longer, Stoneridge would have disappeared from the street, and she'd never catch him up.
She wrapped the velvet cloak around her, drawing the hood over her hair as she ran down the stairs.
"Did his lordship say where he was going, Foster?"
"No, Lady Theo." The butler shot the last bolt on the front door.
"Well, I have to find him," she said. "Unlock the door quickly. He can't be far away."
Foster hesitated for a fraction. But the earl had only just left, and Lady Theo couldn't come to any harm on Curzon Street. He unbolted the door again, and she ran past him and down the steps, turning to the right, as Sylvester had done.
Chapter Nineteen
Theo reached the corner of Curzon Street and Audley Street just in time to see Sylvester hail a hackney carriage. There was a second one immediately behind, and without pausing to think, she flagged it down.
"I'm going where they're going," she said, gesturing to the other vehicle before scrambling into the dark, shabby interior.
"Right you are, lady." The jarvey cracked his whip, hoping this would be a long fare.
It was only as the hackney swung round a corner, bouncing over the cobbles, that Theo realized she'd brought no money with her. Never mind. Sylvester would pay her fare as well as his own, and if she lost him, she'd take the hackney back to Curzon Street, where there was money aplenty.
Where could he be going? She pushed aside the grimy leather curtain over the window aperture and stared out in the dark streets. The area they were going through had a very unfamiliar feel, but, then, she was only just learning the topography of the few square miles of London inhabited by the ton. Presumably Sylvester wasn't going to the clubs on St. James's. He'd surely have walked that short distance.
After what seemed a very long time they turned alongside the wide, dark body of the Thames and drove along the embankment. The air smelled different. Dirty and smoky, fetid with a midden stench and the ancient river slime clinging to the sloping cobbles of the embankment.
Theo pushed her head out the window and craned toward the box. "Are they still in sight?"
"Aye," he called down. "Turnin' on Dock Street. This ain't a good place fer Quality, if I might be so bold."
"No, I can see that," Theo said, withdrawing her head. What business could Sylvester have in these parts?
What area of his privacy was she intruding on? A ripple of unease lifted the fine hairs on the back of her neck, and she almost told the jarvey to return to Curzon Street. Then she thought of what she wanted to say to Sylvester. And she wanted to say it now. When he heard it, he'd understand that she wasn't sticking her nose into his private affairs.
Although if she did discover a clue or two on the way, she wouldn't close her eyes to it. The still small voice of ruthless honesty spoke through her private protestations.
The hackney drew up in a dark, narrow cobbled street where the stench of river and sewage was so strong, Theo could barely breathe as she stepped out of the carriage. The other hackney was waiting across the street, presumably on Sylvester's instructions. Public traffic in these parts wouldn't be that frequent, and he would need transport home.
A rusty iron sign creaked over the narrow door of a tumbledown wooden structure. Gusts of noxious smoke drifted through tiny unglazed windows, where dim, flickering lights showed and strident voices bellowed. Something crashed heavily to the floor, an angry voice yelled; there was a burst of raucous laughter, and the door flew open abruptly, a man sailing through the air to land on his backside in the filth of the kennel.
With a roar he clambered to his feet and charged back through the door, head down, fists flailing.
Theo stepped back just in time as he came flying out again, this time followed by a furious red-faced woman wielding a rolling pin.
"Get outta my tavern, you great ox!" the woman bellowed, adding a few choice epithets that were new to Theo's fairly educated ears. "Get back to yer woman, Tom Brig, and don't go messin' wi' my customers." She stood over him, sleeves rolled up revealing massive forearms, a tattered fringe of filthy petticoat showing beneath her stained apron. Then, with another curse, she turned and went back inside. The door closed and the alley was in darkness again.
Tom Brig half rose to his knees, then subsided into the kennel with a whimpered exhalation, letting his head fall onto a heap of rotting cabbages, his eyes closing, a stale, beery froth bubbling at his open mouth.
Theo grimaced, stepped over him, and pushed boldly at the closed door. It swung open, and she found herself on the threshold of a square room, foul sawdust on the floor, sea coal belching noxious fumes from the hearth, mingling with the acrid, greasy stench of the tallow rushes and the fish-oil lamps swinging from the blackened rafters.
Her eyes were streaming from the smoke, and for a minute she could see nothing. Then a voice exclaimed, "Well, lookee 'ere, then, Long Meg. Get an eyeful of what the river's dropped on us."
A sea of eyes swiveled toward her. Bloodshot eyes with yellow whites. Grinning mouths revealed blackened stumps, and the reek of unwashed bodies and stale breath enclosed her like a miasma. Then she saw Sylvester, up by the bar counter, a mug in his hand.
He stared at her for a minute, wondering if he'd had enough gin and water to create this image. The crimson velvet hood of her cloak was thrown back, revealing the blue-black hair in startling contrast. Her eyes were dark and intense in the glowing brown face, her lips parted as if on the verge of an eager message.
As he struggled to make sense of this extraordinary visitation, Theo pushed her way through the room toward him, ignoring the hands that grabbed at her cloak, the coarse voices that offered a variety of lewd suggestions for her entertainment.
"Sylvester, there's something I have to tell you." She reached him, smiling, putting her hand on his arm. "I don't believe anymore you've hurt me at all, and I think I've just been -"
Sylvester found his voice. "I must be going insane. What in the devil's name are you doing here?"
"I followed you," she said. "What's that you're drinking?" She picked up the tankard and sniffed its contents. "Is it blue ruin? It smells horrible, but I suppose it's what people drink in places like this."
She turned to look around her with a curious eye, feeling secure now that Sylvester was beside her. "Why would you come to a place like this, Stoneridge?"
Sylvester debated whether to wring her neck on the spot or wait until he could enjoy the exercise at his leisure. "How dare you follow me?" he said finally, aware of how inadequately the words expressed his feelings.