"I wanted to tell you I've realized that actually I don't mind anymore that you tricked me into marrying you," she explained earnestly, her eyes huge and dark in the smoky dimness, her hand still on his arm.
"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he responded with feeble sarcasm. "Such vital information couldn't have waited, of course, for a more suitable place and time."
"No, it couldn't," Theo declared. She took a sip from his tankard. "Ugh! It's disgusting."
He snatched the tankard from her and smacked her hand away sharply. It relieved his feelings a little, but not nearly enough.
"I can't deal with you here, but by God, I'm going to enjoy getting you home," he said grimly, flinging a shilling on the stained planking of the counter. "You've managed to ruin my own plans, endanger yourself -"
"Not so," Theo denied as he caught her wrist and pulled her behind him toward the door. "I can handle trouble, as you know perfectly well."
"Well, I'll tell you this much, my girl. The trouble I'm about to administer, you won't be able to handle," he asserted, pushing her through the door.
"What plans have I ruined?" Theo demanded, tripping over an uneven cobble and grabbing at his arm. "Oh, you have to pay my hackney. I didn't bring any money."
Sylvester cast his eyes and a prayer for patience heavenward and dug into his pocket for his purse.
"Did you see that man in the corner of the taproom?" Theo persisted. "He didn't look as if he belonged in a place like that either… I mean either like you or me. What were you doing there, Stoneridge?"
Sylvester stopped at Theo's hackney with an arrested expression. "What man?"
"I'll show you if you come back inside," she said. "He was all muffled up, but his muffler was of good wool, and he wore top boots. And his cloak had a silk lining."
Sylvester stared at her in the darkness. "How did you see all that?"
"I'm very observant," she said. "So's Rosie. Even with her poor eyesight, not much passes her by."
"You goin' to pay me, guv, or jest stand there gabbin' all night?" The jarvey leaned down from his box. "Two shillin'."
"From Curzon Street! That's daylight robbery."
"But he did have to follow you," Theo pointed out. "He had to drive so that he could keep you in sight all the time."
"A formidable task. Clearly, I stand in his debt," Sylvester muttered with heavy irony. He handed over the two shillings.
"Shall we go back inside and I'll show you the man?"
"No." He bundled her over to the other hackney. "Jarvey, just pull to the far corner and stay there. I'll tell you when to move on." He followed Theo into the vehicle and sat forward, holding the leather curtain aside, his eyes fixed on the door to the Fisherman's Rest as the hackney pulled into the deep shadows thrown by a steeply pitched overhanging roof at the corner of the lane.
"Who is the man?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be here."
"Aren't you going to tell me anything else?"
"No. And if it's all the punishment you receive for this insane interference, you can count yourself lucky."
Theo contemplated his profile and decided she didn't have too much to worry about. There was a telltale curve to the chiseled mouth and a note in his voice that belied his words.
She sat back since there wasn't room for both of them to look out the window and contemplated the puzzle that had brought them to this insalubrious spot.
Suddenly it came to her. "Those men this afternoon! Someone set them on you, and they told you he would be here."
Theo was too sharp for her own good. He said nothing immediately, however, but kept his eye on the door.
His patience was rewarded. A tall man slipped outside, pausing in the lane to adjust the woolen muffler around his mouth. A flash of white silk showed as his cloak swung when he turned sideways, looking up and down the narrow alley.
Sylvester could see nothing of his face, but he knew who it was. There was something about the way the man held himself, about the set of his shoulders. Sylvester had been at school with Neil Gerard. He'd known him since they were terrified ten-year-olds hiding from their bullying elders.
"Sweet Jesus," he murmured, pulling his head back into the carriage. Neil would have seen him in the tavern. But he didn't know that Sylvester had recognized him. Gerard would have seen only the diversion Theo had provided. Presumably, he'd been waiting for his hired assailants to make their report. When they hadn't appeared, and their intended victim had come in their stead, he would have guessed what had happened.
But he wouldn't know for sure that Gilbraith had seen him. Theo had done double service with her outrageous impulse. Provided distraction as well as the means for identification.
"Who was it?" Theo demanded in a low voice as he banged on the ceiling to give the jarvey the order to move off.
"I don't know," he lied. Theo's entanglement in this puzzle ended here and now. She was far too impulsive and unpredictable. She reminded him of an unstable Catherine wheel, liable at any moment to spin off its pin onto some darting, whirling course of its own. After this evening's exploit there was no knowing what she'd do if he opened the door even a fraction.
"But you must have some idea who would want to injure you," she persisted.
"Come here." He dragged her across the space that divided them and settled her on his knee. "Now, tell me again what it was that brought you hotfoot on my heels."
"But why would someone want to hurt you?" She tried again, pushing herself away from his chest. "You can't just stop discussing it as if it never happened."
"Oh, I believe I can do that," he said coolly. "Just as I can become extremely unpleasant on the subject of my wife's sticking her overinquisitive nose with unpardonable recklessness into my very private business. Now, do you wish to discuss that, or would you prefer to tell me what inspired this piece of foolishness?"
Theo sat in chagrined silence for a minute, and Sylvester, smiling, drew her head to his shoulder and slipped his hand beneath her cloak to find the soft swell of her breasts. "Come, gypsy," he said, softly cajoling now. "You came a long way to say something to me. I'd like to hear it again when I can concentrate."
Theo bit her lip in frustration. But she did want him to concentrate on what she had to say, and clearly he wasn't going to be prodded into confiding in her. She'd just have to go about discovering the truth in some other way.
"I wanted to tell you that I don't seem to mind anymore that you tricked me into marrying you," she said, sitting up on his knee and cupping his face in her hands. "Life with you is much more exciting than it ever was without you." She bent to kiss his face, her tongue flickering over his lips, dipping into the cleft of his chin, licking upward over his nose, flickering across his eyelids.
"And that's all that counts?" he murmured. "Excitement?" His teasing tone masked a sweet joy.
"It covers a multitude of delightful things," Theo responded, her tongue tracing the plane of his cheek and around to his ear. He shuddered with pleasure as the hot tip flicked, probed, licked the sensitive whorls, and her teeth nibbled on his earlobe.
"Who was the man? You did recognize him?" She couldn't resist one last try with the simple approach.
He kept his response light. "Blackmail, Theo."
"You should know. You're a fairly impressive exponent of the art yourself." Her tongue was a burning dart, and her loins moved sinuously over his so that his flesh sprang to life.
She slid a hand down to cup his arousal through the constraint of his britches, to press the erect flesh against her palm. "Of course, I had intended to suggest that we go back to Stoneridge, since I find London very boring. But now that we're in the middle of this adventure, I can see that it could become quite exciting."