Page 20 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

Leo counted off the back door of each home, her eyes skipping ahead to the one that would belong to Martha Seabright.

The key she’d pilfered was in her handbag, but before she could reach for it, the back door to No.

19 opened. Leo skidded to a stop along the grass-and-pebble lane as a woman draped in a dark, sapphire-blue cape emerged.

She had pulled the hood of the cape up to obscure her face.

The velvet material was much too heavy for summer, but the voluminous hood was effective at concealing her features.

Leo presumed that had been the intent as the woman lowered her head, then gripped the side of the hood with one white-gloved hand to keep it in place.

She closed the back door and started briskly down the alley, heading in Leo’s direction.

Leo whirled in between two sheets hanging from laundry lines.

Could this be the woman the landlady, Mrs. Beardsley, had seen with Gavin?

Holding her breath, as much to silence herself as to not inhale the musty odor of the poorly washed linens, Leo’s pulse skipped madly at the base of her throat.

She waited for the woman to pass by, her cape rippling and her head still down as she went.

Waiting another few moments, Leo slowly peeled back one sheet and watched the woman’s retreat.

Whoever she was, she was not being furtive or unassuming in the least. Everything about her, from her fine cape to her liquid, graceful movements, shouted that she was in a place where she didn’t belong even less so than Leo.

Casting a look over her shoulder toward Martha’s home, Leo made the decision to abandon her plan to search the house. If this woman was the one associated with Gavin, it would be more crucial to find out who she was and where she lived.

Leo stepped out from the hanging laundry and hurried to keep the woman in sight. If the lady was cautious, she would have looked over her shoulder to see if she was being followed. But she disappeared around the alley entrance, back toward Fore Street, without a backward glance.

When several seconds later Leo turned out of the alley, the mysterious woman was still moving along the pavements at a businesslike clip. Her hood was still up as well. Leo stayed far enough behind so that if the woman did turn, she would not startle at seeing someone so close on her heels.

The train station wasn’t her destination. Instead of turning in the direction of Moorgate Street, the woman strode toward a line of cabs. Leo gnashed her teeth. If the woman got into a cab, the only way to follow her would be to hire one as well.

Sure enough, the woman approached a cabbie. She angled her head just enough for Leo to see the very tip of her nose. But then it disappeared again into the hood, and the woman climbed into the hansom.

Leo broke into a run now and reached another cabbie at the stand, panting.

“Can you follow that cab?” she asked, pointing to the one that had just drawn into traffic.

“Where’s it goin’?” the cabbie asked.

“I don’t know, but I need to follow it.”

He grimaced. “How’s it I know you got enough to cover the fare?”

Suppressing a groan of exasperation, Leo opened her handbag and pulled out all the money she had: a single shilling. “Take me as far as this will cover, but please, we must go now.”

His brushy brows leaped up. “Six pence gets a mile.”

She put the coin into his palm. “Just drive.”

He pocketed the coin, while she climbed up into the forward-facing seat.

During the colder months, most of these open hansom cabs had a leather curtain to block the cold, rain, and snow, but in this fine weather, Leo’s view was unobstructed.

She kept her eye trained on the cab the woman had climbed into as her own pulled into traffic.

As Leo instructed, the driver didn’t follow too closely.

A coach and an open wagon separated them for a short while, but as they traveled west along Holborn Street, the woman’s cab was straight ahead.

“Your shilling’s up,” the cabbie called from his high bench behind her. He pulled the traces and slowed his two horses.

“It can’t be. We’ve been less than a mile!”

“We’ve been one mile ,” the cabbie insisted.

There was no time to waste arguing. The woman’s cab had pulled farther ahead already.

Leo leaped from the cab and started following on foot.

She had no choice but to run, and as she did, she drew quizzing looks from those she passed.

Bracing one hand on the top of her hat to keep it from flying from her head, and the other gripping her skirt to lift the hem just enough so that she wouldn’t trip and make a complete spectacle of herself, Leo grew breathless as she kept a taxing pace.

The cab slowed as it met with traffic, giving her a chance to catch up. She was still at least twenty yards behind it when the cab turned toward Bloomsbury Square and disappeared.

Sweat streamed down her neck and back and dampened her forehead as she hurried to reach the busy garden square.

When she did, she stopped to both draw breath and search for the cab.

Most hansoms and their drivers looked alike, but the horses pulling the one she wanted were dappled-gray mares and easily spotted across the square.

To her relief, they’d come to a stop along the curb.

Had the cab continued away from the square, Leo wasn’t sure she would have been able to trail it any longer.

Bloomsbury was home to only the wealthiest Londoners, and the terraced homes boxing in the lush, green square were unlike any Leo had ever visited.

Even 23 Charles Street was shabby in comparison.

As the blue-caped woman stepped from the hansom, her hood still in place, Leo slowed to a brisk walk, though her pulse still hammered.

The woman went to one of the whitewashed terraced homes, but she did not need to knock or wait at the front door. After a moment spent fitting a key into the lock, she let herself straight in and closed the door behind her.

She lived here, at Bloomsbury Square.

What in the world had a woman of her status been doing at Martha Seabright’s home?

The perspiration that had built up during her run now stuck to the cotton chemise under her corset.

Leo evened her breathing as she walked toward the home the woman had entered.

She needed to find out who lived there. However, if she were to knock upon the front door and ask, she would surely be turned away.

Close to the townhouse, Leo spotted a twist of rose and white checkered steps leading down to the servant’s entrance, hidden beneath street level. If she wanted answers, it was that door to which she would need to apply. Of course, she would need to devise a reason.

Leo took a handkerchief from her handbag and wiped the perspiration from her brow.

She then tucked a few strands of hair that had come free from her combs behind her ears and repositioned her hat.

With a bracing breath, she opened the wrought iron gate at the top of the steps and descended to the swept landing, all the while cobbling together the reason for her knocking at this particular servant’s entrance.

After three purposeful raps upon the door, she stood back and waited, her pulse still irregularly high in her throat. When the door opened, an older woman in uniform and a mobcap met her with an expectant stare. “Well, what is it?”

Leo cleared her throat. “I’m here to answer the advertisement in the paper.”

The woman squinted as she wiped her hands on a towel. “What advertisement is this?”

Mind scrambling, Leo replied, “For a new maid. A lady’s maid.”

The servant’s perplexed expression remained. “We’ve nothing in any papers for a maid.”

“Isn’t this the Rupert household?” The name of the dead fishmonger back at the Spring Street Morgue was the first one that came to mind in her moment of need.

“Rupert? No, no. You’ve the wrong house, missy,” the woman said, then moved to close the door.

“But this must be the Rupert home. It’s 10 Bloomsbury Square, isn’t it?” Leo pressed.

The woman sighed and opened the door again. “It is, but this here is the Hayes residence, not the Ruperts’, whoever they are.”

A shudder snapped Leo back a step, her skin prickling. “Hayes, you say?”

The woman’s patience dried up. “That’s right. Hayes. Now, off you go.”

The door shut, and Leo was left staring at her startled face reflected in the pane of glass.