Page 21 of The Finest Print

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Secrets of the Old Bailey, Vol 1., No. 7

The True Chaperone

Clementina could not rest on her laurels, nor could she rest on the prophetic bloodied sextant. She knew who had not absconded to the dungeons with Ursula DeVry.

And with the trial date approaching, this was decidedly less useful than knowing who had.

“So if I use the silver theft from Friday’s trial for number nine, I’ll need to go back and revise the entire thief-in-the-attic arc for this week. It’s repetitive, isn’t it? Besides, I think the butler is too obvious.”

It was Sunday evening, and Ethan was walking Belle home from the shop. They were taking their time in the pleasant weather, the mild breeze an unnecessary reminder that June was nearly upon them.

Ethan looked down as they strolled along her street. He wasn’t touching her, and the price of respectability was gouging him. There were two inches between the swish of her skirts and the dark line of his trousers, and he watched the gap sway back and forth as she bubbled on about her draft.

“See?” Belle waved her burgundy journal under his nose. “Look at this part, here?—”

Ethan drew to a halt, examining the passage in question. A lamplighter was making his way along Lincoln’s Inn Fields, sending circles of light into the dusk. Belle stepped closer, anxiously watching his face as he read. He’d already finished the passage, but when he felt her skirts brush his knee, he read it again.

“I see your point.” He handed over her journal. “Though I think the problem isn’t the butler, so much as I’m not convinced an oyster fork could cause this much damage.”

“Depends where you stick it.” She winced as she rolled her shoulder. “The fork is fine. The real issue is we need a new villain, someone worse than the butler. I’m worried this isn’t enough, Ethan.”

A stab of guilt hit him at the shadowed anxiety on her face. She, too, was feeling the pressure. And he hated it.

“We had another successful day yesterday—number seven sold very well,” he reassured her. “We’re holding steady at the new numbers.”

“But you’ve started buying paper.” She bit her lip. “Unsold copies cost more than nothing now.”

“We don’t have any unsold copies.”

“But—”

“No more writing tonight,” he warned her. “Your head is bothering you, and you know it. You’re bouncing between drafts for two issues at once, and it’s wearing you out.”

“We can’t fall behind,” she argued. “We only have three Saturdays left. Besides, I don’t have a proper headache yet.”

He lifted his hand, as if to put it on her shoulder. If they were alone, he could sink his thumb into the knot of tension that liked to burrow at the base of her neck. The little plea on her face nearly had him doing it.

“Not on the street.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“I wish I could stay with you tonight.” Her eyes gleamed in the flickering lamplight.

“I know.”

“Ethan…” She looked pained, but not from her head. “My mother and father are returning in a few days. We won’t be able to steal time so easily.”

The calendar had somehow become his greatest nemesis. It seemed to contain nothing but a series of ill-fated dates.

“I know,” he repeated, leaning a scant inch closer. If it had been daylight, he would have been able to see the freckles dusting her nose. “I’d prefer you stay too, but your sister and your housekeeper are waiting tonight.”

She sighed.

“Besides,” he pointed out. “If a headache is nigh, you need your own bed. I want you to rest.”

“And I won’t rest in your bed?”

“Historically, sleep has not been our favored pursuit.”

“I sleep very well next to you.” Her smile turned beautifully devious. “I certainly wake up very well next to you.”

“You’re quite a little swindler, you know,” Ethan said. “Hiding your wicked mouth behind your lilac bonnet.”

She laughed, clearly delighted. “I’ve been told I’m a bit of a puzzle.”

He imagined pulling her into the circle of his arms and sliding his finger beneath her chin for one long, leisurely goodnight kiss. And then, because his beloved was the sweetest of scoundrels, he imagined taking his leisure in other ways entirely.

He grudgingly resumed their walk up her street.

“Which window is yours?” he asked, nodding across the green to the ivy-laced bricks of the Sinclair residence.

She pointed him in the right direction. “Top left.”

“I’ll stay until you light your lamp,” he promised. “Then I’ll know you behaved and took your medicine and went straight to bed.”

“You mean you want to loiter while I undress in my bedroom,” she teased, letting the back of her hand brush his knuckles. “Bad man.”

“You said you needed a new villain.” He grinned.

She pretended to think it over. “A ruinously tactile tradesman…it has some merit, I suppose.”

“If you want me to be a bad man, you can tell me what you’re going to do when you slide beneath your bedsheets in your pretty white nightdress.”

Even in the dusk, he could see her blush.

“I have a headache, remember?”

He boomed a laugh.

“I love you.” His little finger wrapped its way around hers. “So damn much, Belle.”

She hummed happily. “I love you too.”

Heavy footfalls sounded behind them, and Ethan reluctantly released her hand. He turned to see the approach of what appeared to be a night watchman. He looked vaguely familiar, his face illuminated by the arc of his raised lantern.

“My, my,” the man drawled. “What have we here?”

Ethan placed the voice a half second after he saw the flash of revulsion on Belle’s face.

Not a night watchman.

“I saw a couple prowling about and thought I’d best ensure nothing unsavory was going on.” Detective Inspector Lawrence Duncan lifted the lantern higher. “I have to say, I find myself thoroughly unsurprised.”

“‘Prowling about’?” Ethan asked skeptically. “Can one really prowl at half past eight?”

The inspector ignored him and stepped closer. “Belinda.”

Ethan’s hackles rose at the way Duncan said her name.

“Good evening, Inspector,” she said stiffly. “And it’s Miss Sinclair.”

“Of course.” Duncan nodded. “You’re not married. We can’t forget that.”

Belle fell silent, but Ethan could see the muscle in her jaw tightening. Tension rolled through him. He needed to put a quick end to this encounter and see her home.

Duncan turned to Ethan. “Fletcher.” He tilted his head. “Of Fleet Street.”

Ethan stepped forward, placing himself between Duncan and Belle. Maintaining an air of indifference, he looked the inspector up and down. They were nearly the same height, but Ethan was broader.

Unfortunately, he was also less qualified to place someone under arrest.

“Is there a problem, Constable?”

“Inspector,” Duncan corrected. “You tell me. From where I stood, it looked as if you were exhibiting threatening behavior toward this woman. Justice Sinclair’s daughter, no less.”

“Oh please,” Belle said indignantly. “He was doing no such thing.”

“Pardon my ignorance.” Ethan folded his arms. “I’m still learning the many intricacies of London, but I wasn’t aware inspectors were on night watch?”

“I’ve had my men observing the vicinity between the Fields and Fleet.” Duncan flicked a speck of lint from his dark coat. “Thought I might take a look for myself.”

“In other words, you’re having me watched.” Ethan scoffed. “For how long?”

“A good thing I have,” Duncan countered smoothly. “It seems to me, you need watching. I could bring you in for indecent assault.”

“Nonsense,” Belle muttered.

“Not to mention last week,” Duncan continued. “You were seen at Croom’s Coffeehouse meeting with a radical.”

“I took a pamphlet.” Ethan shook his head. “I wasn’t planning a riot.”

“Even so, perception and whatnot. Rumors can be quite damaging to a reputation.” Duncan looked to Belle. “You recall, Belinda.”

She made a small sound that opened a chasm inside Ethan, and the wound on her face filled it with fury. He was moving before he could think better of it, before he could think anything at all, and nothing but the soft pull of her hand on his bicep could have stopped him from doing something cataclysmically stupid.

Such as slamming his forearm into Duncan’s throat.

“Speak to her like that again, and I’ll turn the key in my own damn prison cell,” Ethan gritted.

“Don’t,” she warned.

He lowered his arm but didn’t back away.

“Or do,” Duncan said lightly. “I’d be happy to take you off the street, Fletcher. Though from what I’ve heard about the state of your business, you might need to make yourself comfortable out here.”

Ethan coiled tight enough to snap. But Belle was right; he couldn’t afford to go to prison. Especially not at the hands of pigeon-liver like Duncan.

“Fortunately…” Ethan widened his stance. “I’m the sort of man who’s comfortable anywhere.”

A tense silence stretched between them.

“As you can see, Inspector, I’m quite well.” Belle’s voice was quiet. “There’s no need to concern yourself.”

Duncan didn’t move. Ethan glanced at Belle; she was pale in the lamplight.

“Fine.” The inspector shrugged, feigning disinterest. “Then move along, Fletcher. Miss Sinclair, if you need an escort, I’m obliged to see you home.”

“The hell you will,” Ethan said curtly. He reached for her again, tucking her close to him.

Duncan looked between them, finally shaking his head with a laugh.

“I have to say, Belinda, I didn’t think you could fall any further.” He started to turn away, his lip curling. “I’m of half a mind to collar him anyway, but I don’t feel inclined to do either of you any favors.”

Ethan instinctively stepped into the street, blocking Duncan’s sour retreat.

“Go ahead then.” Ethan raised his hands. “Take me in. I’ll go gladly, if only to watch you tell your men the reason for it.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sure they’d love to know the woman who dropped you picked up a Yankee—and you can’t stop thinking about it.” Ethan’s mouth tilted with firm assurance. “I wonder if they’ll pity you? They should. I find myself hard-pressed to think of anything quite so pathetic.”

Ethan shook his head. Pathetic was right. This had nothing to do with Belle, and everything to do with an arrogant man’s need for the final say. Duncan’s mouth twisted, but Ethan must have struck a nerve, for the inspector huffed in disdain and finally strode away.

Ethan watched the lantern disappear in the twilight, his pulse racing from the hostile confrontation. He shook out his unfortunately unused fist and turned to Belle. “Christ, if he couldn’t throw me in prison, believe me, I would have throttled ?—”

To his utmost surprise, she was beaming.

“You’re wonderful,” she said, her hands on her cheeks. “Oh. That was tremendously satisfying.” Improbably, she spun in a happy little circle. “I’d kiss you, but I’m afraid he would arrest you, after all.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, to be sure. You hit Duncan where it hurts—he values nothing so much as his own pride. Do you know, I think I found my new villain.”

“No—I meant are you certain you can’t kiss me?”

Her irrepressible smile widened, and he took one step closer. But no, they had to be careful. Doubly so, with Duncan about.

Ethan groaned softly. “I suppose I really do need to see you home now.”

She sighed. “I know.”

They walked the short distance in silence, mindful to keep far more than two inches between them. When they arrived outside her home, he fell back as she climbed the few stairs to the lacquered front door.

“Belle.”

She paused, turning to look at him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Stealing moments in the dark,” he said gruffly. “It can’t go on forever this way. Something will have to change.”

“Not us.” Her gaze brushed his face. “Everything around us.”

His favorite thing about her was the way she always said the good part for him. He wasn’t adept at sentimentality, but Belle saw him so clearly, it was easy to be hopeful with her.

“If I tell you that one day, we’ll walk through our own front door together, you’d believe me, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would.” She smiled, beatific in the lamplight. “Darling, you’ve never lied to me.”

She pressed her fingers to her lips, then turned and slipped inside, closing the door with a soft, decisive click.

Slowly, he ambled across the green and leaned against an iron railing to wait for the faint flare in the top left window.

He was still there, long, long after her light went out.