Page 43 of The Lady is Trouble
Another hour passed without a murmur, until Humphrey suspected he and Julian were wrong. Maybe Piper had grown out of her hotheaded decision-making.
In the end, nothing had changed, and they weren’t wrong.
Thudding footfalls sounded, and his stomach fell. “Coming down the back stairs, heading for the scullery entrance,” Edward whispered, his words halting, uncertain, as if he delivered information he should not. The boy had taken a liking to Piper. He was sleeping again and working on his gift, although he’d had no dreams that would benefit the League at this juncture and darn if Humphrey hadn’t asked. As was the way, in the process of working with her, Piper had twisted the boy around her finger, like she did to most without exertion. Men, women, children, dogs. His call for the staff to watch her this evening had been met with more than a few frosty glances.
Waving Edward away with murmured thanks, he rounded the house, a headache arriving in the center of his head.Bullseye. Damn the girl. If anything happened to her, Julian would never forgive him, a guaranteed fact no matter feelings denied on all sides.
Like he believed that horseshit.
He was responsible for the two of them and had been since the beginning, an anvil resting squarely on his chest and at times sucking up all his oxygen. Stuck in the middle, between a rock and a hard place. Piper, he guessed, was the rock. Julian, he laughed at this, because he had to do something or he’d start shouting, was the hard place.
He watched Piper’s head, covered in a ridiculous, frilled bonnet, peek from the scullery doorway.My God, he thought, sorrowful for whoever ended up marrying her, if Julian wasn’t going to accept the challenge. At least the pathetic sod would never be bored, but he wasn’t likely to live long enough to appreciate his delightful existence, either. Frankly, Humphrey wasn’t in the mood to pansy around. Wordplay was not his gift.
Truth be told, he was highly annoyedanddisappointed.
“Julian sure had you pegged,” he snapped as she stepped from the shadows.
She gasped, stumbled on the uneven step and propelled herself into the yard. A leather satchel, one of Julian’s, was tucked neatly under her arm. Her gown was designed for travel; the boots on her feet weathered and perfect for tracking through the muck.
Humphrey pressed his finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose to hold back the headache. “You truly deemed to try this? With the danger surrounding you?”
Her head tilted, gaze seeking his. Moonlight fluttered over them, stealing through the scattered clouds, and her face became visible before being thrown back into darkness. But he’d seen enough. A fierce expression, and it was no longer a girl’s face but a woman’s. A woman who loved Julian more than anyone, if Humphrey’s bet was sound, and one who had his best interest, no matter how senseless her design, at heart.
Oh, hell. Her eyes were that roaring green Julian told him to watch for. And he never argued with Jule over colors.Blast it, he swore, consigning his best friend to Hades for leaving him with this mess.
“He’s going after the room from the vision,” she said, tucking the satchel under her arm, perhaps preparing to run for it. As if she could make it ten paces without him catching her. Him or the ten guards posted around the house.
“I know what’s he going after.” Fear, rarely engaged, tunneled through his belly. Dread, because Piper had gone directly to the point without lying, which was her norm when pressed, and the bloody simple fact they shared the same concern.
He believed it insanity Julian had ridden off to London on his own, but he didn’t want to admit this to Scamp Scott, of all people.
“The vision, I can’t quite explain…” Her lips pressed as she struggled. Again, a spike of unease hit him. This woman had never lacked for words, not once in herlife. “It was like being pressed between two sheets of vellum. No room to move.” Stepping closer, moonlight hit her just so. Humphrey noted the desperation shaping her features, the worry lines drifting from her eyes, her mouth. She grasped the satchel like the battered leather would bring answers if she wrung it hard enough. “I had to pull him back, pull him out. And there was a hesitation, like he didn’twantto return. I was terrified I’d have…have to leave him there.”
Humphrey heaved a huge sigh, itching to light another cheroot. Or break open a bottle of brandy and guzzle the entire thing. “I can’t keep him from searching for that room, Scamp.”But I can stop you.
“Oh.” She frowned, as if stopping Julian had never occurred to her. “I know that.” She managed a surprised laugh, but what the heck she found amusing he didn’t know. “Heavens, Humphrey, I only know I must be there when he finds it.”
“You must be there when he finds it,” he said, feeling as if he’d drunk the brandy, and his mind couldn’t keep up. The ground tilted as control shifted to the sprite standing before him. A tiny thing, her head barely reaching his elbow, harmless if you judged only the physical, but she’d just worked him over rougher than a hustler on the streets of Bethnal Green.
Her head slanted in question:you agree with me?
His hand went out in a gesture of helplessness.
She danced from one dirty boot to the other, hugging the satchel close. “You hulking beast, you know I’m right. Bring the bloody battalion if that’s what it takes.”
With a violent oath, Humphrey brushed past her and into the house, the scullery deserted at this hour except for the lingering smell of charred meat, cabbage, and onions. She dashed after him, right on his blamed heels, knocking a pan to the floor in her haste, the dull ting echoing along the hallway as she chased him down it. The tick of a clock counted off each second, matching his irate stride. He knew what Julian would say. He’d been played, outfoxed,outmanned. But his gut—way, way, deep where he listened when it spoke to him—said she was right.
“Finn is coming along for the ride,” he growled as he took the stairs by twos. “And Minnie. She started some of this mess if you ask me. She canchaperone.”
“I have no idea what—”
“Let me be clear. I’m sharing the pleasure of this trip.” He grasped her arm and propelled her toward his bedchamber, situating her as kindly as anger allowed in a mahogany chair gracing the hallway for looks, not comfort. The hard-backed piece was perfect for her troublesome arse. “Stay. Until I get back here. Or I swear…”
She dropped the satchel and lifted her head. That warning green flickered again. “I’m insulted by this tirade.” She blew a strand from one of her sad little hairstyles from her face. “And wondering why we’re wasting time arguing.”
“Insulted?” Humphrey paused with his hand on the doorknob, glancing over his shoulder in amazement. “Julian’s going to take a knife to my throat for this.”
“He would never.”