mercenaries turned away from Undoto with no exchange of smiles, waves, or any farewells. They strode up the short path and turned into the street—heading back the way they’d come.
Aileen gave a little jig on the carriage seat. If her luck held...
The trapdoor in the coach’s ceiling lifted.
“You want me to follow them, miss?” Dave’s disembodied whisper floated down.
“Please,” she whispered back. “But entirely unobtrusively. Hang well back.”
“I’ll do me best, miss.”
The trapdoor fell shut. The carriage moved forward, then halted. Aileen realized Dave had stopped where he could see up the hill, but he hadn’t yet turned the carriage into the street.
He waited, waited, and eventually gave his horse the office and slowly, ponderously, rolled around the corner and on up the street. Like most streets outside the settlement’s center, this one was potholed and rutted, forcing any driver to ease their conveyance over dips and bumps; a very slowly moving carriage wasn’t as suspicious a sight as it would have been in London.
Aileen peered out of the forward window. There were no streetlights, and clouds had now veiled the moon; she could just pick out the four dark shapes as they moved through the shadows.
The street continued to climb. There was a flare burning at the side of the road at the crest. Beyond lay nothing but the blackness of the night sky as the land dipped on the other side of the ridge.
“Miss.” Dave’s voice reached her. “The street narrows just over that crest ahead. It quickly becomes too tight for me carriage. ’Nother of the slum areas starts about there. Must be where those four are headed.”
Aileen considered their situation. “How far can we go before turning back?”
“Well, there’s a side street ahead, a little way below the crest—we can take that, and it’ll carry us back to the streets of Tower Hill. I wouldn’t want to go over the crest—it’ll be hard to turn the carriage if’n I do. I’ll have to get down to manage it, and if you don’t mind, miss, that’s not something I want to do at this hour in this area with the likes of those four hanging about.”
“No, indeed.” Aileen bit her lip. She didn’t want to pull back, to give up this odd chase, but the danger...and it wasn’t just her involved but Dave, too.
Ahead, the four dark shapes walked into the circle of light cast by the flickering flare. The first three trudged on and over the crest, but the leader halted. And looked back.
Directly at the carriage.
He stood bathed in the light from the flare.
Less than thirty yards away, Aileen saw his face—saw the scar slashing across one cheek. Saw the hard, merciless gaze he trained on the carriage.
Even though she knew he couldn’t see her, she felt herself freeze like a rabbit before a rabid dog.
“Miss?”
Dave’s urgent whisper jerked her into action. Into speech. “Take the side street!”
Smoothly, as if that had been his direction all along, Dave angled his horse slowly to the right, away from the watching mercenary and on into the quiet street leading across the hillside.
Shrinking back into the deepest shadows in the carriage, Aileen stared at the mercenary as the coach turned.
Her second look didn’t improve on her first. Instinctive fear closed chill fingers about her throat.
She couldn’t take her eyes from the threat. As the carriage continued, she shifted, keeping the mercenary in view.
But with the carriage turning aside, he appeared to lose interest. He turned and continued over the crest, disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Aileen exhaled. She slumped back against the seat, only then realizing her hand had risen to her throat.
She lowered her hand and dragged in a huge breath. Her heart was still pounding.
Minutes later, the carriage reached better-surfaced streets, and Dave urged his horse to a faster pace.
As her breathing returned to normal, Aileen reminded herself that the mercenary wouldn’t have been able to see her, that he wasn’t following her.
Despite the reassurance, her heart continued to thump faster than it had before.
* * *
Robert returned to the inn, but couldn’t settle; thinking of Lashoria’s death at the hands of the slavers left him restless—wanting, needing, to act.
On diplomatic missions, he rarely had to cope with situations like this—when an unnecessary and violent slaying provoked him.
Sleep wasn’t going to come soon. Remembering his earlier plan, he told Benson where he was headed, then left the inn.
Cloaked in deep night, he walked to Water Street and on to the office of Macauley and Babington. As befitted the holders of the lucrative trading license between the colony of West Africa and England, the company’s office was in a relatively new stone building in the middle of Water Street—in business terms, the beating heart of the settlement. A foray down the alley running alongside the building revealed an exterior staircase leading to an apartment above the rear of the office.
The door on the landing at the top of the stairs was locked, and Babington didn’t respond to Robert’s knock.
After deciding Babington was most likely out socializing, Robert picked the lock and went in.
The door opened into a living room. Robert stepped inside, quietly closed the door, then listened. Half a minute sufficed for his senses to confirm that he was the only person there.
He relaxed and looked around.
Two well-stuffed armchairs with a small round table between faced a sofa set against one wall. A bureau bearing a tantalus graced the wall opposite the sofa, while a desk stood against the wall a little way from the door. The fourth wall, opposite the door, played host to four long windows; the central panes were French doors giving onto a narrow balcony.
Sufficient moonlight washed through the uncurtained windows for Robert to see well enough. A door in the wall against which the sofa sat stood ajar; a glance beyond showed a bed and the usual appurtenances of a bedchamber.
Robert walked to the bureau, checked the decanters in the tantalus, then helped himself to a glass of whisky. Drink in hand, he angled one of the armchairs toward the door, sat, sipped, and settled to wait.
As the whisky slid down his throat, he found himself pondering his lack of hesitation in breaking into Babington’s rooms. Perhaps he had more of his brothers—and his father—in him than he knew.
Or perhaps it was simply his impatience to get on, further fueled by learning of Lashoria’s murder.
An hour later, he heard footsteps steadily climbing the outer stair. A key slid into the lock.
