“I’m certain I won’t like her. She sounds utterly overbearing, and obviously still has you tied to her apron strings. The more I know of you, Cooper Townsend, the less I understand how you ever became a hero.”
“At least we finally agree on something. In my defense, I do have a very good reason for not wanting the blackmailer to publish his threatened third volume, and since you and your sister are my only current avenues to finding the bastard, I plead guilty to using you. The both of you.”
Ah, now they were getting somewhere. Finally. “The chapbooks don’t just embarrass you, do they? You’re in a prodigious amount of trouble, aren’t you? I felt it from the beginning, or at least I’d like to tell myself I did. Does the viscount know? Your mother? Are you going to tell me? I think you owe it to me. To tell me, that is.”
He squeezed her hand for a moment. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Nobody knows. Darby has made a few guesses, as have you, but mine isn’t the only reputation at stake here. I was asked to swear to secrecy and rewarded for my agreement. That, too, doesn’t make me a hero, in case you were about to point that out. But at least I’m still breathing.”
Now it was her turn to place her hand on his. “For how long?”
“Pardon me?” He was leaning closer to the glass. “How long for what?”
“How long will you still be breathing?”
“I’ve entertained that question myself, and the only answer that seems plausible is as long as God gives me, if I find the blackmailer before he can publish whatever he believes to be the damning truth.”
“Is there a damning truth?”
He turned and smiled at her, and her traitorous heart melted. “Isn’t there always?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I’m sorry. I’m even more sorry that the blackmailer didn’t show himself tonight.”
“Because you were hoping for a good chase down the alleyway, or because you’re still stuck with your grandmother’s paste garnets?”
Dany smiled. “I know you’re joking to be kind, but you really are a very nice man. I promise to be less of a problem to you, I really do. When I can,” she added, because a caveat would at least keep her from feeling too guilty if she couldn’t manage to keep herself from acting on her own if the opportunity arose.
He looked at her in the faint moonlight. “Thank you. I’m still not going to tell you why I’m being blackmailed, you know.”
Dany shrugged, far from defeated. “You will. Eventually. You won’t be able to help yourself. Just ask anyone. I’m very persuasive.”
“You mean you wear people down to the point where it’s simply easier to let you get your way.”
She turned toward the gap in the draperies. “I take it back. You’re not that nice. I thought women were supposed to be this huge mystery to men.”
“Is that so? Then I suppose you’ll have to leave off being so utterly transparent. Come on, I think we’re done here for tonight. He’s not going to show.”
“Just five more minutes. There hasn’t been a carriage coming back to the stables for a good quarter hour. He might feel safe now to approach. Oh, fiddle, I was wrong. Here comes another one.”
Coop all but put his cheek next to hers as he took a look for himself. “That’s not a carriage, it’s a hackney.”
“A what?”
“A hired cab. There’s no reason for a hired cab to be in this alleyway. Move.”
Dany moved. She had no choice but to move, because Coop had pushed her back enough so that he could reach the casement handle and begin turning it.
Dany ran to the other window to watch, her head pounding with excitement. Sure enough, the hackney stopped directly in front of the Cockermouth stables, and a dark-clad figure hopped down.
Carrying a stool?
“He’s carrying a stool? Why on earth would he be carrying—oh, that’s not fair. It’s a child, isn’t it? Look, he’s put the stool down and stepping up on it to—yes, there goes Mari’s letter. And my garnets. And now he’s putting something into the...”
Coop’s ear-piercing whistles, two in quick succession, cut off what she would have said next, although why she was telling him what he could readily see for himself she had no idea.
After all, she was already halfway to the door.
COOP CAUGHT UP to Dany just as she was about to throw open the side door. He grabbed her at the waist and hauled her off her feet, pulling her against him.
“There’s no hurry. He’s long gone,” he said, doing his best to catch his breath. How did servants loaded down with trays and whatever navigate such steep, narrow stairs? He’d damn near tumbled a few times, which would have thrown him into Dany, so that they would have ended in an inglorious heap on the next landing.
“How do you know? And put me down, for pity’s sake.”
“Only if you promise not to bolt.”
“I’m not a horse. And you’re crushing my ribs.”
Coop compromised. He turned about so that his back was against the door, and only then let her go.
She turned and looked at him, looked at the hat on his head. “You...you took time to retrieve your hat?”
“As I’ll be leaving now, yes. Are you ready to check out the knothole?”
“But...but why aren’t we chasing the hackney? I know we couldn’t catch it, so don’t look at me as if I’ve got two heads. But we may have been able to at least see the driver. Then we could go searching for him tomorrow.”
“Yes, out of the several hundred hackneys in London, that should be an easy enough job.” He held up the lit lantern he’d earlier requested Timmerly leave in the narrow hallway, opened the door and motioned for her to precede him. “I whistled twice, if you’ll recall. That was to warn Rigby our target was heading his way. We might have had some slim chance if the hackney had come in the opposite end of the alleyway and was headed toward Darby, but Rigby has had too many good meals to hold his own in a footrace. Catching up with a hackney is definitely outside the realm of his capabilities. We can only hope he was able to catch a look at its occupant. Yes, and its driver.”
“You don’t have to sound so smug.”
“Reasonable, not smug,” he said as they approached the large tree.
“You let me think we’d be able to chase him.”
“Hence the riding habit. Now I understand. Do you mind if I rethink your possible contribution to our small adventure?”
The lantern cast enough light for him to see the look of disgust on her face.
“The riding habit was easier for me to—oh, all right, yes. I chose it on purpose, but only as my second choice. Not to chase him if he showed up. I mean, not precisely. I made the first choice for its buttons. And we would have chased only if the opportunity should present itself. Mostly, I wanted to make certain I was dressed to accompany you when we retrieved any note he may put in the tree—and yes, I promise to stop babbling now, because I know I’m babbling. Go on, reach up and get it.”
“Yes, my queen,” he said, and then stopped, arm half raised to do as she’d commanded. “No. You get it. You put your sister’s note into the knothole,