Banquet of Lies (13 page)

She’d assumed the doors set in the wall were locked, but she tried them anyway. Both doorknobs rattled as she pulled on them, but didn’t budge.

She looked at the cart against the wall, but even if she got into it, it wouldn’t boost her high enough to climb the wall. And this wall was new brick, not the rough-hewn stone at the back garden of Goldfern House, with its many handholds.

Then her eyes fell on the barrels.

They were empty. She had noticed that when she had hidden behind them, and shifted them a little. It was possible she could lift one.

She eased one off the pile and rolled it to the cart, heaved it inside. Then she scrambled in after it and set it against the wall.

It wobbled as she climbed onto it, the thin wooden lid giving a little beneath her weight.

But it held. And she was high enough. Thank God, she was high enough.

She heaved herself up onto the wall, kicking the barrel hard enough to tip it out of the cart so that when he returned to see what had happened to her, her follower might miss how she had escaped.

Up on the wall she was easy to see, backlit by the lights from the town houses, and her vulnerability spurred her on. The drop on the other side was long, but there was plenty of ivy. She grasped wet, slippery handfuls of the vines and swung down, her feet scrabbling for purchase.

She pulled down half the vines as she fell, slower than she would have without them, but still too fast. She was grateful there was only well-tended lawn below as she landed hard, overbalanced, and fell on her back.

At least she hadn’t screamed.

She stood slowly—tired, bruised and afraid. She had to get home before her pursuer came looking for her and realized how she had gotten away.

The thought put some speed into her steps as she limped across the fine garden and skirted the side of the house, walking with care so her boots made no sound on the paving.

She emerged onto a well-kept front lawn, with a low brick wall separating the garden from the pavement. Bent low, Gigi ran to the wall and looked up and down the street.

There was no one that she could see. The rain was still falling, although lighter now, sweeping over her in glittering waves.

She took a last, deep breath, rose up and ran the short distance to Chapel Street, turned onto it and raced to Aldridge House.

As she took the sharp turn into the alley to the kitchen door it felt like she had reached safety, trip-trapping over the bridge to the green, green hills on the other side.

No troll was getting her tonight.

J
onathan was edging down the alley, the knife from his boot in his hand, when he heard Madame Levéel ask her follower who he was.

He paused, interested in the answer. But the man did not answer, merely made a ridiculous offer to escort her home “safe.”

When she refused, Jonathan pushed away from the wall and was about to intervene, when the man backed away, still facing the little courtyard but moving down the alley.

Jonathan moved back as well.

There was so much going on here that he didn’t understand. And he would rather watch and observe, learn as much as possible before he waded in with demands for answers. You were lied to less if you knew almost as much as the person you were questioning.

So he slipped out into the larger alley that ran parallel to South Audley, and crouched low beneath an old door propped against the wall.

The man emerged and looked left and right. His gaze fixed on the door where Jonathan hid, but then he moved across the narrow road and hid in the dark entrance to another alley.

He was going to wait for Madame Levéel to leave, and keep following her.

Jonathan wondered how long it would take her to get up the courage to leave the tiny courtyard in which she’d trapped herself.

The rain eased off a little, less a stinging slap and more a gentle caress, but his trousers and boots were soaked, and he was starting to shiver. His legs began to cramp, and he was considering rising up and going in to get her, to hell with revealing himself to the mysterious watcher, when, with a curse, the watcher broke cover himself.

He stalked back to the alleyway and disappeared into the darkness. Jonathan crept after him, stopping just short of the light filtering down from the houses behind the wall.

The man was looking behind some barrels, kicking them aside in frustration, and then crouched down to look beneath the cart against the wall. He tried the doors, rattling the knobs in frustration.

“She’s bloody gone.” There was a vicious note to his exclamation, and when he did a slow, full turn, as if hoping to find some small hiding place he might have missed, Jonathan saw murder in his eyes.

He backed away, quiet and fast, and just made his former hiding place before the man burst out of the alley
and disappeared to the right, in the direction of Dervish’s house.

Jonathan rose and ran left, turned into the narrow lane that led back to South Audley, then right onto Chapel and down the service lane to his kitchen door.

He stood a moment, hand on the knob, gripped with the need to know that she was safe, and then forced himself to drop it. He walked around to his front door.

He wasn’t prepared to let Madame Levéel know he had followed her, that he knew what had happened to her this evening.

For the first time, Durnham’s warnings seemed to hold some weight. And if his cook was a spy for France, he would do well not to let her know he was watching her.

But he did want to know if she was home and safe.

He took the stairs to the front door two at a time and pushed the door open, dripping onto the black-and-white tile of the entrance hall.

“My lord?” Edgars appeared from the dining room, a cloth in hand, far more like the usual Edgars than he’d been earlier. He helped Jonathan off with his greatcoat and coat.

“I got soaked by a cab, I’m afraid. Lost my hat, too. I’ll need to change before I can go on to my other appointment tonight. And could you ask Cook to make me some coffee?”

Coffee was the last thing he felt like. Brandy sounded far better, after the evening he’d had, but Edgars wouldn’t need to go speak to Madame Levéel about brandy.

The butler gave a small bow and disappeared down the service
stairs, while Jonathan dawdled on his way up to his room, giving Edgars time to return before he reached the top of the stairs.

“Cook will have your coffee ready in a moment.” Edgars appeared in the hall again and looked at the water trail with a frown. “I hope you don’t catch a chill, my lord.”

“I’m sure not, Edgars.” Jonathan ran the rest of the way up the stairs on a wave of relief. The mysterious Madame Levéel had made it home, then, and was calmly going about her duties.

Knowing what she’d been through, he could scarcely believe it. And he sorely wanted to know how she’d escaped. But he’d tackle her later. Unless she had a death wish, she wouldn’t be going anywhere again tonight.

And he would very much like to meet up with Dervish, either at their club or at his home. He had no right to the possessiveness he felt for Madame Levéel, but he felt it nevertheless. He wanted to know what Dervish was to her.

Jonathan hoped Dervish would also be amenable to discussing any interesting letters he might recently have received. And if he wasn’t, Jonathan was prepared to be as subtle as a nine-pound cannon.

S
he had to go back out.

Gigi sent up Lord Aldridge’s coffee with a smile she didn’t feel, then stepped close to the fire, letting it burn away the chill in her bones.

She couldn’t risk going to Lord Dervish to warn him he was being watched. But when he came to drop off his note at Goldfern, the shadow man’s watcher would surely be following him and would either take the note Dervish left or wait to see who came to collect it.

The only solution was another note, left in the place she had told Dervish to leave his reply, warning him that he was being followed, and asking him to take both notes back home with him.

She would have liked to compare his handwriting, have definite confirmation that Dervish truly was D., but it seemed more and more likely he was. Why else would he be watched?

“You done for the night, Cook?” Edgars came to stand beside her, rubbing his hands near the fire. Something in the way he stood, hunched and stiff, spoke of anger and confusion. She wondered if it was to do with his feelings for Iris, or something she had unwittingly done.

“Yes. I’m done.” She stepped away from him, hoping her turning in would lead him to do the same, so she could slip out again without arousing even more suspicion.

“Good night.” She went to her rooms and heard Edgars turn the lock in the kitchen door and then close the door to his own rooms.

She’d need to let him settle down before she snuck out to the alley behind Goldfern, but there was a sense of urgency riding her—a fear that Dervish would respond immediately to her request, that he might already be on his way to leave the note for her.

She rubbed her arms and shivered at the thought of the man from earlier watching from a dark corner.

She would just have to go as soon as possible.

She pulled out her stationery for the second time that evening and wrote a quick, succinct note, letting Dervish know he was being followed and to take everything back with him. That she would find some other way to contact him.

It was the best she could do.

She could still hear Edgars moving about in his rooms, but she dared not wait a moment longer.

She pulled a scarf over her head, draping it across her face to keep out the cold and hide her features, and went out into the kitchen.

She’d hung her soaked cloak on a hook near the fire to dry. She pulled it on, making sure her note was safely in her inner coat pocket, and walked quietly up the stairs to the back door.

“Going out, Madame Levéel?”

She strangled a gasp and turned, pushing herself back against the door for support and pulling the scarf down so it no longer covered her face. “Just for a moment, Mr. Edgars. The rain sounds like it has stopped. I like to get some fresh air after breathing the smoke and the heat of the kitchen all day.”

It would have seemed an eminently reasonable notion, if Edgars didn’t know she’d been out once this evening already.

“Want me to escort you? After your scare last night?”

Gigi smiled, hoping it didn’t look like a death grimace. “That’s very kind of you, but
merci, non
. The thief from last
night would hardly be back twice in a row. I am not going far, just a few steps.”

He gave a nod but kept watching her as she opened the door. She couldn’t take the key from under his very nose, so she’d have to hope he didn’t lock the door after her and make her knock to come back in.

The rain was falling so softly she could barely feel it, a fine drizzle as light as dandelion seeds.

She skirted the large puddles in the lane as she walked to the dark alley that ran behind Aldridge House. It seemed better tonight than it had yesterday. She knew where she was going, and there was more light from the houses on either side—more people were staying in tonight because of the weather.

It helped.

In some places she had to walk through puddles that stretched across the whole width of the alley, and she held her cloak close to make up for the water freezing her feet.

She saw the back door to Goldfern up ahead and slowed. There was no light from Goldfern, and the shadows were long here.

She allowed herself a few moments to listen for the sounds of someone nearby, but there was nothing.

She moved quietly and rapidly to the door, and wriggled the loose brick she’d found yesterday. There was no note tucked behind it.

She slipped her own note in.

The follower wouldn’t know where to look, or even why
Dervish was coming here until it was too late. And unless he attacked Dervish and took the notes by force, he would never read them, either.

She’d have to hope this was enough.

She stood back and looked at the brick carefully. It was easy enough to spot, if you knew what to look for.

She turned and walked quickly away, ears straining for the sound of footsteps following her, for any movement at all.

She was so focused on listening to what was happening behind her, looking back every few steps to make sure she was still alone, that she didn’t pay any attention to what was in front of her.

She turned the corner back into the service alley for Aldridge House, and ran straight into Edgars.