Tempting a Devil (28 page)

He found the door the clerk had indicated and knocked.

“Come in,” a gruff voice called none too happily. Roger grinned. That was Lyttle, all right.

Lyttle was clearly surprised to see him when he peeked his head around the open door. “Good afternoon, Lyttle,” he said cheerily, stepping into the tiny office and closing the door behind him. Lyttle was a big, tall man, and it seemed as if he was crammed into the office like Gulliver in Lilliput. It was dingy and rather dark, with just one small, grimy window behind Lyttle’s desk. But it smelled of books, which Roger liked.

“Have you finally run afoul of the law?” Lyttle asked with resignation. “I knew it
was only a matter of time.”

“Well, that hardly bodes well for this conversation,” Roger said, refusing to be baited. “Actually I have come to ask a favor.”

“What kind?” Lyttle was naturally suspicious. Even in school it had been nearly impossible to get him to join their youthful high jinks until they’d gotten him sufficiently drunk. Today Lyttle was as disheveled as ever, with his full head of thick, curly dark hair mussed as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly. He didn’t look like he drank anymore, which was too bad. But then again, Roger had just sworn off liquor himself.

“I wish to study the law.”

Lyttle sat there blinking rapidly for several seconds. “What?”

“I wish to study the law. Here. With you.”

The explanation did not satisfy Lyttle. He grew annoyed. “Is this some sort of joke? What are you and Hil up to?”

“It is not a joke,” Roger replied, getting a little annoyed himself. He knew he’d spent the last few years doing … well, pretty much nothing, but it shouldn’t come as such a shock that he wished to enter into a career.

“You are serious,” Lyttle said with amazement. He surprised Roger by suddenly standing with a smile and holding out his hand. “Excellent. I think it’s brilliant.”

“You do?” Roger asked, warily taking Lyttle’s hand. He had a very odd sense of unbalance; as if the two men had just switched places so rapidly, his stomach was rebelling.

“Absolutely,” Lyttle said with authority. “With that face you could talk an angel
out of heaven if you wished, or the devil out of hell.”

Roger peered at his reflection in the grimy window behind the desk, sliding his hand through his hair. “I could, could I?”

Lyttle laughed and let go of Roger’s hand. “Yes, you could. With my face I’m lucky to have any clients at all. With yours? We’re going to have a waiting list.” He walked around his desk.

“We?” Roger asked curiously.

“Of course,” Lyttle said, leaning on his desk in front of Roger. “You didn’t think I was going to do this favor for free, did you? We’ll be brilliant partners, you’ll see.”

“I see now,” Roger said drily. He had no strong objections to it. Lyttle was a serious, hard-working sort of fellow. “All right.”

“What do you know of it? The law?”

“Not much,” Roger admitted. “I know you practice at Chancery, of course, and that I must go through one of the Inns to be asked to the Bar. Naturally when the idea arose I thought of you and Gray’s Inn.”

“Naturally,” Lyttle said. He clapped Roger on the back amiably. “I need a break from these briefs. Let’s take a walk and I’ll tell you all you need to know,” he said, leading Roger out of his office and out of The Hall.

“How long will it take?” Roger asked, which was the most important question. He had other plans, too, plans that started here.

“Eager, are you?” Lyttle asked. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain widow, would it?” he asked slyly with a wink. “Can’t blame you for finally falling, my friend. And I can’t think of a better reason to give up your profligate life and settle into a
career.”

“Well, I can think of several better reasons,” Roger answered, “but she seems to be the one that stuck.”

Lyttle laughed. “With your degree, three years, I should say. You’ll attend readings and lectures, and you’ll have to be here on a regular basis to dine, very important.”

“Three years should be enough time,” he mused.

“Enough time for what?” Lyttle asked as they approached the wrought iron gates leading to the famous gardens of Gray’s Inn.

He took a deep breath of the refreshing air in the garden, and it felt momentous, this change in his life. “Enough time for her to forgive me, of course,” Roger replied.

* * *

“We’re what?” Roger asked Hil late that night, absolutely sure he had not heard correctly. They were in Hil’s carriage with Wiley, destination unknown. In typical Hil fashion, he’d dragged Roger from his bed with no explanation and shoved him into the carriage. After a year with Hil, Roger had grown used to it. He’d supposed they were off on one of his midnight capers to solve a puzzle or some such thing. Which they were, but it was a caper far too close to Roger’s interests for his liking.

“We are going to get Lady Mercer and track down the man you ran down when he tried to kidnap her son in the park, and then again the other night. Wiley believes he’s found him.” Roger turned to glare at Wiley, who had slunk down in his seat and lowered the brim of his hat to cover his eyes, the very picture of guilt. Hil went on. “She feels that
she would be able to identify him on sight. She is eager to find him, because she believes we can tie him to Faircloth and it will give her the ammunition she needs to drive him away.”

Roger took a deep breath and counted to ten. “So you are telling me you think it is a good idea to collect the lady at midnight and spirit her away to one of the worst parts of London in order to confront a known criminal?” His voice had risen quite a bit by the end of his question.

“Told you he wouldn’t like it one bit,” Wiley mumbled from behind his hat.

“Not like it one bit?” Roger ground out. “That is a gross understatement. In all of the harebrained, ridiculously dangerous adventures you have embarked upon, Hilary St. John, this is the most outrageous. And I refuse to let you drag Harry into it.” All his plans today would be for naught if Harry were hurt. “Absolutely not.”

* * *

“What are we supposed to do now?” Harry whispered three hours later as they were hiding in a dark alley off Tottenham Court Road. The alley stank like things Roger would rather not think about, and the very fact that Harry stood in that stink made him want to retch with horror. He had to close his eyes and clamp his mouth shut. Why had he not insisted more virulently that she not accompany them? Harry was the one who could talk the devil out of hell. This was a bad, bad idea. He knew Hil had some ulterior motive, most likely matchmaking. He had the oddest notions of how to go about that. This was taking it a step too far.

“We wait,” Hil said for the hundredth time.

“This isn’t terribly exciting, is it?” she ventured a few minutes later.

“No,” Roger said, spinning around to pin her with a glare. “Which is why I can’t imagine why you are here.”

She sniffed at him disdainfully. “He speaks.”

“What does that mean?” he whispered roughly. It was almost too dark to see her features, but her blond locks, what could be seen peeping out from beneath the hood of her voluminous cape, caught the moonlight like a beacon. He looked up at the roofs of the buildings around them, trying in vain to see if there was anyone there watching them. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen in awareness of their precarious situation. There were only three of them to protect her from a horde of potential villains.

“It means you have not said one word to me since we left Manchester Square,” she hissed at him. “Just because you didn’t get your way and leave me behind is no reason to be so childish.”

“Childish?” he asked, dumbfounded. “Who is being childish? You rushed headlong into this ill-begotten scheme, just as when we were children. You don’t think, Harry.”

“I don’t think?” she repeated his words with venom. “I don’t think? I beg your pardon, Mr. Templeton, but I thought a great deal about this evening’s scheme, as you put it. Can you think of a better way of catching him?”

“Yes,” he said. “We go to Lavender and let him catch him.”

She paled so quickly it was even noticeable in the dark alley. “You would tell Lavender?” she whispered in horror. She spun away. “Oh, you are horrible.”

Roger winced and cursed his stupid tongue. “No, that is not what I meant, Harry.
Surely he can help without having to know the particulars.”

“Don’t see how, mate,” Wiley offered. “All clues lead to Faircloth, and seems the lady thinks he’d reveal all. So even if you didn’t speak it, he would. Specially if he’s got the threat of the law hanging over him.”

“Fine,” Roger agreed reluctantly. “No Lavender. But why must Harry be here? I saw the man, I could identify him.”

“You said yourself you didn’t get a good look at him, not from the front,” Hil said.

Before he could answer, Wiley shushed them, waving his hand at them to be quiet. He was point man at the end of the alley, keeping an eye on the flats across the way.

Harry plastered herself against the side of the building, and Roger rolled his eyes at her theatrics. She’d run screaming if she knew what she was most likely getting on her clothing. “Is it him?” she asked.

“Yes,” Wiley whispered back. He motioned for her to come forward. As she began to move, Roger instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. She tried to tug it free with a frown. Resigned to seeing this through, he went ahead of her, keeping her behind him at all times, with Hil bringing up the rear behind her. She did not seem inclined to protest.

When they reached the end of the alley, Wiley moved out of their way. Roger looked first, but he couldn’t tell. The man was about the right height, and had whiskers. Other than that, he could have been anyone. He pulled Harry up next to him, between his body and the building. “What do you think?” he whispered very quietly, his lips pressed
to her ear. She shivered.

“Yes, I think so,” she whispered back. Then she shook her head. “It’s too dark.”

Roger pulled her back into the alley to where Hil and Wiley waited. “We can’t be sure,” Roger told them in hushed tones. “It’s too dark and he’s too far away. But he seems to fit the description.”

“I have to … to take care of a delicate situation,” Harry said in a horrified whisper.

“What?” Wiley asked her in complete confusion.

“Now?” Roger asked incredulously.

She nodded miserably. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m quite nervous, and you know that always happens.”

He did know. He’d lost count of the times he’d had to keep watch while Harry ducked into the bushes to do her business when they were children.

“Well, that does it,” Roger said flatly. “I’m taking you home.” He turned to Hil and Wiley. “You go and see him. Perhaps if Harry and I aren’t there, we won’t spook him into thinking we’re going to denounce him. Offer him a deal to turn on Faircloth.”

“Roger’s right,” Wiley agreed. “Best plan. Money talks.”

“I’ll just go to the end of the alley,” Harry argued. “Then we can all go.”

“No,” all three men said at once.

“Do you have any idea what lives in this alley?” Roger asked her. “Or what goes on here? Trust me, you do not want to get anywhere near that.”

She took a step back, her eyes wide, as if she could get away from it when she was still standing in it. Roger grabbed her hand. “We’re going back the way we came in,”
he told Hil. “We’re taking the carriage, but I’ll send it back round.”

Hil nodded. “Fine. If you keep to the same path, it’s a short walk to Charing Cross.”

“Seems to me, we could have agreed on this plan without her coming along,” Wiley grumbled.

“I believe that was my point three hours ago,” Roger said.

“But it was very exciting,” Harry said with a great deal of relish. “I love adventure.”

“Of course you do,” Roger said, then he pulled her out of the alley and along the buildings to the next corner and dragged her home.

* * *

Roger followed Harry inside and closed the door quietly behind him, not wanting to wake the household. She’d barely said a word the entire ride. Once inside, she hurried up the stairs, not even bothering to tell Roger where she was going. He knew. He grinned as he followed her up. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

“I’m surprised you still react that way to nerves,” he observed when she returned to her bedroom several minutes later.

He was sitting in the little rose-colored chair, watching the door for her. Tonight’s adventure had put a great deal in perspective. His law studies wouldn’t be upset if he moved the timetable up on his plans for Harry. He knew who he was, and where he was going, and what he wanted. And making Harry his in every way now would solve her current problem. And so he’d waited for her, with the odd sense that he’d been waiting
for a very long time.

She was noticeably surprised to see him. “I thought you’d left,” she said. She hesitated a moment and then came in, closing the bedroom door. He hadn’t expected that. Instead he’d thought he might have roughly thirty seconds to plead his case before she threw him out.

“We need to talk,” he said.

She began to remove the pins from her hair. She’d left her cape and gloves somewhere along the way. “I’m tired, and I have nothing else to say. You know it all now.” She sounded tired and very unhappy. Roger wished he wasn’t the one who’d made her so.

“Harry, I was just … taken by surprise the other night. I didn’t expect … that is, I didn’t know. It was a shock.”

“I’m sure it was,” she agreed. She was directly beside him now, placing her pins on the dressing table. She was dressed all in black, and not for the first time tonight he wondered if they were the clothes she’d worn to mourn her dead husband. She faced the mirror and ran her hands through her hair before picking up her hairbrush. She began to brush out the long, thick curls, and Roger’s stomach clenched in the first rush of desire. He stood abruptly and she took a quick step back. She didn’t flinch when he reached for the brush, but he thought it was a battle to resist the telltale reaction.

“Let me,” he said quietly. “I’ve had fantasies about this hair.”