Page 58 of Someone to Watch Over Me
“Thank you, but I have no money,” Victoria said in a low tone, jerking her arm free and walking away.
The fortune-teller persisted, however, following with a spry step and catching once more at her wrist. “I’ll tell it fer nothing, luv!” Her voice rose to an inviting screech not unlike the parrots at the bird dealer’s. “Come one an’ all…Who wants to ‘ear the lovely lass’s fortune?”
Realizing the woman intended to use her as some kind of advertisement, Victoria pulled hard against the restraining clutch of her hand. “No,” she said sharply. “Let me go.”
The minor scuffle attracted a few gazes, and Victoria glanced warily over the crowd as she broke free from the fortune-teller. Suddenly she caught sight of a gentleman’s pale gray hat, and her chest contracted painfully with alarm. It looked exactly like the one Mr. Keyes wore. But he couldn’t have followed her so quickly, could he?
She searched for another glimpse of the hat, but it was gone. Perhaps she had imagined it, she thought anxiously, and hurried eastward toward the massive pillared portico of the opera house. The towering height of the four fluted columns that fronted the building made the swarming public look like a colony of ants. Some sort of protest was being staged, a mob in front shouting at the closed doors. Gentlemen and beggars alike contributed to the tumult, all of them barking and braying about a recent increase in admittance prices.
“Old prices!” many of the disgruntled patrons were calling. “We want old prices!”
“Too high, too high!” others screamed.
Plunging into the noisy throng, Victoria pushed her way deep into the crowd until she came to the lee of one of the Doric columns. Leaning back against the cold stone, she stood very still, pulse thrumming, while the crowd surged and booed and moved around her. She stared fixedly at the reliefs set in the panel before her, a carved figure of Shakespeare, the Muses, and above it, a statue of Comedy set in a niche.
Keyes was following her; she couldfeelit.
Keyes thought she was Vivien, and he was going to kill her either out of vengeance or because he had been hired to do so. If he knew she had left the house, he would guess that her first thought of sanctuary was number 4 Bow Street. He would do everything in his power to stop her from reaching Sir Ross.
Suddenly Victoria experienced a flare of anger at the unjust situation. She was in danger through no fault of her own. She had come to London out of worry for her sister, and then one bizzare event after another had led to this.
It seemed the sky opened up, torrents of water suddenly breaking through the air, causing the mob to disperse rapidly and search for shelter. The heavy splashing rain saturated the scene, sluicing over umbrellas and hats, soaking through clothes and shoes.
Taking a deep breath, Victoria looked around the column again and glanced over the crowd. She caught sight of the gray hat again, and terror shot through her as she recognized Keyes. He was standing perhaps fifty yards away as he questioned someone, his face set and cold, his posture betraying extreme tension. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
As if he sensed her gaze, Keyes turned and looked directly at her. His expressionless face suddenly contorted angrily. He shoved the man he was questioning out of the way and started for Victoria with murder in his eyes. Victoria bolted at once, pushing her way through the scattering throng and running alongside the opera house. She saw the corner of Russell Street and tripped on the cobbled carriageway. She fought to regain her balance, aware that Keyes was closing the distance between them.You won’t stop me, she thought with grim determination. Shewouldreach Bow Street, damn him…She had come too far to fail now.
Grant hurtled through his own front door, his face white as a skull as he beheld the unusual gathering of servants in the entrance hall, footmen and housemaids clustered around Mrs. Buttons.
“Mr. Morgan!” the housekeeper exclaimed, rushing forward without her usual calm dignity. She seemed anxious, perplexed, a few skeins of her graying hair escaping the usually immaculate coil atop her head. Grant had never seen her in such disarray.
“Where is she?” he asked savagely, though his insides were already screaming in denial at the obvious answer.
“Thank the Lord you’re back,” Mrs. Buttons chattered nervously. “I was about to take it upon myself to send a note to Bow Street, as we didn’t know when you might return, and I thought it important to verify Sir Ross’s request—”
“What the devil are you talking about?” He glanced at the assembled servants with their funereal expressions. “Where is Victoria?” he snapped.
The question caused all the faces in the entrance hall to pucker in confusion. “Victoria?” the housekeeper repeated bemusedly.
Grant shook his head impatiently. “Vivien. Miss Duvall. The woman who has been living here for the past few weeks, dammit. Where is she? Where is Keyes?”
A moment of heavy silence ensued, charging his nerves with immediate alarm and fury. No one wanted to answer him, he realized, and in his consternation he barked out a question at a volume that made all of them jump.
“Someone tell me what’s happened, damn you!”
Mary stepped forward, her shoulders slumped and her head slightly ducked, as if she suspected he might be tempted to strike her. “It was my fault, sir,” she said in a small voice. “I saw Miss Duvall leave the house. On the servants’ stairs, heading to the outside door by the kitchen. She asked me not to tell anyone. She said it was life and death to her. But I thought ‘twould be best to go to Mrs. Buttons, and so I did.”
Grant’s blood pumped brutally hard, causing a drumming noise in his ears. “Life and death,” he repeated thickly. Victoria had somehow realized the danger she was in, and bolted.
Mrs. Buttons smoothed her hands repeatedly on her apron front, as if she couldn’t seem to blot her palms thoroughly enough. “You see, sir, Mr. Keyes said immediately upon his arrival that Sir Ross had asked him to bring Miss Duvall to Bow Street. His manner was rather odd and cold. In the years that I’ve been acquainted with him, I’ve never seen him quite like this. It was clear Miss Duvall did not want to go away with him, but she asked leave to change into her walking shoes. And while we waited for her in the library, she slipped out of the house. I suppose any woman in her position would be a bit fearful of strangers.”
“I watched her from the window as she left.” Mary interceded. “She was heading to the market, it looked like. With Mr. Keyes going right after her.”
“She’s going to Bow Street,” Grant muttered. As far as Victoria knew, it was the only place of safety other than this house. He snapped out a command for one of the footmen to take a horse and ride hell-for-leather to Bow Street. “Tell Cannon to call out every man available. Tell him to cover every inch of Covent Garden and the surrounding streets with constables, Runners, and watchmen until Miss Duvall and Keyes are both found. Now,hurry—I want your arse in Cannon’s office in less than five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” The footman headed for the back of the house in an outright run, taking the shortest possible route to the stables.
Grant charged outside, barely aware of the rain that soaked his hair and clothes. A strange feeling had taken hold of him, a fear he had never experienced before. He had never given a thought to his own safety, had known that he possessed sufficient wits and physical strength to muddle through whatever danger he found himself in. But this fear for someone else, this blend of love and terror and fury, was the worst kind of agony.
