Page 52 of Rakes & Reticules
Three giggling women exited the chamber reserved for women’s personal needs.
Just as she turned around to retrace her steps, Lady Huxley’s sultry voice rooted her in place. “Why are you following me?”
Dread drying her mouth, Siobhan slowly turned around, favoring her supposedly injured ankle.
Expression haughty but etched with satisfaction, Lady Huxley raised an overly plucked eyebrow as she brushed her gloved fingers over the marble-topped table to her left. “Well?”
Where was that man?
Even now, did he observe Siobhan from the shadows?
And where was Fletcher?
The secret passage to his office was mere inches from where the viscountess stood.
“I wasn’t, following you, that is.” Siobhan fluttered her hand, pretending stupidity. “I fear I have lost my way. I have no sense of direction.”
The viscountess’s disconcertingly sudden appearance troubled her.
One moment, she hadn’t been there, and the next, she was.
Equally alarming was Fletcher’s men's peculiar absence.
Tasting fear on her tongue, bitter and acrid, Siobhan fisted her hands against the urge to turn tail and run.
Why hadn’t she listened to Fletcher?
Because she’d been unable to shake the feeling he was in danger.
“And your wanderings just happened to be along the same path I took?” Lady Huxley certainly was a suspicious sort. With good reason, but she didn’t know that.
“I meant to use the ladies’ retiring room to lie down and rest my ankle. It throbs something fierce, but I seemed to have become turned around.” Siobhan mustered a wobbly smile. “Perhaps you could point me in the right direction?”
A nasty smile arching her rouged mouth, Lady Huxley shook her head.
“Did you truly think I would not recognize you?” She pointed her attention toward a wall sconce before flicking it back to Siobhan. “It was a corridor much like this where I passed you the letter to deliver to Fletcher.”
Siobhan barely suppressed a gasp.
A sneer contorted her features. “You clean up well for a street urchin.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Lady Huxleyhadrecognized her.
What game did the woman play?
“As I said before, you are mistaken.” Siobhan lifted her chin. She would not give this addled woman the satisfaction of knowing how frightened she was. “Excuse me.”
“Fire! Fire!” a man bellowed from the ballroom’s direction. “There’s a fire next door.”
Paddy!Kimber!
A deafening cacophony of shrieks and cries followed the unknown man’s announcement as chaos erupted immediately. Everyone knew the horror of the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Siobhan didn’t hesitate a heartbeat before spinning around, prepared to dash back into the ballroom. To get Paddy and Kimber out of the building. To find Fletcher.
Thiswas why the Huxleys were here. The fire was what those men had been about. The monsters had planned this bedlam.
