Page 13 of A Family Of His Own
“Just as well we did.” She ignored the fallen dresses, reached to the back of the deep wardrobe, and dragged out the two bags she’d already packed with what she’d decided to take to England.
Giving mental thanks for her habit of never putting off until tomorrow what she could do today, of carefully planning and always being ready ahead of time, she hurried to her dressing table, crouched and released the catch for the hidden drawer, and rapidly emptied her mother’s jewelry into a small drawstring bag.
She was dimly aware of Toby moving from room to room downstairs. Thank God he’d been with her! She didn’t want to think of what might have happened had she returned to the house alone, as she might have done. She’d never felt threatened in Vienna before, but after seeing what had happened to Herschel, only a fool wouldn’t be frightened.
After tucking the jewelry into one of her traveling bags, she returned to the dressing table and swept her brushes, combs, and pins into the satchel she’d previously used for ferrying medicines and instructions to her father’s patients.
She looped the satchel’s belt over her head and one shoulder, then paused to scan the room. She would add the essentials she’d taken to the Lowelstrasse house to her bags later, but otherwise, that was it. She had everything she needed to take.
On hearing Toby’s footsteps on the stairs, she picked up her bags and went out onto the landing. She set the bags at the top of the stairs and went into her father’s bedroom.
She halted in the doorway, looked around, and sighed. Herschel had spent quite a bit of time there, ripping, slashing, tearing everything apart. His search had been nothing short of frenzied. Luckily, she’d already taken all the mementos she wanted.
She sensed Toby come up behind her. He halted and surveyed the room over her head. “He was searching for the dispatches. He was desperate to find them.”
“Those men—were they your ‘Prussians’?”
“Yes. Jager and Koch. At a guess, they had some hold over Herschel and were using him to access the papers.”
She sensed Toby step away and move to her bags.
“You were quick. Just as well, because we need to leave now.”
“I was already packed—I told you I was intending to leave with whomever Winchelsea sent, and Herschel was waiting to take over the house. I just needed to gather a few last things.” She turned to see Toby douse the lamp that had been burning on the little table on the landing, then he set his hat, which he’d retrieved, on his head, hefted her bags, and started down the stairs. She followed.
He waited for her at the bottom of the stairs. He’d clamped the handles of both her bags as well as his cane in one hand, leaving the other free to grasp and hold hers.
He’d already dimmed the lamp in the dining room to a mere glow, but even in the poor light, she could discern the grim cast of his features.
“Come on.” He turned and led the way to the front door.
As they passed along the dark corridor, she grew conscious of her heart beating hard and fast. It had been since she’d entered the house, and the sensation of his hand wrapped about hers wasn’t exactly soothing.
She didn’t trust easily, especially not men. As her father’s nurse, she’d seen too much of the pain men caused women, even those they professed to love. Yet despite her irritating physical reaction to Toby Cynster, she trusted him. Some part of her knew beyond question that he would move heaven and earth to keep her safe. What struck her as truly strange was that her trust was wholly instinctive and utterly absolute.
Very odd, and when he paused behind the front door and released her hand to edge the door farther open and peer into the street, she was annoyingly aware of the loss of the warmth of his hand about hers.
Toby looked up and down the narrow street and saw no one. He strained his ears, but detected no footsteps.
If—when—Jager and Koch approached, it would be with their usual bull-in-a-china-shop march.
He stepped through the door and, when no threat materialized, reached back and drew Diana out. He was banking on Jager and Koch believing that Herschel had been the only one in the house and, therefore, not rushing to get there and check on the thoroughness of Herschel’s search.
That they would come, Toby felt sure, but he’d seen no sign that they’d realized Herschel had been fleeing, that there had been pursuers. They’d behaved as if Herschel had simply turned up in a rush at a prearranged rendezvous; they’d certainly been waiting for him.
Keeping hold of Diana’s hand, Toby led her in the opposite direction to that from which they’d approached the house. The route also took them away from the street where they’d seen Jager and Koch. The pair would have to dispose of the body in some way before heading to the surgery, and Toby wanted to steer well clear of them.
In his head, he searched for a suitable place for the discussion he and Diana had to have, then plotted a roundabout route to get them there safely.
He scanned the shadows as they went, grateful that she walked silently beside him. He didn’t speak until they were several blocks away. “So that was your father’s partner.”
“Yes. Herr Herschel.”
“What nationality was he?”
She glanced at him. “Austrian.” Her tone grew colder. “But those were the Prussians, so he was working for them.”
“So it seems.”
