Page 85 of The Knight's Pledge
Lucan’s instinct tingled. He hadn’t trusted Stephen at the very last of their stay at the house on the Strand, and now the man’s prying and refusal of entrance shouted danger to Lucan.
“No one,” Lucan said. “Only a servant.” He stepped back from the door. “You’ll tell Lady Margaret I called?”
“Certainly,” Stephen assured him. “May I tell her where you can be found while you await your audiencewith the king?”
Now Lucanknewsomething was afoot. He took another step back. “No. No, that won’t be necessary, Stephen.”
“Very well. Good day to you, Sir Lucan.” The steward closed the door.
Lucan trotted down the steps and took Agrios’s reins from the stable boy. “Come on,” he muttered to Thomas. “Quickly. Keep your head down, and don’t look toward the house.”
“What is it?” Thomas took charge of his mount and they both gained the saddle, Thomas following Lucan awayfrom the house.
“Something is amiss,” he said as they trotted down the street, retracing the path on which they’d just arrived. “The house is no longer safe for us.”
“Whyisn’t it safe?”
“I don’t yet know,” Lucan said. “But Margaret has never turned me away before. And I swear I saw a man within that looked like the one that tried to waylay us on ourjourney north.”
“Could it be him that took the satchel?”
“I don’t know, Thomas,” Lucan said. “I just don’t know.”
They only waited perhaps a quarter hour before Lucan spotted James Rose’s tall, lean frame in the saddle, weaving toward them. Lucan could tell that, despite the young man’s animosity toward him, James was alarmed at Lucan’s and Thomas’s presence at the head of the alley. He turned aside and spoke words that did not reach Lucan’s ears, and a moment later, Effie came riding through the group, concern onher pale face.
“What is it?”she demanded.
Lucan briefly told the group what had transpired at the house, his refusal at the door, and his suspicions. Chumleycursed quietly.
“Where do we stay, then?” Gorman asked. “If Lady Margaret is somehow in league with our enemies?”
Lucan looked about at all of them. “We could try our luck at one of the inns,” he said. “I’m not at all certain we won’t be followed.”
“Why would they follow us now, though?” Bob asked. “They already have the satchel.”
“To kill us,” Effie answered at once. “Or at least myself or my father. Perhaps Sir Lucan, as well.”
Lucan nodded. “If Caris Hargrave has the evidence in her possession, all that is needed to guarantee her victory is for the witnesses against her to be dead.”
“But what about your sister?” Gorman asked. “She’s in the very lion’s den.”
Lucan nodded, the dark realization coming to him as his gaze automatically went to Effie’s. “Indeed, she is.”
Effie looked away, her expression crestfallen.
James Rose sighed. “Would you care to share with the rest of us what is apparently so obvious?”
“We’ve got to go on to Westminster, at once,” Lucan said.
“Now?” Gorman clarified with a frown. “Tonight, unprepared?”
“It’s the safest place for us,” Lucan said. “At least, safer than any in the city will likely be, if indeed Lady Margaretis against us.”
“You led us into a trap,” James Rose accused. “That bloody fancy house was never safe. We shouldn’t have gone there in the firstbloody place.”
Lucan didn’t argue with the man, for he could in fact be correct.
“Must we all go?” Kit Katey asked. “The king knows not of us.”
