Page 49 of Earl's Well That Ends Well (The Way to a Lord's Heart 5)

“Jeanne and Elena? I seen a fellow talking to each of them. A goodish while. On different nights.”

“What sort of fellow?”

“English,” Tom replied. “Nobleman, I’d say. Fine clothes but didn’t seem to set much store by them. Expected people to make way, that sort of thing.”

Teresa nodded. She knew the type well. “We must find out his name and see what we can discover about him.”

“Right,” said Tom. “I can get some of my friends to keep an eye out for him. See where he goes outside the theater. Mebbe they can overhear a bit of conversation.”

“Good.” Teresa folded the page and put it in her reticule. At last they seemed to be making progress.

With the air of one turning to the next order of business, Tom said, “There’s been somebody asking questions about you outside here, last couple of days.” He gestured at the door of the workshop.

“Me?”

“Dark fellow with an arched nose,” Tom added. “He catches folks as they’re leaving. Makes up to them. He took Sanders for a mug of beer. Sanders likes to talk, y’ know.”

Teresa’s heart sank. She had no doubt this visitor was Alessandro Peron, the supposedconde. She had not expected him to be so persistent.

“I saw him talking to Lord Macklin.”

Any triumph Teresa had felt at the progress of their investigation faded. What had Peron said to the earl? “He is someone I knew in Spain.”

“Not a friend.”

“No.”

“Enemy?” asked Tom.

She had not thought so. She had never done anything to Peron. Except refuse to help him in England. Perhaps this was his revenge. “He is one of those who takes joy in malice,” she said.

Tom nodded. “Want me to run him off?”

He did not ask for reasons to take her side, still less excuses. His faith warmed her heart, even as his careless confidence worried her. Alessandro Peron would see Tom as a worthless underling. His response would be vicious. “No.”

“You think I can’t?”

She did have doubts, but more, she didn’t want to risk him. “I will take care of this matter.” She would find some means, though this was not as simple as routing Dilch.

Tom gazed at her with an understanding beyond his years. “Blackmailer?” he asked.

Startled, Teresa drew back. So much of the time Tom seemed just a jolly lad, ready with a fantastical phrase or a joke. It was easy to forget that beneath that surface he was acutely, in this moment alarmingly, observant. And he knew as much about the seamier side of the world as she—perhaps even more. With all this, he was a staunch friend. He would never disdain her choices. Teresa nodded. “I have done things in my life, in order to survive, of which I’m not proud.”

“So have I,” said Tom, looking not the least disturbed. Nor did he ask for details, as some might have.

“This man knows of those things.”

“And he’ll tell ’em, to anybody, if it gets him anything he wants.”

“Yes.”

“Even just a bit of revenge. To hurt you, like.”

She acknowledged that with another nod.

Tom spat out a curse that had no Shakespearean elegance.

They sat in silence. The first artisans began to trickle into the workshop.

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