Jaeger had been here. One street over. He knew Dot’s telephone number. He knew where she lived. He knew Drake was there.
His blood felt as cold in his veins as the November air. Jaeger now knew all of this . . . but what did he mean to do with the knowledge? What, exactly, would he deem the proper payment for a foiled shipment of anthrax?
Try as he might to cling to the admiral’s insistence that a professional win would not be met with a personal vendetta, Drake had begun doubting that logic the moment Hall told him about the call’s origin. Because he was here.
That felt blighted personal.
He had to know if the man in the overcoat was linked to him somehow. So here he was, on the street, with a grey overcoat of his own. Some of his sister’s facial powder in his hair to make it seem grey, too, a stoop to his spine that didn’t require much thought to maintain just now, and an old hat on his head—his father’s. Dot must have kept it. Drake’s favorite was no doubt still tumbling about the countryside in Spain, unless a local had rescued it after the wind stole it from his head on top of the train.
He’d brought a cane with him too—the one the doctor had given him but which he’d refused to use in the flat. He didn’t need it, not in general. There was nothing wrong with his legs. But it would help with the image he was trying to project now. With a bit of luck, no one would look past the overall image to his unlined face.
Usually he made it a point not to stoop in pain when he was walking. Now he let himself and exaggerated it until his spine curved over the cane. Head tucked down so that passersby would see Father’s old hat more than Drake’s young face, he hobbled toward the abandoned shop whose door the mystery man liked to lean against.
He’d been there twenty minutes ago, whoever the bloke was. And, yes, he was there still. Drake’s pulse kicked up a few beautiful beats per minute, but he did no more than glance at that doorway. He’d chosen the back entrance of his building so that whoever-he-was wouldn’t be alerted. Now he shuffled across the street, aiming for a bench positioned at a bus stop at which buses never stopped anymore. Most of London’s buses had been sent to the front to move soldiers and supplies.
He settled onto the bench, his back to the bloke. Drew out a newspaper to unfold in front of his own face. And a mirror too. Careful to keep it shaded enough that the sun wouldn’t send out a homing beacon, Drake angled it until he could see the man behind him.
For five minutes, the only movement on the street came from everyone else bustling by. No one paused to question him, no one seemed to even notice he was there. Then, at just the time the chap had vanished each previous day, he moved. Folded his paper and tucked it into his overcoat’s inner pocket.
He kept his face down, so that an observer from the windows above wouldn’t see his features. But Drake was now at the perfect angle for that. Thanks to the mirror, that tucking of his chin actually presented his face to him.
Familiar . . . maybe. Drake frowned and tried to memorize each angle and plane. It wasn’t Jaeger—of that much he was certain. But some chord of memory still jangled. Another of the blokes Charles the Bold had provided photographs of, perhaps? He couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t paid close enough attention to any of them but the one he’d identified as his opposite number.
But he was paying attention now. Whoever he was, Drake would be able to identify him in an instant if they crossed paths anywhere else.
Dark hair, long enough to brush his ears on the sides and collar in back. A trim beard that hid a nearly delicate mouth. Brows with an inquisitive slant to them.
The chap strode away, his pace just fast enough to blend in with most other pedestrians going about their business. Drake had no hope of keeping up with him, and frankly, he didn’t intend to follow just now anyway. He’d only wanted to see him.
And now he had. The next step, which would be considerably trickier, would be to discover whether he had anything to do with Jaeger.
He sat for another few minutes, working it out in his mind. How could he learn the man’s identity? Following him was certainly his best recourse, and it would be made easier thanks to the man leaving his post at the exact same time every day. Drake himself couldn’t keep up, but . . . Red could. The changes he’d made to his prosthetic recently had been ingenious. His stride now was sure and smooth, and he could walk at a normal pace.
Red had done a bit of sleuthing for Margot, right? Maybe he’d be willing to do a bit more for Drake. Heaven knew the money he’d pay him for it would be welcome.
He should be coming by soon. They’d have tea, and Drake would pretend he needed the break from his work. He pushed himself off the bench, admitting another rather unwelcome truth to himself—he’d only dared come down here because he knew that help would be arriving soon, should he need it to get back up the stairs.
But pride insisted he try on his own first. Pride, and the fact that he was none too certain that Red wouldn’t tattle to Dot if he found him down here.
“Elton?”
Drake looked up, trying to place the voice, managing it only when he saw the face it matched. He began to smile for the old friend he hadn’t seen in seven years.
The smile turned to an oompf of protest when said old friend landed a fist in Drake’s stomach. He doubled over, the searing pain that exploded through his abdomen making it impossible to so much as shout a plea to stop.
Phillip Camden wasn’t given the chance to hit him again anyway—Red flew in from somewhere or another, pushing the idiot back with a shout that seemed nothing but wordless din to Drake’s ears.
His knees buckled. The bench was still there behind him, and he collapsed onto it, clutching his side. Though he almost wished for the ground, where he could have curled up in a ball until his vision cleared of the white-hot agony.
After an eternity, Camden’s blistering words made it through the ringing in his ears. “. . . didn’t ask you for your help, you blighted—”
“Don’t you go a step closer or I’ll—”
“This is between me and—”
“I don’t know who you are, you idiot, but when you go around punching a man who was just shot, it becomes my business.”
Drake drew in a breath, rather experimentally, and slid his hand to his injury. He couldn’t detect any fresh blood. The blighter had landed his fist on the side opposite the wound. That was something. Perhaps it would be only pain and not a reopening that would set him back another week or two.
“He probably deserved to get shot if he goes around interfering with everyone else like he did with—”
A solid whack drew Drake’s attention from the street just in time to see Camden stagger back and Red’s fist recoiling from where it had met with the idiot’s jaw.
Apparently Drake had a bodyguard. And apparently he needed one.
His next breath still hurt, but not quite as much as the previous. He forced himself to sit up a little bit straighter. Camden wasn’t taking a return swing at Red, anyway, just glaring at Drake as if his eyes were flamethrowers.
That told him quite a bit, really. Drake tried to smile, though it felt more like a grimace. “You know, Cam, we civilized people usually greet old chums with a ‘hello’ rather than a fist.”
Camden pushed Red away and dabbed at the corner of his mouth, still staring at Drake. “You ought to have stayed out of it. It’s no concern of yours if I rot in prison or am executed.”
Had Hall told him Drake was the one who’d suggested he recruit him? That was a bit surprising. But apparently so, as otherwise Camden couldn’t possibly have made the connection. “I didn’t do it for you.” His smile emerged a little surer this time. “I did it for your mother. Don’t you remember when I kept you from getting expelled when we were twelve? She sent me biscuits every week for a year.”
Camden’s laugh could better be termed a breath. But his shoulders sagged, and the flames shooting from his eyes died down to coals. Stepping around Red—who probably would have lunged at him again if Drak
e hadn’t given him a little shake of the head—Camden fell onto the bench beside him. “She’ll probably start a campaign for you to be knighted for this.”
“Then I’ll practice answering to Sir Drake, because once your mother sets her mind to a thing, it’s all but guaranteed.”
There, a hint of a smile. Just a hint of one, in one corner of Camden’s mouth. But it sure beat a fist.
Camden sighed and rubbed a hand over his jaw, which was reddening. “You were shot?”
“Only a bit.”
“Only a bit?” Red, looking just as irritated with Drake now as he was with Camden, stepped forward, glowering. “You nearly died, and you are nowhere near ready to be on your feet out here. What were you thinking coming outside on your own?”
Camden sent Red one of the smirks that had landed him in the headmaster’s office at least once a week in their school days. “You know, Elton, you seem to have got cheated on the nursemaid front. She isn’t pretty at all.”
Red’s fingers curled into fists again. “Are you spoiling for another fight, you—”
“Yes. He is.” Drake held up a hand to keep Red that crucial step away. “Kindly don’t oblige him.”
Camden only glanced briefly at Drake, but the glance was directed at his abdomen, which he hadn’t yet convinced his hand to release. Camden pursed his lips. “That’s not the side I hit, is it?”
Drake forced his spine a little straighter. “Luckily not or I’d be on the ground instead of a bench.”
Camden swallowed. He wouldn’t apologize—he never did. But he nodded and said, “I’ll owe you one.”
And a favor from Phillip Camden was worth more than an apology from any other man anyway. Drake grinned as best he could. “Excellent. I shall be sure to collect at the most inconvenient moment possible.”
Camden produced a smile too. A fleeting one, soon gone. “I think your nursemaid would like you to get back inside now, Elton. She looks ready to cluck at any moment.”
Red looked ready to take another swing at him, more like.
Drake cleared his throat and hoped Red had the sense not to rise to the bait. He motioned him forward. “Could you give me a hand up, Holmes?” He usually would have tried to regain his feet without help, but if Red was busy supporting him, he wouldn’t be able to engage with Camden again.
Red stepped forward without taking his wary gaze off Camden and hooked a hand under Drake’s elbow.
Shocking was the fact that Camden hooked one under his other and helped get him back to his feet, somehow managing the act with a look on his face that denied he was doing it to be kind. Camden didn’t believe in ever being caught in an act of kindness.
Drake directed his thanks only toward Red, who was muttering something about the apparent dangers of choosing the wrong sorts of friends and leaning down to retrieve the cane Drake must have let fall in the scuffle.
Dropping his hand back to his side, Camden took a step away, smirking again. “Now, now. Don’t chide, miss. I’m not such a bad friend. I would have paid him a visit days ago had it not taken me this long to pry from his sister where he could be found.”
He always knew which buttons to push, didn’t he? Drake leaned into Red to keep him still and willed the chap’s eyes not to blaze a response, though guile had never been Red’s forte. For his own part, Drake kept his smile clear. “Settling in at the OB, are you? How goes the training?”
The smirk faded—proving either that Red hadn’t reacted or that Camden was genuinely interested in the subject, one or the other. “Not as riveting as prison, but I suppose it’ll do. De Wilde assures me I’m ‘not a complete dunce,’ which I believe is the highest of praise.”
Drake felt as though another fist had landed in his stomach. “Margot De Wilde?” She was the one training him? This man as notorious for charming the females as he was for provoking his chums?
Perhaps Drake should have thought it through a bit more before suggesting Hall bring him on.
But the lift of Camden’s brows was absent its usual challenge. “Is that her given name? Everyone in the office just calls her De Wilde, as if she were a man. Frankly, it seems most of them forget that she isn’t.”
Red shifted. “That makes no sense. How could one forget she’s a girl? She’s pretty—”
“Pretty can’t make up for terrifying.” Camden’s smirk this time seemed to be, if Drake weren’t mistaken, at his own expense. “I tried flirting with her yesterday, and she calmly informed me that if I didn’t desist immediately, she had no fewer than one hundred and twenty-three ways to make my life miserable, sixty-five percent of which had been field tested and were without fail.”
Drake’s lips twitched up too. That sounded about right—though it wasn’t how she’d responded to him, at least. No threats, just . . . questions. He ought to have known, he supposed, that he needn’t worry she’d succumb to Camden’s charms. Charm didn’t seem to be what drew her.
Hopefully he knew what would though. He’d had Red drop a few letters in the post for him yesterday—one to Abuelo, and the encoded letter for her. It ought to be delivered to her today. Tomorrow at the latest. And she’d realize it was from him in about two seconds, so he might soon know how she’d respond to it. His throat went tight.
As for Camden . . . Drake cleared his throat and lifted a brow. “And you didn’t take her threats as a challenge?”
“I prefer my women with a bit of softness to go along with their pretty faces, thank you.” That glint reentered his eyes. “Your sister turned out quite well, Elton. When last I saw her, she was just a scrawny little thing, but I do believe she’s one of the loveliest girls in the OB.”
Red’s fingers went tight around Drake’s elbow. Drake kept his smile easy though. “She’s spoken for, of course.” Or would be, as soon as Red worked up the courage.
Camden chuckled. “You think I’d let that stop me if I were determined?”
A good point. “And she’s Margot De Wilde’s dearest friend.”
“Oh yes, I already worked that one out.” He winced. Actually winced, which made Drake all kinds of curious as to what Margot had done or threatened to do to him. Camden clapped a hand to Drake’s shoulder and then angled away. “I need to get back to the office. But I’ll drop by sometime when your nursemaid isn’t here for a proper visit.”
“Mm. So long as you leave your fists at home.”
Camden’s smile looked like it always had—carefree and more than a little mischievous—but his eyes were absent the light that had filled them when they were lads. They sparked, but somehow darkly. “Don’t worry, old chap. No more fisticuffs until you’re well.”
Drake lifted his chin. “Not forgiven yet, am I?”
“My mother might keep you in biscuits for life, but I won’t thank you for this. You should have left me to rot.”
Red huffed out a breath. “Look at that. Something on which we agree.”
With one last glare, Camden strode away. Silence pulsed in his absence for a few moments. Then Red said, “What have you done to your hair? It’s all grey.”
Drake laughed and turned to the street they must cross. “I was doing some reconnaissance. And have a bit for you to do tomorrow, too, if you will.” As they made their way across the largely empty street and through the front door of Dot’s building, Drake gave him a bare outline of the suspicious character and how he was in need of a spot of help in following him.
“You know I’m happy to help,” Red replied, though the words did nothing to erase the confusion in his tone. He must be wondering why Drake thought he had enemies here in London, why he’d be willing to pay him to help root them out. But Drake couldn’t tell him that, so hopefully the speculation would remain unspoken.
He heaved a sigh and looked up as they crossed the threshold of the building and came to the never-ending rise of stairs. “Why couldn’t she have found a flat in a building with a lift?”
Red chuckled and gripped his elbow again. “We’ll manage it. One ste
p at a time.” Then, “Who has spoken for Dot?”
That hadn’t taken long. Drake grinned and hooked the handle of his cane over his arm so he could grip the handrail. “No one. But I didn’t want him getting ideas. Camden’s the sort of bloke who would defend a friend to the death—but not one to be trusted with one’s sister.”
“Ah.” Relief saturated the short syllable.
Drake shook his head and took the first step. Then the next. “Though if you’re so worried, you could speak for her.”
Those fingers on his elbow tightened again. “Why would you even suggest that, Elton? I’m no better a prospect for your sister than he is. I’ve no income, no future—”
“You’re a good man in bad circumstances, Red. But circumstances change. Yours will too.” One of the queries he’d sent to his father’s old friends would surely pan out. Or some other opportunity would arise. Red wouldn’t be left like this forever, not when he was willing and able to work.
“Even so. What’s the best I can hope for? Manual labor. Hardly something that could support a girl like your sister, who’s used to the finer things. Who deserves the finer things.”
“My sister can get on quite well whatever her lot—and don’t you dare sell her short by implying otherwise.” Not to mention that Dot was part owner in their shipping company as well. A fact that did neither of them any good at the moment, but it would someday, when the war was over.
Not that it would do anything but make Red feel worse about himself just now. He wasn’t looking for a wife with means. He was looking for the means to provide for her himself.
As they made their way to the first landing, silence overtook them—a rather brooding one. Had the discomfort in his side not been increasing with every step and his energy flagging by a proportional degree, he may have smiled at the frown furrowed into his friend’s brow.
They were just turning to the next flight of stairs when Red said, “How do you suppose he convinced her to tell him where she lived?”
The Number of Love Page 23