She used the water to cleanse her face and then grabbed the cloth that Hit held out for her before dabbing her face dry.
Her bodyguard said, “I’d have taken ya if that was where you wished ta go.”
“I know.” She put the towel down. “But you report back to my brother, and I didn’t want to get you in trouble.” And she didn’t want her brother to know either. “Don’t tell him.”
Hit narrowed his eyes. “Ya do realize that if Bancroft finds out, he’ll murder Frank.”
“Which is why I need you to say nothing.” She turned to her trunk. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m very tired. I’ll be skipping the evening meal, so you don’t have to worry about me interrupting your reading.”
Hit didn’t take the bait. “Ya like him, don’t ya? That’s why ya haven’t let another man close.”
With her night rail and robe in hand — along with a few other essentials— she walked over to the screen and began to undress. Propriety didn’t exist in the theatre and few secrets remained between her and Hit. It was impossible for the man to not realize her pattern had changed when he was with her always. “He’s a good doctor. He helped me understand what I was seeing as we went through the house, and was able to defend me if anything happened.” She slipped off her stockings.
“Didn’t answer my question,” Hit said from some distance.
She folded her plain shirt and skirt and then slipped on the night rail. She silently grabbed the poem from her skirt pocket and placed it within her robe pocket. Then she tied the garment around herself. Though it was many moments before she was brave enough to step from behind the screen.
Though Hit knew about the few men Diana had allowed in her bed over the last few years, they’d never spoken of it unless Hit thought one of the men dangerous. “Don’t tell Bancroft.”
“He should know.”
She lifted a brow. “This is why I didn’t tell you before. You know how my brother gets when I truly like a gentleman.” She only had to think about the young lord who’d tried courting her during her first year of dancing, years ago. Bancroft had sent men to intimidate him. The gentleman had never looked Diana in the eye again.
Though many people didn’t know it, Bancroft actually despised the aristocrats. The underworld he oversaw only committed crimes against the wealthy. Thieves weren’t allowed to steal from the poor, and then Bancroft turned around and took more from the wealthy by charging high prices for entrance to his gardens. Locals received tickets at a vastly discounted price.
Frank wasn’t a titled gentleman, but if he didn’t work, she knew that the blueblood families would consider him one of their own. She’d looked into the Lockwood family. Their name went as far back as some of the dukes of the kingdom. Frank’s father was a powerful man, and Frank’s friends even more so.
“Does he return the feeling?” Hit asked at the door.
Had he asked her that hours ago, she’d have thought yes, but now… “I don’t know.” She knew her anger in the house had tampered his desire for her, but just how much, she wasn’t sure. He’d handled her so gently once they’d arrived at the carriage and when they’d parted… His eyes had been warm, but distant in the way of strangers.
She didn’t know what to do, but knew she’d not stop her search for the other kidnapper. Not even for a chance with Frank.
“Any man who turns you down doesn’t deserve you,” Hit said with his hand on the doorknob.
She smiled at her old friend. “Thank you and please remember—”
“I won’t tell Bancroft, Skip,” he said, calling her by the nickname she’d once been given by the locals in Covent Garden. Kate had been called Leap, and when they were together, they were Skip and Leap because their feet were always moving. Hit grinned as he departed.
Diana stood and disrobed. Underneath her night rail, she wore a shirt, and trousers. She was going out again tonight. She would get the answers the sought with or without help.
* * *
22
.
.
.
* * *
* * *
.
.
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
.
She’s mad.
Frank had a patient who would say this at nearly every session.
‘She’s mad. Out of her wits,” his patient would say, often speaking about a woman he was attracted to, though he never admitted to that attraction, Whenever Frank asked him, “Are you attracted to her?” the patient stood from his chair and declared, “Only a fool would be. She’s clearly mad.”
But if she was mad or not, it never stopped Frank’s patient from watching the woman as she walked across a room, or stopped his patient from smiling, whenever he heard her laugh.
Longing never stopped Frank’s patient from seeking his desired woman out... even if only to irritate her.
So why would it stop Frank?
As he sat across the road from Diana’s apartment, he couldn’t help but wonder if he were doing the right thing, or if he was going mad, himself.
But when he recalled the way Diana had stared at him when he’d stopped her from making a scene in the earl’s home, he knew his worry wasn’t for naught. Diana was determined, blinded to danger, as she sought the fiend who’d brought her harm, and everything in Frank told him she’d be heading out tonight, likely back to Dahl’s home, but if not, to Mr. Stewart’s.
He’d learned Diana’s address from Christin, who happened to have it for the occasions she sent payment to Diana for Lily’s lessons. Then, after returning to his own residence, Frank had sent one of his footman who to inquire where Mr. Stewart planned to take his brother’s belongings.
They were to go to Mr. Stewart's house.
But Frank’s footman had also learned something else while at the earl’s house.
Lord Dahl was dead. He’d died recently. His brother had just found out, and was cleaning out the townhouse.
Mr. Stewart was now the Earl of Dahl.
He caught sight of a woman leaving the apartment and settled back in his seat, knowing she was not Diana. Even in costume, as she’d been earlier today, Frank would know her anywhere. The woman he spotted now was both too slim and too short.
Diana wasn’t a very tall woman, but when she pressed her body into his, she felt perfect. He could lean down and take her mouth if he chose without hurting his neck, and fill his hands with her curves.
His shaft rose at the thought and he told himself to think of something else in order to calm his lust, but just as at Dahl’s house, he found the task impossibly… hard.
He noticed movement on the side of the residence and frowned. The alley led nowhere and held no outlet, which meant the lad had to have come from one of the windows. Could he be the other person Diana recalled from the basement?
The lad wore a hat and kept it pulled low on his brow, but when he lifted his face to look down the street…
Frank stilled.
Her!
Even dressed like a laborer, he’d know those hips anywhere, and her face could never pass for that of a man.
He leapt from his carriage and followed her on foot, all the while keeping his distance.
* * *
Diana glanced over her shoulder, but in a crowd of so many, it was hard to know if she were being followed or not. Still, the presence lingered and she wondered if Hit had discovered her gone and decided to watch over her. She thought it likely, and yet…
She turned around, watching her step as two young boys ran by. The market had closed hours ago, but the crowds had not died around the various shops that remained open. And now, the peerage was out, their carriages filling the road as they headed to their various theatres or her brother’s pleasure garden.
Between the shadows and alleys, Diana couldn’t make out the face of the figure that walked in her direction.
This should have bothered her, but dressed as a young lad, she was less likely to become someone
’s victim. And thanks to the training she’d undertaken from Hit once she’d left the country last year, she’d be no one’s victim ever again.
She quickened her steps as she turned off the main road and started down a row of residences.
Nearly a hundred years ago, Covent Garden had been what is now, the West End. It was a place where the wealthy had once dwelt, but as the courtesan numbers grew, the number of aristocrats began to wane, until there were few.
Yet the grandeur of the buildings that remained from that time still stuck out and even more so, for those residents that saw to the exterior’s upkeep faithfully.
She passed Lady Christin Walsh’s old residence. The Potter Agency’s light was still lit. The butler spoke to a young woman at the steps. Diana wondered if the countess was there. Her husband still allowed her to work, though she had handed over most of her duties to those she trusted.
Diana thought the love between the earl and countess beautiful. The respect they had for one another was rare, even outside of the rules that society set on their women. Diana found that to the be the case with all the couples Frank was close to.
Would Frank be the same? Would he allow his wife to still engage in those things that made her happy? Like dance?
She turned a corner down an alley and smiled.
Thomas, or Blackbeard as they called him on the street, never let her down. She watched as he and the two other men played dice, tossing the die on the gray road and shouting when one lost their coins.
She stepped farther into the alley and that gained all their attention.
Thomas straightened. At twenty and seven, he’d grown tall and handsome, though one would never know since he refused to cut his hair properly. It fell around his shoulders. A rugged black beard and mustache covered the rest of him. It made him seem older, his light brown eyes more piercing. Thomas thought it also made him look fiercer, but Diana thought he only looked silly. She’d known the street leader for years and still called him by his given name, though every year it seemed he grew to fit Blackbeard more and more. He may have not sailed along the English shore, but here in Covent Garden, he was every bit a pirate and only ever answered to Bancroft.
“Hoo are ye?” His parents were Scottish and he tended to speak with a brogue when it suited him. Both his parents worked for Bancroft.
As did the other two men in the alley.
Rogue and Dent weren’t nearly as large as Thomas, though very few men were. Still, she knew from her own observations that the men were swift in a fight and didn’t let little things like a stab wound or a broken nose slow them down.
When the boys began to reach for the weapons at their hip pockets, Diana reached up to remove her hat. Her hair began to bundle down, but their gazes had already moved past her. Their bodies tensed and then they were moving.
Diana turned around, her eyes widened at seeing Frank. His face was as hard as stone as he stared down the other men and Diana wondered momentarily if he were out of his mind. Frank moved but not the direction she’d hoped. Instead of retreating, he moved forward.
Thomas was moving at a run now.
She cut a path in front of him and shouted. “Thomas, stop this!”
That drew his attention, though it took Rogue and Dent a minute to slow their own steps. Their blades were out, but one look at Diana had them puzzled.
Thomas grabbed her arm. Roughly. “Skip! Whit are ye doing? Ye mad, lass? Dressed like that?”
“Unhand her.” Frank moved by her side.
Thomas only glared and pulled Diana to his side. “Hoo are ye?”
“It’s Pick!” Dent said with admiration, putting his blade away as he spoke.
Rogue also looked amazed.
Thomas seemed wary, but then slowly let Diana go.
Diana was confused and turned to Frank. only to find his expression mirrored her own.
Dent spoke again, his dark blue eyes wide. “No one touches Dr. Pick.” He straightened and tried to fix his dark hair as he turned to Frank. “I’m Dent.” He cracked a smile and his dimple struck deep on his left cheek, which was how he’d got the name ‘dent’.
Rogue had not earned his name by looks but by actions. He lied easily and was very good at it, doing so without blinking or giving away the truth. When Bancroft wished to deliver a cryptic message or wanted information, he sent it through Rogue. Diana had no idea what Rogue’s real name was. She wasn’t even sure where Rogue had come from. That’s how good he was at deception. He had gray eyes and dark blond hair.
Frank grabbed Diana’s hip and pulled her closer, securing her to his side. “Dr. Pick? I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m Dr. Lockwood.”
Dent shook his head. “No, ya’re Pick. We thought about calling ya Dr. Lock, but it was no good. You don’t lock things. You unlock them, like a pick, though, with ya brain.” He pointed to his head with emphasis. “Just like ya solved Skip’s puzzle.”
“And you helped Jenny leave her angry mother,” Rogue added.
“And Mr. Powers find his watch,” Dent said cheerfully.
Diana was surprised and amazed that Frank had earned a nickname amongst Bancroft’s people. It spoke well of him. “I didn’t know you helped more of Bancroft’s people after me.”
Frank seemed to understand this and his color rose. “Bancroft seems to think I’m at his beck and call,” he said begrudgingly, though it was clear he liked the admiration. He was a part of the fold of Covent Garden now, and Diana thought that worked in both their favors.
Thomas crossed his arms and looked at Diana. “Whit are ye daein here, Skip?”
“I need names,” Diana said. “A list of servants who worked inside a home.” Then she held Thomas’ eyes and said, “I need you to be discreet as well.”
Thomas frowned. “Whose servants? Whit house?”
“Swear you won’t speak to Bancroft about this,” she said pointedly.
Thomas, Rogue, and Dent placed their hands over their hearts and then lowered them.
Diana turned to Rogue. “Not you.” Even with a sworn oath, she knew better than to trust Rogue.
Rogue’s brows lifted. “I’m completely trustworthy.” She’d have laughed if the moment had been so serious.
Thomas shook his head. “I believe that just as much as I believe you didn’t rig those die you brought tonight.”
Rogue said something unintelligible, clearly irritated. Thomas jerked his head back. “You’re out.”
Rogue’s jaw hardened, but he turned and went back down the alley.
Diana lowered his voice once she was sure only Frank, Thomas, and Dent could hear her. “I need a list of the servants who lived with the Earl of Dahl.”
Dent whistled. “We’re not to speak of E.D. Bancroft’s orders.” E.D. had to be the Earl of Dahl.
Thomas nodded his agreeance. “He won’t budge on this. He wouldn’t even let us look into the man once everything calmed. The earl was restricted in both action and speech in the underworld.”
And once someone was banned, no one tested Bancroft. Not even Diana. Her brother would never hurt her, but he could make things difficult for her, cut her off from all the resources the underworld had to offer.
Diana wanted to curse and felt herself deflate. Now what to do?
Frank’s hand was on her lower back. “Thank you for your help, Thomas. Dent.” Then he escorted her out of the alley at a quick pace.
When Frank’s pace didn’t slow a half mile later, and he still hadn’t spoken, Diana realized just how angry he was. She’d barely been able to keep up with his brisk steps while she tried righting her hair underneath her hat.
He let her go once they were at the main road. “Stay with me. I’ll not see you hurt.” The words were bitten out.
She frowned. “You’re angry, but really there’s no need to be. Mostly everyone in Covent Garden knows me.”
He walked in the direction of lamplights and music. Her brother’s garden was not far. He barely spared her a gla
nce. “No, they know Diana or Skip or what have you. They do not know this lad you’re pretending to be. They could have hurt you had you not announced yourself in time.”
She thought him right, but refused to acknowledge it. “How did you know it was me? Have you been following me all afternoon?” She didn’t think so. It seemed he’d showered since earlier that morning. His scent was fresh in the warm night air.
Diana Sensational Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 14