He nodded firmly to punctuate his words.
And he was certain he was right. Nothing ever slipped beyond his control.
But even so, Gabriel’s smile remained broad and intact.
It was enough to make Leonard wish that he hadn’t come out at all today. He let out a sigh. “I should get back home,” he said.
“Back to your wife?” Gabriel asked knowingly.
“Back to mywork.” Leonard rose to his feet. “You know, I’m not so sure I’ll miss you when I leave London if this is the way you insist on behaving about things.”
“Oh, you will,” Gabriel said. “You may not know it yet, but you’ll come to see just how right I was.”
Leonard opened his mouth to retort, but before he could speak, something caught his eye.
At first, he wasn’t sure why he had noticed the young man who stood in the corner of the room with a drink in his hand. It was obviously a commoner, to judge by his dress, and no one Leonard had had dealings with before. He wasn’t doing anything to draw attention to himself. He was just standing there surveying the room, a small smile on his face, as if he was happy about something that no one else could see.
He turned to leave, but seeing him in profile, Leonard felt a shock of familiarity.
There was something about him. Something that Leonard recognized, even though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
But his curiosity was piqued.
He rose without so much as saying goodbye to his friend and followed the strange young man out the door and onto the street.
CHAPTER 13
Once outside, the lad began to move quickly, and Leonard found himself jogging to keep up. He was surprised at himself, at the determination with which he was following this person he didn’t even know. But his mind was fixed on that feeling that had surged through him when he had seen the boy in profile. The shape of the nose, the jut of the chin…I know this person. I’m sure of it.
The boy rounded a corner. Leonard abandoned all pretense, broke into a run, and turned the same corner, finally catching up to him in a narrow alley.
He reached out and grabbed the young man’s shoulder, not roughly, but firmly, spinning him around. The man let out a cry?—
A high pitched cry.
Something fell into place in Leonard’s mind, and the scene before him reorganized itself.
He wasn’t looking at a young man at all. He was looking at a woman. And the moment he thought of the person in front of him in those terms…
“Prudence?”
She froze beneath his hand, and he knew that he was right, but even so, he struggled to believe. He reached out and removed the cap from her head.
Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in waves. It was her. Unmistakably.
She looked up at him, eyes blazing with defiance. “Take your hand off of me.”
He was so shocked by everything happening that he went ahead and did it, even though as soon as he had unhanded her it occurred to him that she was in no position to be giving orders. “What is this?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I didn’t…” she stammered.
He had never seen Prudence lost for words. For a moment, it made him worry. “Are you following me?” he asked her. “Is something the matter at home? Did you come looking for me?”
“No. I didn’t know you would be there,” she said.
“I told you that I would be out at the gentlemen’s club with my friend Gabriel.”
“There are many clubs. You might have meant any of them,” she said. “I didn’t know you were going to be at that one. If I had…”
