“Will do. This damn drizzle gets right through ter yer knackers.”
Dair frowned. “You failed to mention, Miles, that my knackers might be placed in jeopardy.”
“No need to fret, Cousin. We’ll not be standing here for long.” Miles clapped Lynch on the shoulder. “When you get home, have a dram of that Glenlivet to dry them out.”
Lynch’s gold tooth gleamed. “I’ll stay here every night if I get some o’ that.”
“And take one to Dempster. See how he’s settling in the mews.” The chap had turned up this morning, the hospital having given him the heave-ho.
“Will do, C’tain.” And with another salute, his factotum drew his cloak tight, peered left and right, then slipped from the passageway, his boots no more than a muffled whisper on the pavement as he navigated to the unlit pools of darkness.
“Useful bloke, Lynch,” murmured Dair. “Although did you have to give them the Glenlivet?”
Miles merely took up stance in the shadows while Dair took up stance aside him, twirling his cane like an unemployed ringmaster. Or a bored aristocrat.
Earlier this eve, the valet from this lodging house had sent a verbose note that Webb was to head out for his habitual but unknown evening appointment, had rebuffed a monogrammed handkerchief for crimson plain – so déclassé. Had refused to order a hackney – so bourgeois. And had declined all stickpins, rings and watch – so vulgar.
To Miles that meant wherever Webb was going, he wished to remain anonymous, with no distinguishing gewgaws.
“By the by,” said Dair in a stage whisper. “Have you a plan for seducing Miss Seymour at Kew on the morrow? Bit difficult with meddling relatives in tow.”
“I amnotseducing Miss Seymour,” he hissed back.
“What are you doing then?”
“I am escorting her to the Gardens so we may reacquaint ourselves.”
“Seduce…” muttered Dair.
“No. I hope to talk of the past…”
“Seduce…”
“Discover what went wrong.”
“Seduce…”
“Have you never conversed politely with a gentlewoman before, Dair?One who isn’t a Covent Garden fizgig?”
Silence until…
“Once. When young like you were with Miss Seymour.”
“Did it not go well?”
“My father persuaded me to wait. He said our young love was not strong so I had to accept a pact that I’d go on the Grand Tour before considering anything further. And if I still felt the same…” His cane tapped on the cobbles. “I came back and…”
Miles braced. “She’d married?”
“Died,” he bit out. “Of fever. Father couldn’t have cared less as he’d lined up some monied debutante for me. We argued and…” His cousin shrugged. “I left for the Continent again.”
“I’m sorry, Dair.”
A nod. “So now I never wait for anything – money or pleasure.” His eyes gleamed in the dark. “And when I want something, I take it.”
Miles was about to say that not everything in life could be taken when the front door to the bachelor lodgings opened, and even by the tremulous lamplight, Miles could make out a weak chin along with a crimson handkerchief flopping from Webb’s waistcoat pocket.
“There’s our man.”
