“We have to try though,” Rosalind said. “If I can get up there, then you can too and I will hold your hand while we find a way down.”
Shrimps sighed. “What way down from a roof?”
“There might be an attic, or something like that,” Rosalind said. She squeezed herself into the rather small opening and was able to stand up.
Perhaps she could jimmy her way up. Certainly, that was how a sweep would get up there.
She braced her hands on either side, then raised her foot and pushed it against the side.
It promptly slid through soot and she landed in a heap.
Shrimps had been right, it was impossible.
Rosalind crawled out again. Shrimps looked at her with sympathy, her poor Boudicca robes now filthy and black from that unsuccessful venture.
Fire poker it must be, then.
If there was one thing running in her favor, it was the folds of the costume. She could hide the poker until she was ready to clobber her kidnappers over the head.
She crawled back over to Shrimps. “Have you ever done any fighting? You must have before you came to live with Van Doren. There must have been times when you had to fight.”
Shrimps looked at her as if she’d lost her wits. “Fight? Look at the size of me! I’m a runner, not a fighter.”
It was true, Shrimps was on the small side. Still, he must be ready to do his best.
“Now listen here, Henry Conroy, Baron Dedmont,” she said sternly, “you are a lord and must begin to move through the world as one. You must be brave.”
“Oh no,” Shrimps whispered, “am I to have some kind of code or something, like Lord Van Doren does?”
“Just so,” Rosalind said, nodding. “It occurs to me that we should not wait to see what happens to us. We must take the reins. We must take our fate into our hands.”
“Fate?” Shrimps said. “Fate has never had anything good for me.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Rosalind said with a smile. “You have just found out you are a baron. The fates must be very fond of you.”
*
Balthazar was certainthey had got Mondrian’s location from the boy, Barney. He’d given it, then Darden had threatened him with blown-out brains if he was lying, then Hamill mentioned they’d be taking both boys with them and would find out soon enough.
Barney had stuck to the information he’d given and Balthazar was confident it must be right. It was also not far. He’d put Barney and the younger boy in the coach, sufficiently guarded from the outside in case they had the idea to run off.
He, Hamill, Darden, and Van Doren went at a jog until they were quite close. Barney had described the building, and described the stairs that ran down the back of it into a narrow alley.
They would split—Hamill and Darden going in the front and he and Van Doren going up the back stairs.
He was certain there would be no escape for Mondrian. He just must be certain the desperate rogue did not harm Lady Rosalind in some bid to elude them.
As they wished for the element of surprise, and wished to make the intrusions simultaneously, they had agreed to wait for the first church bell to ring at eleven o’clock.
Then they would strike.
The quarter hour wait was beginning to feel like an eternity. Lady Rosalind was up there somewhere, no doubt frightened out of her wits.
She would have reckoned with how far out of control her little ruse had spun. She would wonder if Mondrian ever planned to let her go alive.
The poor darling.Hispoor darling.
He would get her out. Of course he would. Then, it would be time to construct some sort of story to explain what had occurred. Nobody could know the truth of it—Lady Rosalind would be notorious as the lady who had arranged her own kidnapping.
