Shrimps felt asif his insides jiggled around all by themselves though his body did not move. He’d hid himself at the servants’ entrance of Westmont House to wait for the ladies’ carriage to come back.
They had tasked him with finding a pickpocket, and he had, though it had not been easy.
Barney had accosted him in the garden again, just like he’d said he would. He’d come back expecting Shrimps to hand over something valuable and had been very threatening when he’d got nothing.
Shrimps had told him of the opportunity for ten pounds. It had taken a lot of explaining.
“What are you tryin’ to pass off?” Barney had said, grasping him by the coat collar. “I’m to go to the park and take a lady’s handkerchief and then I’m paid ten pounds for it. Sounds like rubbish to me.”
“I know it sounds…unusual,” Shrimps said. “It has to do with some fella she likes.”
“Right. More like set up poor old Barney to get took by a magistrate is what it sounds like.”
“No, it really isn’t. How would I do that? I don’t know any magistrates and I don’t want to!”
“Then what’s the real game, mate?”
“The ladies, they’re all sisters you see. And they are very strange sorts of people. They just want this duke to see the one of them getting robbed.”
Barney had folded his arms. “I see. So the duke can act all hero-like and haul me off to the magistrate.”
“No, they don’t want that. When it happens, the other sisters will cause a commotion, allowing you time to get away. Then the one what was robbed, Lady Rosalind, plans on fainting in the duke’s arms. Then they get married. That’s my understanding of the thing.”
“And they said they’d pay ten pounds,” Barney said. “What if they go back on it?”
“I’ve seen the money, they’ve already put it aside. Anyway, they’re as flighty as bees trapped in a bonnet, but they won’t go back on a deal. They’d never do that—these titled people have codes they live by, you know.”
Barney had looked as if he did not know that. Shrimps had not always known it himself, but he’d picked up quite a lot by listening at the servants’ table. Lord Van Doren’s word was good. Even if he changed his mind, he stuck to whatever he’d agreed to because he was a viscount and people expected it.
“Ten pounds,” Barney said thoughtfully.
“Ten pounds. All you have to do is grab the lady’s handkerchief and run. You do that every day anyhow.”
“IfI decide to go forward, and I saidif, this is how it will go,” Barney said. “I’m bringing my boys to watch. If it’s a set-up and I get took, they’re comin’ for ya.”
Barney leaned close and towered over him. “Comin’ for ya in the permanent way, you understand. They’ll drag you to the nearest bridge and throw you into the Thames. So think about whether your life is worth this scheme.”
Shrimps had shivered over the idea of going over the side of a bridge, as he knew it was not an empty threat.
“Under those conditions, a drownin’ in the Thames, you still say I won’t get took?” Barney asked.
“You won’t get took,” Shrimps assured him. He just prayed there would not be some overenthusiastic hero nearby who would give chase to Barney and somehow catch him. It would look like a set-up, even though there was no set-up.
Shrimps told Barney everything he needed to know—where he was to go, what Lady Rosalind looked like, the three roses on the bonnet, and the signal.
Now, he just waited for the ladies to come back so he could tell them it was all arranged.
He peeked round the corner of the stairs at the carriage wheels that had just rolled to a stop in front of the house.
There was a great clamor and commotion of them getting out of the carriage, as there always seemed to be when they were together.
Lady Van Doren called her goodbyes as she made her way across the street and into the house.
“Lady Rosalind,” he whispered.
She stopped and looked about.
“It’s Shrimps, I’m down here.”
