‘We’ll go straight ahead on this road,’ Drake told the officer. ‘If anyone spots the elephant, come find us. Don’t approach him, and whatever you do, don’t chase him!’
‘Yes, sir.’
Drake continued onward, and both he and Meridith scanned yards and streets, the spaces between homes and beside carriage houses, and everywhere else there was to look, with absolutely no luck.
‘I can’t believe it’s this hard to find an elephant,’ Meridith said. ‘He’s huge.’
‘Roughly, he’s about the size of a covered coach or a freight wagon, so any space wide enough for one of those, would be wide enough for him.’
‘I’m so angry with those boys,’ she hissed.
He tightened his hold on her waist, and due to nothing more than his current state of agitation, he leaned forward and gave her temple a small kiss. ‘I know you are, honey.’
She looked up at him, and the softness of her expression made him want to kiss more than her temple.
‘We aren’t going to stop until we find him,’ she said.
‘No, we are not.’
‘I don’t care if it takes all night,’ she said, looking between his eyes and his mouth.
He had to swallow, just to give his mouth something to do besides tingle with anticipation. ‘Neither do I.’
A shout, or other such noise, stopped him from doing anything more. For a moment he was disappointed, but then he felt a sense of relief. He would only have regretted it later, because kissing her was not something he could do. Not tonight. Not any night.
The shout came again, and he twisted to look behind them.
‘We’ve got a sighting!’ a mounted officer shouted.
Drake spun the horse about and hurried towards the officer.
‘Where?’
‘An alley behind a public house and it’s still there,’ the officer replied. ‘Just two blocks west of here.’
‘Is he all right?’ Meridith asked the officer as they rode in the direction of the public house.
‘I don’t know, my lady,’ the officer replied. ‘I’m just relaying what I was told.’
Moments later, they arrived at the entrance to the alley, where a crowd was gathered.
‘He’s right up there,’ someone said, pointing into the alley.
‘Lying down,’ another said.
Drake dismounted, then lifted Meridith off the horse. The concern on her face was his justification for giving her a quick hug. ‘You stay here. I don’t know if he’s lying down because he’s hurt or tired.’
She gripped his arm tightly. ‘Be careful.’
‘I will be.’ He gave her hand a squeeze before he slowly made his way down the alley.
Chapter Nine
Due to the darkness and the height of the buildings on both sides, Meridith couldn’t see much other than Drake’s outline as he walked further into the alley. Her heart had been pounding ever since she’d seen Hugo break through the fence, but she couldn’t say it was only because of the elephant. Sitting in front of Drake on the horse had made all sorts of things heat up and throb inside her, had made her thoughts go down a scandalous route they’d never taken before. She had read about such things; she knew about procreation and what that entailed, but until tonight, she’d never felt such stirrings inside her.
She’d had to purposefully force herself to think about other things, and Hugo’s plight had been the easiest substitute, that and the boys who had caused it. They deserved to be in trouble for putting the elephant and others in such danger. Their actions had also been what caused the damage to the flower beds at the park, and they should be responsible for repairing them.
Allowing that anger to grow had combated some of the sensations overtaking her body, but nothing had made them completely disappear.
