“I am Lord Everdene,” Lucien said.
“I knows it.” The man’s lip curled in disdain. “I saw you the day you came pryin’ around the boarding house looking for O’Malley. Stopped us right in the middle o’ readin’ that Dickens fellow an’ O’Malley’s not been around since.”
“What do you want with me?”
“You? Nothin’. Wouldn’t pour slops over yer head if yer hair was on fire, but I would fight my way through a horde o’ heathens for O’Malley. He sent for me and told me to put this in yer hand without fail. Took long enough t’ find yer.” He thrust out a crumpled piece of paper, covered all over with print. A page torn from Oliver Twist. In the margins, someone had penciled the words:
Found Darragh. Come to Nolans now or people will die. O’Malley.
Lucien looked up sharply, remembering O’Malley’s warnings about rebellion, then the note that had come with Grace’s tin soldier.
Spark to flame.
He clenched his teeth. Soon, guests would be arriving, and yet, he dared not delay.
“How did you travel here?” he asked the man.
“How d’ye think. On foot.”
“Can you ride a horse?”
“Well enough. Grew up on a farm before yer sort turned us out.”
Lucien motioned to the footman. “Run to the mews with this man. Tell the grooms to saddle two horses and bring them here.”
The pair set out and Lucien strode back into the townhouse, calling for his cloak and hat.
Cassandra stood in the center of the entryway, pale and drawn. “People will start arriving soon. Where are you going?”
“This is something that won’t wait.”
“Are you even going to tell Grace you’re leaving?”
He glanced behind him at the sweep of staircase, wishing he could go to Grace, hold her once more in his arms. “There is no time,” he said as he handed Cassandra the note.
She followed him as he hastened outside, passing servants preparing for the arrival of horses and carriages.
“This note…” Cassandra faltered, “it’s from the people in the Seven Dials, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Wait until Simon returns so that he can go with you.”
“I need him here to keep all of you safe. I have to go alone. Cass, they won’t trust anyone else.”
She caught hold of his arm. The first time she had touched him willingly since she returned from Italy. “What if it is a trap?”
It could be.
He covered her hand with his own. “If I don’t come back, there is something for you in my bedchamber…a blue tin box…”
“What?”
“Be sure to find it.”
He heard the clop of hooves as a groom and the messenger trotted toward them, leading two horses. His heart wrenched as he pictured Grace and the babe he might never see. The child he had not even told anyone existed, the knowledge still a precious secret, too precious to share.
“Cass, no matter what happens, watch over Grace and the child. Promise me.”
