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“Hey, that’s mine!”
“Yes, and do you know the number?” Gideon was already punching it in.
“’Scuse me, dear.” An elderly lady was tugging my sleeve. “I just have to ask—are you from one of the theaters?”
“Er … yes,” I said.
“I thought so!” The old lady was having difficulty holding on to her dachshund’s leash. The dog was pulling hard as it tried to get at another dog only a few yards away. “It looks so wonderfully genuine! Only a good wardrobe mistress could have made that outfit. You know, dear, I did a lot of sewing myself in my young d—stop it, Polly! Don’t pull like that!”
“They’ll come and pick us up at once,” said Gideon, giving me my mobile back. “We’ll go on to the corner of Piccadilly.”
“And where can people go to see the play you’re in?” asked the old lady.
“Er, well, I’m afraid it was the last performance this evening.”
“What a pity!”
“Yes, I think so too.”
Gideon was pulling me on.
“Good-bye,” I said to the old lady.
“I don’t understand how those men could find us. Or what orders were given to that man Wilbour to get him to drive us to Hyde Park. There was no time to prepare an ambush,” Gideon was muttering to himself as he walked on. Out here in the street, passersby stared at us even more than in the park.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Someone knew we’d be there. But how did he know? And how was it possible anyway?”
“Wilbour … one of his eyes was…” Suddenly I felt my stomach heave.
“What are you doing?”
I retched, but nothing would come up.
“Gwyneth, we have to get moving! Breathe deeply, and it’ll pass.”
I stopped dead. This was too much!
“Oh, so it’ll pass?” I made myself speak very slowly and distinctly, although I really felt like screeching. “And so if I’ve just killed a man, will that pass, too? My entire life has been turned upside down today—will that pass? Will the fact that an arrogant, long-haired, violin-playing creep in silk stockings can’t think of anything better to do than order me about, even though I’ve just saved his stupid life, will that disappear as well? If you ask me, it’s not surprising that I feel like puking. And just in case you’re wondering, you make me want to throw up too!”
Okay, so maybe my voice had risen to a bit of a screech with that last remark, but it could have been worse. All at once I realized how good it felt to get all that off my chest. For the first time that day, I felt truly liberated, and the nausea suddenly disappeared.
Gideon was staring at me with such a blank expression that I’d have giggled if I hadn’t been so angry. Aha! Just for once he seemed to be left speechless.
“And now I want to go home,” I said, trying to round off my triumph with as much dignity as possible.
Unfortunately I didn’t bring it off entirely, because at the thought of my family, my lip began to quiver and I felt my eyes filling with tears.
Dammit, dammit, dammit!
“It’s all right,” said Gideon.
His surprisingly gentle tone of voice was too much for my self-control. The tears came rolling down my cheeks before I could stop them.
“Hey, Gwyneth. I’m sorry.” Gideon came right up to me, took me by the shoulder, and drew me close to him. “I’m an idiot. I was forgetting what this must be like for you,” he murmured somewhere just above my ear. “And I remember perfectly well how stupid I felt the first time I traveled back. In spite of all that fencing practice. And the violin lessons.…”
He stroked my hair.
