Chapter 7
Seven
There were times, it seemed, when no matter how thoroughly a woman prepared for all possibilities, life left her with no choice but to improvise.
Harriet acknowledged the truth of that as she considered her current situation.
She was not safely in line for a visit to the Sherlock Museum, she was standing near the entrance to a sketchy-looking alleyway, clutching her untaken ticket and hoping she wouldn’t be robbed of all her money before she could get back to the museum and buy a guidebook to make up for her lack of a proper visit.
At least her hiding places were getting a bit more exclusive.
She was standing in the shadows of a fairly nice row of Victorian mansions instead of just using whatever greenery she could find.
Then again, she was in her current spot not for her own purposes but because she’d been doing the responsible thing as TD Piaget’s assistant and watching to make sure no high-heeled fangirls followed him as he’d hurried away to points unknown.
Of course if she hadn’t been engaged in that unnecessary bit of mother-henning she wouldn’t have noticed the shadow that had detached itself from a different doorway and begun to follow her newly minted boss, but perhaps that could be analyzed for its risk quotient later.
Assuming she survived the afternoon.
She wasn’t one to follow people willy nilly—well, there had been the case of Bobby Taylor in fourth grade, but he’d also made off with a Ding Dong still in its shiny wrapper that she’d managed to hide from all her siblings for five whole days at home.
He’d swiped it as she’d been sitting on the edge of the merry-go-round, then given her a spin before she could pop up and protest. She’d given chase, but the point had been moot by the time she’d caught up to him.
Mac had passed by at that precise moment, told him he looked stupid with chocolate crumbs on his chin, and life had continued on.
As a general rule, though, she didn’t tail people just to see what they were up to.
She definitely didn’t make a habit of following anyone who was following after someone else who obviously didn’t need physical protection.
But what else could she have done? TD Piaget had given up his room for her the night before.
Keeping an eye on things had seemed like the least she could do in return.
Only that minor piece of altruism had led to witnessing a situation she absolutely hadn’t counted on.
She’d followed TD Piaget’s potential fan only to watch that unknown suspect be sidelined by a different man with pale blond hair, a black leather jacket, and a definite don’t-mess-with-me vibe.
Those two had exchanged heated words in front of the pub that found itself thirty feet away from her current location until the blond guy had suddenly shouted at the man that he would buy him a pint if he would just shut up.
Problem solved, apparently, because they had gone inside with only a minor amount of continued grumbling.
Not three minutes after that—she’d checked her watch to be sure—TD Piaget himself had reappeared, wearing a long trench coat and carrying a black duffle bag.
He’d disappeared down the alleyway at a run, which considering the shiny black shoes he’d been wearing hadn’t been something to dismiss lightly.
It was absolutely none of her business what he did with his time or how he chose to escape a museum he’d probably been to a dozen times already.
Perhaps he’d needed a break from too many questions or plot difficulties or agent expectations.
Perhaps he was moonlighting as a cover model for Regency-era books.
Perhaps he was simply looking for a bit of peace so he could knock out a few pages and make his agent happy.
She absolutely could have helped with that by running interference for him, no strings attached or quid-pro-writing-retreat-quos expected, so why was he gallivanting off down a sketchy alleyway by himself, carrying a bag that was definitely big enough for a small typewriter?
She had to admit it: she was intrigued.
That also might have had something to do with the small, folded piece of paper he dropped as he’d rushed into the alleyway.
She had stared at that folded square for longer than she should have, her urge to pick up some litter warring with an equally strong desire not to get involved in her favorite author’s private doings.
That had been fifteen minutes ago. At the moment, she had almost screwed her courage to the sticking point of taking action. She certainly couldn’t in good conscience leave that note to clutter up those lovely vintage cobblestones, now, could she?
She took a deep breath and eased away from her hiding place to better position herself for an easy retrieval of the goods.
She brushed her hair back from her face to make certain she had good visuals of the area, then started forward only to come to an abrupt halt at the sight of the pub door being flung open and her two previous suspects stumbling back out of it.
She couldn’t tell if that had been their choice or not, but she imagined the patrons inside were probably thrilled not to have to listen to them swear at each other as they were doing presently.
She did her own bit of stumbling, right back into a wrought-iron railing she should have remembered was there, then casually leaned against said railing to reassess.
Going back into her previous hiding place in the shadows might look too suspicious.
Then again, who would possibly pay any attention to her when there was a very loud and salty conversation going on thirty feet away?
“Excuse me, miss.”
Harriet jumped a little, then looked at the man who had just walked past her.
There was definitely enough sidewalk to make apologizing a non-issue, but maybe it was a British thing she didn’t understand.
What she did understand was that he was tall, handsome, and had the most amazing pair of turquoise eyes she had ever seen.
He was also wearing a wedding ring, which likely boded very well for the female population of Greater London as a whole, though that had absolutely no bearing on her current problem.
That problem was, unfortunately, that he had stopped to watch the altercation in progress while at the same time unwittingly resting the toe of some pretty nice-looking Docs on her note.
Or, rather, on top of TD Piaget’s note. At the moment, she didn’t care to whom it belonged, she just wanted to read it.
She wondered if it would be rude to just give the guy a good shove and get the goods, but she decided that might be a bit much.
She settled in to wait him out.
She was more relieved than she likely should have been when the fight in front of her de-escalated, but perhaps the offer of a pint in a different pub was enough to soothe injured pride.
She didn’t think TD Piaget’s original admirer looked all that happy about it—the hunched over set of his shoulders said very clearly he was on the verge of a serious pout—but maybe he thought he didn’t have any choice.
The two men walked away and their swearing eventually faded away with them.
She pushed away from her post and strode forward only to have Old Blue Eyes pick up her prize.
He unfolded the note and read it, considered, then folded it back up.
She refrained from yanking it away from him because her mother always told her to be a lady.
She didn’t hesitate to hold out her hand expectantly, though, and she was fully prepared to bamboozle him with a little sleight of hand if it came to that.
The man looked at her and smiled politely. “Yours?”
She nodded because that was as close to lying as she was going to get. There was a reason she fully intended to limit her mysteries to seed-swiping grannies and missing felines. Trying to dream up an entire string of extremely unsettling prevarications in order to commit crimes was just beyond her.
“Almost good as new,” he said, handing her the note.
“Things falling out of pockets are so inconvenient, aren’t they?” she said, attempting a bluff.
He smiled, as if something about that amused him. “Very true.” He inclined his head slightly. “Keep a weather eye out. I believe there’s a purveyor of paranormal oddities down this alleyway you might want to avoid.”
“Well, we definitely wouldn’t want to get mixed up in any of those,” Harriet agreed.
The man lifted his eyebrows briefly, then smiled before he made her a little bow and walked away.
Harriet would have watched him to make sure he’d actually left so she could check him off her list of questionable people, but it occurred to her that he might be doing the same thing with regard to her own slightly suspicious self.
She glanced down the alleyway, found it empty enough for the moment, then walked a few feet into it before she took up a spot next to the wall to examine her prize.
She shook off a few remaining drops of rain, then unfolded it.
Miss Fanny Darling, 1824, 14:25, The Squealing Piglet
Harriet checked her watch. It was quarter to three, which meant she’d been lurking in the area for almost half an hour. She was positive her quarry hadn’t returned and snuck past her and a quick look had already told her that the alleyway was a dead end so he wouldn’t have escaped out the back.
She looked around herself carefully and saw nothing particularly unusual, though she was well aware that her mental list of possible London perils was not as it should have been.
Perhaps she could keep that weather eye out and do a little careful reconnaissance of the area, just to pass the time until TD Piaget returned from points unknown.