Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Greer swore under his breath and tore away from the side of the building, following Penny down one of the streets that wasn’t suddenly clogged with police officers.
He should have been wary enough of his surroundings to sense there were coppers in the area.
He should have been focused on putting together an irrefutable argument to convince Penny to accompany him to Cornwall, even though he didn’t need or want the scintillating young man’s help.
“Watch out!” Greer shouted, reaching for Penny’s hand as a trio of officers rushed into the intersection ahead of them.
He caught Penny’s hand and yanked him off into the narrow alley between two crumbling buildings.
Police whistles and shouts sounded all around them.
Greer didn’t have the first idea what was happening, although it wasn’t unusual for an entire force of policemen to suddenly raid an area where they knew criminal activity was rampant.
Someone must have tipped them off about something, and now anyone who was caught in their net would be brought up on one charge or another.
Greer had no intention of being caught for any reason.
“They’ve got Branston,” a bedraggled young woman shouted from the other end of the alley as Greer and Penny approached. “Don’t go that way.” She pointed behind her.
Ahead of Greer, Penny hissed a curse and skidded to a stop. A policeman dashed across the alley’s exit, chasing a man who was inexplicably shirtless.
“We can’t go that way,” Penny called back to Greer, turning around.
“We can’t go back the way we came either,” Greer told him.
Penny cursed again, turned a frantic circle as if looking at their options, then marched quickly for a battered old door in one of the narrow buildings.
“You don’t know what’s in there,” Greer tried to stop him from reaching for the doorhandle.
“I don’t,” Penny agreed, staring back at Greer with wide, determined eyes. “But I do know what’s back that way and over there,” he glanced at both ends of the alley, “and I don’t like those odds.”
Greer grunted in grudging agreement. There was nothing for it but to enter the building.
Except the door was locked. Ordinarily, that would have been an easy problem for Greer to fix. He always kept his lock-picking tools in one of the concealed pockets of the coat he wore, but there wasn’t time for that delicate art.
“Stand back,” he said after Penny tried the door, then banged on it.
Blessedly, Penny did what he said right away, standing back so that Greer could charge at the door shoulder first.
The door gave way at once, its rusted hinges breaking so the door could be pushed inside the residence.
Greer grabbed Penny’s hand again and pulled him through into what looked like a greasy and cluttered kitchen.
A woman shrieked in the corner of the room, but she didn’t attack them or try to stop them as they dashed through into the center of the house.
“We can’t be trapped in here,” Penny warned Greer as they reached the front room.
“I have no intention of being trapped,” Greer replied.
Although that was easier said than done.
The curtains at the front of the room had been parted, and through the window, the activity on the street was apparent.
What had started as a police raid had turned quickly into some sort of riot.
There were more uniformed officers than Greer wanted to count, and all of them seemed to be armed with billy clubs and bad attitudes.
“What are they even doing?” Penny asked, pushing away from the front of the room and dashing for the stairs.
“Demonstrating the might of Her Majesty’s Police,” Greer snapped bitterly as he followed Penny.
He didn’t have to ask what Penny was doing. The only option they had was to somehow make their way to the roof. If the police truly had arrived in Whitechapel intent on stirring the hornet’s nest to swat as many bees as possible, then the only thing they could do was fly.
More of the house’s inhabitants shrieked and screamed as Greer and Penny raced up the stairs to the top floor. Judging by the scattering of half-dressed men stumbling into the hallways to see what was the matter, Greer figured they’d broken into a bawdy house.
It was all the more reason for them to get out as soon as possible by whatever means. The police would likely be as happy to arrest the patrons of the house as anyone. The sorry sods had no idea what was about to happen to them.
“We’ll have to go out a window,” Penny huffed once they’d climbed as high as they could go without finding access to the roof. He glanced back at Greer with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I hope you’re a good climber.”
“The best,” Greer answered with a cheeky look of his own.
Climbing was a skill that had come in handy on more than one occasion in his illustrious housebreaking career.
There was no telling when he would have to either enter or exit a building from a higher floor.
He knew exactly how to assess the bricks or stone of a building to know where he might find purchase for his hands or feet.
He knew how to grab hold of a roof’s edge and pull himself up.
What surprised him was that Penny seemed to know those things, too.
“Careful on the edge,” Penny panted, his expression focused as they climbed out onto a small balcony at the back of the house that overlooked the mews.
“I see it,” Greer said with a nod, then grabbed hold of the gutter just overhead.
Once he had a firm grip, he pulled himself up. To his surprise, Penny hoisted him up, lacing his hands together so Greer had an anchor. The support meant he was able to climb onto the roof with far more ease than he would have otherwise.
In turn, once he was secure, he was able to reach down and clasp hands with Penny to help haul him onto the roof with him. The whole thing was shockingly easy, compared to what it could have been, and within a minute, they both lay flat against the roof’s tiles, catching their breath.
There wasn’t much time to catch anything. From their vantage point, they could see some of the activity on the street. The police had brought in two large wagons into which they were shoving men and a few women who had been rounded up and secured. More than a few of them looked bloody and beaten.
“We need to move,” Greer said, rolling so that he could scramble the rest of the way up the roof to a bit that was flatter near the top.
Penny nodded and climbed up after him. The bulk of the roofs along that section of the street were flat, which meant they could run, dodging chimneys now and then.
The gaps between a few of the buildings were harrowing to jump, but it wasn’t until they reached the end of the row that they reached a gap that was too wide to cross.
“What next?” Penny asked, crowding up behind Greer as they looked down.
Greer studied the street below. One of the police wagons had been parked there, and it was quickly becoming a hub of activity.
He glanced back at Penny, smiling at the man’s reddened, sweaty face and determined eyes.
Street trash or not, Penny Frey was a sight to behold.
He was comely in the best of times, but their mad flight over the rooftops had him looking as handsome and dashing as anyone Greer had ever known.
He didn’t look so young now, which fired Greer’s blood even more.
“Next you say you’ll come to Cornwall with me,” Greer said, grinning despite the intensity of the moment.
Penny barked a laugh. “Not on your life,” he said, though if the flash in his green eyes said anything, it said Penny enjoyed the banter more than his answer let on.
“Why not?” Greer asked, his original frustration at Penny’s refusal melting into a sense of fun as he stepped back from the edge of the roof and looked for another way for them to flee. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“How many times must I tell you I can’t leave London before you’ll hear me?” Penny said, a flash of frustration crossing his expression.
Greer frowned slightly, uncertain what that frustration meant. “What hold does this city have on you?” he asked as he started back the way they’d come, keeping to the edge of the roof and looking down, searching for an escape, as much as he could.
Penny laughed, and instead of answering his question, he said, “I should be flattered that you want me so desperately.”
Greer grinned over his shoulder at him as he located a balcony high enough up that he and Penny would be able to descend to it and enter the house they were currently on top of. “I want you more than you can know,” he said, stepping suddenly back and hooking an arm around Penny’s waist.
Penny’s brow shot up in surprise at the gesture. Then he grabbed a handful of Greer’s jacket and swayed into him. “I’m irresistible, I know,” he said.
He pulled Greer closer, and like a man twice his age, he slammed his mouth over Greer’s kissing the air right out of his lungs.
The jolt of pleasure that filled Greer was matched only by the scintillating shock of having Penny in control of the kiss.
Penny was a decade younger than him at least, but his kiss was far from inexperienced.
Greer had always fancied himself the dominant partner in any encounter he’d ever had, but the red-headed mischief-maker blasting every other thought out of his mind with his skilled lips and tongue had him wondering if he might not like to taste the other side of things.
Greer was left reeling when Penny pulled back, eyes shining.
“How do we save our skins and get out of here to fight another day?” Penny asked.
It took a long moment for Greer’s mind to focus back on the danger they were in. “Unless you have the ability to sprout wings,” Greer answered, “we have to go down.”
Penny nodded. “Then down it is.”