Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Dammit, this was precisely why Greer worked alone. One ridiculous lapse of judgment and his entire life and reputation were about to crumble around him.
“Run!”
He fumbled for Penny’s hand in the near total darkness, slamming his hand hard against Pennington’s desk as he did. He swallowed another curse as his fingers made contact with Penny’s, then made his way toward the shadowy outline of the door leading into the hall.
There was almost no light at all in the hall. Greer was desperate to light a match so they could find their way, but with the increasing noise upstairs, he didn’t dare.
“I can’t see,” Penny whispered just behind him, clinging to Greer’s hand.
“Hush,” Greer shushed him.
He racked his brain in an attempt to remember how far from their current position the stairs leading down to the servants’ hall and kitchen were.
He could barely remember what that end of the house looked like.
Were there parlors with windows they could escape through? A butler’s pantry they could hide in?
“We need to move,” Penny said, taking a huge leap of faith and moving forward, despite the darkness.
Greer grunted and followed, picking up his pace until the two of them walked side-by-side.
They made it halfway down the hall before light suddenly streamed down from above and ahead of them.
“I swore I heard something,” a deep, male voice said, likely from the top of a staircase that led down to the front hall.
Alarm jolted through Greer. He and Penny had reached an open doorway that led into what must have been the dining room, so he dashed to the side, tugging Penny with him.
“It was probably nothing, James,” a second, softer voice said. “You’re jumping at shadows.”
Greer’s brow inched up, but that was all the reaction he had time to allow himself. Pennington and another man? In the middle of the night, when the family was gone?
“I have to be certain,” the deeper voice said. It was followed by footsteps coming down the stairs.
Out of the hallway, Greer and Penny were bathed in nearly total blackness again. The only hint of light came through the windows to one side of the room. Not only were those windows a source of light, they could have been a means of escape.
He gestured for Penny to hurry around the long table with him. Blessedly, the young menace did as he was told for once and followed.
“Can we get out?” he whispered when they reached the windows.
“I tell you, it’s nothing,” the softer of the two male voices sounded from the hall, far closer than Greer would have wanted.
“I have to be sure,” the deeper voice said.
“Hide,” Greer hissed, pointing at the curtains.
Greer had to give Penny credit for being clever. He leapt right toward one of the curtains, twisting to conceal himself behind it. Greer hid behind the corresponding curtain, holding his breath.
“It was probably the cat or a rat or some such,” the soft male voice said, passing directly by the dining room doorway.
“I do not have a cat,” the deeper voice said dismissively, “and my townhouse is not infested with rats.”
“Every London house is infested with rats,” the softer voice said.
“Not mine.”
The voices passed, but Greer could still hear them as they continued down toward the study.
He glanced to the side, just barely able to make out Penny against the wall.
They needed to act quickly. Pennington, and Greer was certain that was who the deeper voice was, was seconds away from discovering the candle and the candy dish on the floor beside his desk.
At best, he would think one of the servants had decided to help themselves.
At worst, he would check the desk drawers and discover missing letters.
“Window,” Greer hissed, nodding toward the expanse of glass that stood between him and Penny.
Penny nodded and pivoted, reaching for the bottom of the window frame. He tugged, but nothing happened.
“Is it locked?” Penny asked.
Greer quickly felt his way around the window. He didn’t find a latch, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. If only they had more light.
“That damn footman!” Pennington’s voice roared from down the hall a moment later. “I’ll have his hide!”
Footsteps followed as Pennington marched out into the hall.
Greer searched the dining room as quickly as he could, spotting a doorway that likely led to the butler’s pantry and belowstairs only a few feet to the side. He grunted to get Penny’s attention, then gestured toward the door.
Penny nodded, and the two of them made a dash away from the curtains.
“James, be quiet!” the softer male voice hissed. “Do you want them to find us?”
“I will not tolerate thieving servants,” Pennington said. He was so close in the hallway that light from whatever candle or lantern he held illuminated parts of the dining room.
“They will find me here,” the softer voice said. “What would you say to that?”
Silence followed, which forced Greer to freeze in case he so much as squeaked a board under his feet.
“You have a point,” Pennington grumbled.
The other man did. Particularly if what Greer suspected was going on between the two was the truth.
Unfortunately for all of them, the commotion that had been made so far had been enough to rouse someone downstairs. Distinct sounds of movement could be heard below the dining room. Worse still, they seemed to be heading toward the butler’s pantry.
“Dammit,” Pennington grumbled in the hallway. “Move, man!”
The lamplight increased. Greer had no time at all to grab Penny and flatten him up against the wall beside a second window and set of curtains.
They didn’t have time to conceal themselves fully before Pennington and his gentleman friend walked past the dining room, heading toward the front of the house.
“That was clo—”
Before Penny could finish his sentence, Greer slapped a hand over his mouth and pivoted to hide the two of them behind the curtain.
Seconds later, Footsteps sounded on the other side of the butler’s door, and it flew open.
“I heard them right over there,” a woman’s voice said.
“Now, now, Ivy,” an older man said. “I’m certain it’s not intruders.”
The two of them crossed the dining room as Greer held his breath and squeezed Penny so tightly he likely couldn’t breathe.
“But the door was open, sir,” the woman, likely a maid, said. “The kitchen door.”
“Cook must have forgotten to latch it,” the older man, probably the butler, said.
The pair exited the dining room. Once again, Greer found himself forced to think fast rather than strategically.
“Downstairs,” he whispered to Penny, pulling him out from behind the curtain.
Penny nodded, and before either of them could think better of it, they dashed through the door and into the butler’s pantry.
There was nothing Greer hated more than moving fast without being able to see where he was going. He felt his way through the butler’s pantry to a narrow set of stairs leading down. There was light coming from the servants’ hall below, but it wasn’t as good a sign as he could have hoped for.
“People are awake,” Penny warned him as they descended the stairs, turning a tight corner as they did.
“You have a better means of escape?” Greer ground back.
Penny remained silent as they spilled out of the staircase and into the dim hallway running through the servants’ hall.
It was only a small sprint into the kitchen, but once they reached the wide area, which was now lit by a pair of lanterns, they came face to face with a terrified hall boy and a scullery maid who looked like she might faint at any moment.
Greer skidded to a halt in the kitchen, scrambling to decide what to do about the pair. They could sound the alarm at any moment and identify them if they were slow enough to be caught. But he didn’t have it in him to force them to silence.
Penny leapt toward Greer, grabbing his coat. For a moment, Greer thought Penny was trying to push him toward the door, but instead he tugged Greer’s coat open and thrust his hand into one of the inner pockets.
There was no time to demand what the hell Penny was doing. Half a second later, though, Penny wrenched back with two pieces of chocolate from the stash Greer had pinched. He ran over to the hall boy and the scullery maid, offering them each a sweet.
“You didn’t see us,” he told them, light and mischief in his eyes. “You slept through the whole thing. Didn’t you, pretties?” He handed them each a chocolate.
The two miserable waifs looked at Penny like he was Father Christmas, then nodded.
“Eat that quickly now,” he warned them, backpedaling to Greer. “They won’t like it if they find chocolate on your lips or fingers.”
The two drudges rushed to eat their chocolate and wiped their hands on their already threadbare clothes.
Greer didn’t wait to see what they did next. As soon as Penny reached him, the two of them dashed out into the mews behind the house. The second the cool night air hit them, they broke into a run, sprinting to get away from the house as quickly as possible.
They were only one street away when Penny burst into laughter. “Why didn’t you tell me housebreaking could be such a lark?”
“It’s only a lark if we aren’t caught,” Greer warned him. “And that’s far from a certainty right now.
Penny made a sound as they raced around a corner, one hand clapped to his head to hold his cap on. He had enough sense to keep his mirth to himself until they were all the way to Regent Street. Only then did the two of them slow down.
“Walk at a normal pace,” Greer panted, scanning the area around them. “We’re far enough away now that running will mark us as guilty.”
“Right,” Penny nodded, slowing his steps.
It took several more minutes for Greer to catch his breath, but even then, his blood continued to pump fast and hard through him. It would take him a lot longer to calm himself entirely from the night’s excursion.
“Exhilarating,” Penny laughed beside him, walking closer than he should have. “Now I know why you like housebreaking so much.”