Chapter 14 #2
"In the middle of the night." Alexander rose. "I have spent the day in this chair and the matter of the Duke of Cornwall will keep an hour. Come."
Anthony considered him a moment, then gave a small laugh and stood. "Lead on, then. Though if we are robbed, I shall expect you to handle it."
"I shall consider it a useful exercise."
They left the study, and the house, and the gates of Harrington House behind them, and walked out together into the cold London night.
They had walked perhaps a quarter of an hour, talking of nothing — Margaret's plans for Christmas, a horse Anthony had been considering, the new headmaster at the school Anthony had attended as a boy — when the streets began to narrow and the houses to lean toward one another, and Alexander realized they had drifted, by no particular intention, into a poorer quarter than the one they had set out from.
He did not mind. The light was beginning to thin toward evening, and the chill was sharper here, and he found that he liked walking beside his cousin in a part of the city where neither of them had any business being. It was a long time since he had liked anything quite so simply.
It was then that he heard the sound.
Most men would not have heard it. It was small — a shift, a movement, the faintest scuff of a foot against stone — coming from the mouth of an alley they had just passed.
But Alexander's body had not asked his mind for permission.
He had stopped walking. His weight had shifted onto his left foot.
His right hand had moved very slightly, an inch and no more, toward a place at his hip where for four years he had worn a knife and had not now worn one for many months.
Anthony, two paces ahead, turned and caught the change in him. His easy expression sobered at once.
"Alex?"
"There is someone in that alley," Alexander said quietly. "Stay where you are."
He did not draw on anything. He simply walked back to the mouth of the alley, slowly, his eyes already adjusted to the deeper dark of it, and stood at the edge with his hands open at his sides.
"You may come out," he said. "No one is going to hurt you. I have no reason to."
For a long moment, nothing.
Then a small figure detached itself from the deeper shadow against the wall — a boy, perhaps eight years old, perhaps a year less, very thin, in clothes that had been mended past mending.
He held something against his chest with both hands.
It took Alexander a moment to see that it was a heel of bread.
The boy did not run. He stood very still, the way a small animal stands when it has decided it has been seen and cannot now outrun what has seen it.
"That is yours," Alexander said. "I have no interest in it. Are you alone?"
The boy nodded, then immediately shook his head, then went still again, unable to decide which answer would cost him less.
Alexander crouched, slowly, so that his eyes were not so high above the child's. "Where do you live? I will walk you home. It is getting dark."
The boy hesitated a long moment. Then he pointed, with the hand that was not holding the bread, toward the far end of the alley.
"Show me," Alexander said.
The boy walked, and Alexander walked beside him at a distance the boy seemed to find tolerable, and Anthony followed several paces behind, saying nothing. They came out into a smaller street, and then a smaller one, and the boy stopped before a door that did not quite hang straight in its frame.
He looked up at Alexander as if expecting to be dismissed.
"Knock," Alexander said gently. "I should like to speak with your mother."
The boy knocked, and the door opened, and a woman appeared in it whose face went pale the moment she registered what stood beside her son in the street. She caught the boy by the shoulder and pulled him behind her in the same movement.
"Your Grace—" she began, taking him for some kind of trouble, and Alexander raised a hand at once to stop her.
"Your son is not in any difficulty," he said quietly. "He was coming home. I have only walked with him because the light was failing. I am sorry to have frightened you."
She did not relax. She could not afford to.
"I should like, if you will permit it, to ask you and the boy's father to call at my house tomorrow.
Harrington House, in Mayfair. I will send a carriage for you in the morning.
There is — there is a matter I should like to discuss with you concerning your son.
It is not trouble. I give you my word it is not. Will you come?"
The woman looked at him a long moment, and at her son, and back at Alexander, and her face did not believe what it was hearing.
"My husband is at the docks until late, Your Grace."
"Then you and the boy alone, if it is easier. Or with him, if you would rather wait until he is home and bring him too. Whatever suits you. The carriage will come at eleven."
She nodded, slowly, because there was nothing else a woman in her position could do. Alexander inclined his head to her — to her, not to the door, not to the street — and stepped back.
He and Anthony walked on in silence for several minutes before Anthony spoke.
"What are you going to do with him, Alex."
Alexander did not answer at once. He was looking ahead, at the lamps just beginning to be lit along the larger street they were about to rejoin.
"I do not know yet," he said finally. "Find him a school, perhaps.
Find his father better work than the docks, if he will take it.
Make certain there is enough in that house that the boy does not go out at dusk holding a piece of bread as though it were the last one in the world.
" He paused. "Break the chain a little, if I can.
One boy. One family. I cannot do everything. "
Anthony was quiet a moment.
"Why him?"
Alexander watched a carriage roll past at the head of the street, its lamps gold against the deepening blue.
"Because he was in front of me," he said. "That seems, lately, to be reason enough."
They walked on, and the streets widened, and Mayfair received them again with its quieter light, and neither of them said anything more for a long while.
◆◆◆
The candles in Lady Beatrice's sitting room had burned low, casting dancing shadows across the walls as Alexander and Catherine lay entwined on the sofa, their breathing gradually returning to normal after another passionate encounter.
The sanctuary that Lady Beatrice had provided them had become their secret refuge from the constraints of London society, a place where they could express their love freely without fear of discovery or judgment.
Catherine traced lazy patterns on Alexander's chest with her fingertips, marveling at how natural this intimacy had become between them. In just a few short encounters, they had built a bond that felt deeper and more meaningful than anything she had ever imagined possible.
"I could stay like this forever," she murmured against his skin.
Alexander's arms tightened around her. "As could I. Though I suspect Lady Beatrice might have something to say about us taking permanent residence in her sitting room."
Catherine laughed softly, then her expression grew slightly troubled. "Actually, I feel rather embarrassed about coming here again without Lady Beatrice being present. I worry we are taking advantage of her generosity."
"She gave us permission to use this sanctuary," Alexander reminded her gently. "And she understands better than most what it means to fight for love against society's constraints."
Catherine nodded, though the concern remained in her eyes. "I suppose you are right."
Alexander's expression grew more serious as he traced his fingers along her arm. "Catherine, I wish we could be together openly, without all this hiding and secrecy. We could court properly, marry, have a normal life together."
"But?" Catherine prompted, sensing there was more.
"But I do not want anyone to know about us—not publicly—until my plan is complete and justice is served." His voice carried the weight of genuine regret. "I am sorry for making you sneak out in the middle of the night, for forcing you to hide in the shadows like a thief just to see me."
Catherine smiled, pressing a soft kiss to his chest. "I am used to it by now. And truthfully, I like the thrill of the whole situation. It makes me feel alive in a way I never have before."
Alexander's expression darkened with concern.
"I can see that you enjoy danger, Catherine, but I do not.
I have seen enough of it to last several lifetimes.
" His arms tightened around her protectively.
"I will not let anyone hurt you in order to stop me from revealing the truth.
The men I am hunting... they would not hesitate to use you against me if they discovered our connection. "
"You do not have to worry about me," Catherine said firmly. "I am stronger than you think."
"I know you are," Alexander replied softly. "But strength will not protect you from people who have already killed to preserve their secrets. Until this is over, until they are exposed and powerless, any public connection between us puts you in mortal danger."
Alexander grew more serious as he remembered something important. "Catherine, I need to ask you about something. There is a ball next Saturday—the Duke of Cornwall is hosting it. I assume your family received an invitation?"
"The Duke of Cornwall's ball?" Catherine asked, lifting her head to study his face.
"Yes, we did receive an invitation. My father is quite excited about it—apparently he and the Duke have become close business associates recently.
" She noticed the tension that immediately appeared in Alexander's expression. "What is wrong?"
Alexander was quiet for a long moment, weighing his words carefully. The Duke of Cornwall was at the very center of the conspiracy he was working to expose, but revealing that information to Catherine would put her in even greater danger than she was already facing.
"Catherine," he said finally, "I need to tell you something about the Duke of Cornwall, but what I am about to share could be very dangerous knowledge."
Catherine sat up slightly, her expression growing serious. "What kind of dangerous?"
"The kind that could get you killed if the wrong people discovered you knew it."
Catherine studied his face, seeing the genuine fear and concern in his dark eyes. "Alexander, do you trust me?"
"With my life," he replied without hesitation.
"Then tell me. Whatever it is, I can handle it."
Alexander took a deep breath, making the conscious decision to bring Catherine fully into his confidence. "The Duke of Cornwall is a dangerous man, Catherine. Not just politically or socially dangerous, but genuinely threatening to anyone who opposes his interests."
"What do you mean?"
"He is involved in businesses that go far beyond what appears in his public financial records. Enterprises of questionable morality that depend on—"
It was then that Alexander heard it.
A small thing — the scrape of a foot against stone, perhaps, or the faint shift of weight where weight should not have been. He went very still.
Catherine felt the change in him. "Alexander?"
He sat up, pulling on his shirt as he moved, and crossed quietly to the window.
He stood there a long moment, looking down into the dark street.
Nothing moved. No figure beneath the lamps, no shape in the doorways opposite.
Only the cold, and the empty pavement, and a tomcat slipping along the gutter on some errand of its own.
"I know what you heard." She raised herself on one elbow.
"And I love that part of you. But you are not on a ship tonight.
You are not in an alley. You are here, with me, in Lady Beatrice's sitting room, and the most dangerous thing in this street is a tomcat looking for his supper. Come back to bed."
He stood another moment, listening. The street stayed silent.
"You are probably right," he said at last, turning from the window. "I am getting paranoid, and I do not enjoy spending my limited time with you watching shadows."
He pulled off the shirt and slipped back beside her on the sofa, drawing the blanket up over them both. Catherine curled into him, her hand resting flat against his chest, and after a moment he felt his own breath ease.
The candles burned lower, and the house held them in its quiet, and outside in the street the small sound did not come again. Whatever had made it was already gone.