Page 85 of How the Earl Entices

She made her way downstairs in the darkness, where she knelt on the floor and felt at the boards beneath the central beam. One gave beneath her hands, and a soft cry of relief fell from her. She held her breath as she reached inside the small hollow—

Her fingers brushed against the papers, still beneath the floor where Ross had hidden them.Thank God. Her hand shook as she retrieved them, knowing those pages held the difference between life and death. Not only for Ross but also for every man whose name was on that list. For those men alone, knowing what Ross was sacrificing to keep them alive, she could never give up.

Not bothering to replace the board, she tucked the papers inside the coat’s breast pocket and moved to the door. A flick of the lock on the big carriage doors, a hard shove and groan of wood upon stone—the doors parted just enough for her to slip outside into the alley. Without a glance backward, she hurried away into the night.

When she’d gone far enough away from the carriage house that Christopher wouldn’t be able to find her, she stopped. Quiet stillness hovered around her. Now she could rest and plan out her next steps.

Beneath the doorway of an abandoned building, she sat down to take refuge against the cold drizzle and wait out the dawn.

Chapter 25

“So you know what to do, correct?” Grace held up the few coins she had left and leveled her best motherly stare at the three boys standing with her at the edge of the square across from Wentworth’s townhouse. Then she hesitated, frowning as she looked them up and down. “Perhaps you won’t be able to do this after all.” She lowered her hand, to make a show of putting the coins away. “I’ll have to find other boys to help me. Boys who can run faster.”

“We’re fast, ma’am.” The oldest of the three boys assured her, his shock of bright red hair nearly as arresting as the map of freckles covering his ruddy cheeks. He wasn’t more than twelve.

“An’ plenty big ‘nough,” the second—and smallest—piped up.

The third one knew to keep silent.

“Perhaps…” She drew out the word, letting her doubt register in her voice.

“We can do it, ma’am. Ain’t nothin’ but a little play o’ tag wi’ th’ guvnor,” the oldest boy assured her. He held out his hand for prepayment of services, his expression suddenly all business.

She nodded as she placed a coin onto the grimy palm of each boy. “And another coin for each of you when you complete your task.” She pointedly jingled the pouch so they could hear that she had coin left. “Fail, and you’ll get nothing more. Understand?”

All three boys nodded with stubborn boyish pride, and she fought back a pleased smile. Raising Ethan had taught her that getting what she wanted from young boys required a combination of reverse persuasion, bribery, and old-fashioned threats.

“I’ll be waiting over there with your payment.” She pointed toward the corner of a narrow alley that cut through the stretch of terraced houses and gave access to the service yards behind. “Go!”

With excited grins, the boys ran away, laughing as they charged up to the front door of the grand townhouse. Grace watched as the two smaller boys stood to either side of the doorway and crouched down, hidden just out of view from the sidelights. The oldest grabbed the brass knocker and began to beat it furiously, as if he were attempting to wake the dead.

The butler opened the door and scowled when he saw the boy. Even from this distance, Grace could see the venom with which the paunchy servant began to berate the lad, moving to yank the door closed as quickly as he’d opened it.

But the boy lowered his shoulder and plowed into the door, shoving both it and the startled butler out of the way as the two smaller urchins jumped to their feet and ran inside the house, setting a merry chase. Shouts went up throughout the townhouse as the butler raced after them. But they were too fast for him to keep up.

Stifling a smile, Grace calmly strolled down the street to the alley, as if she were just another household servant, coming and going for work. She waited out of sight around the corner.

Less than ten minutes later, the three boys came running up to her. They laughed so hard that they nearly doubled over from their glee and giggles. After their sprint through the house, the three weren’t even winded, although she was certain they’d worn out the servants who’d chased them. In the distance, she heard a fierce shout from the butler and a slam of the front door. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

If what she was about to do wasn’t so dangerous, its endgame the only thing that would save Ross’s life, she would have taken a moment to enjoy it. But too much depended upon every step she made now, and there wasn’t a minute to spare.

“You did as I asked?” she pressed.

All three boys nodded.

“Aye, ma’am.” The oldest held out his hand for the promised coin. “The first door i’’ th’ side garden.”

Her belly tightened. It was her turn now.

Doing her best to press down the nervousness that rose so intensely that her hand trembled, she paid out the promised coins. The boys clutched their booty tightly in their fists as they ran away, down the narrow path toward the rabbit warren of back alleys and side streets that filled this part of Piccadilly like a maze. In a matter of seconds they were gone.

She inhaled deeply for courage and set off.

Unhurriedly, she strolled her way down the alley to the back of the terrace houses, looking for all the world as if she belonged right there. Anyone who saw her wouldn’t think to question her presence, not in a dress that four days of travel and sleeping in a doorway last night had dirtied to the point that she could have passed for any common lower-class laborer simply going about her morning business.

But the alley was mostly empty, except for a groom who was too busy flirting with a scullery maid taking out a bucket of slopes to notice her. Yet even then she kept her face lowered, her scar turned away.

When she reached the end of the terrace, where Wentworth’s townhouse mansion capped the row, she slowed her gate just enough to take a casual glance into its service yard, to make certain no one was there when she unlatched the garden gate and let herself inside.