She heard his words but did not register them, her gaze fixed on the couple in the street, haggling with a fellow leading a horse and cart.
The man was balding under his beaver hat. The woman was short, buxom, dressed in navy with gold embroidery.
Navy and gold. The livery of Kilbride House.
Her hand fell away from Arthur’s. The apple hit the cobblestones with a wet thunk, and she gasped at the sound and shrank farther back into the shadows.
Arthur closed the distance between them in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
“The Thibodeaux,” she said. “They’re in the street just before us. And Arthur”—she hesitated, but she knew, sheknewshe was not wrong in this—“they are the ones who ransacked my room. Claudine was the scullery maid we saw at my door, dressed just as she is now. I recognize her.”
His body had insinuated itself between hers and the busy street, his solid form a wall of protection, his gaze following hers to the man in the hat, the woman in navy and gold.
Itwasthe Thibodeaux. She could see that quite clearly now,and by the grim acknowledgment on Arthur’s face, she knew he recognized them as well.
“They are the ones working with Davis,” he said. “Not the de Younges. Not the Valiquettes.”
“Yes,” she said. “And we cannot let them get away. Not until we know what they are doing here in Edinburgh.”
Chapter 18
G—if you should arrive in London before we do, please assure my brothers I’m perfectly safe! Lie, if necessary.
—from Lydia to Georgiana, scrawled upon the back of a bill of sale and thrust into the hands of a porter
They crept out of the alley once the Thibodeaux finished their haggling and began to move down the shop-lined street.
Lydia gritted her teeth. They were too recognizable, both of them—she with her hair and Arthur with his height and looks and general irresistibility. But they had to follow the Thibodeaux—had to, if possible, get close enough to discern what they were about.
It could not be a coincidence that the Thibodeaux had searched her room and now seemed to have followed them south. Perhaps they knew where Davis was and meant to reunite with him.
Perhaps—for some reason—they were after Arthur. She had to figure out why—had to get close enough to overhear their words or ascertain their lodgings.
But if Didier or Claudine turned around and saw Lydia andArthur behind them, the game would, decidedly, be up. There would be no chance for the clandestine gathering of information if the Thibodeaux spotted them.
Arthur seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “I’ve a little gunpowder in my pocket,” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear. “Perhaps I can distract them with a wee explosion and then we can creep nearer—”
Anexplosion? Surely there must be some less incendiary approach. Something covert, something they would not detect. She could—
A millinery just ahead provided a blaze of inspiration.
“This way,” she hissed, and pulled Arthur bodily into the shop.
“What do you mean for us to do—”
She pushed him into the window display—dozens of silk roses and artificial fruits and tiny figural birds—and then down to his knees. He was staring at her in frank astonishment, and she caught his chin in her hand and turned it toward the aged rippled glass. “Don’t look at me,” she whispered. “Watch them. Stay out of sight.”
And then she dashed farther into the shop to face the astonished proprietor.
Her usual anxiety at the notion of speaking to strangers rose up, as it always did, but the sheer urgency of the situation seemed to enable her to produce audible words.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. Her voice had come out bizarrely sanguine, as though she shoved large earls beneath window displays on a regular basis. Her blood was pounding in her ears. “Don’t mind us. The earl needs—a hat. We are”—she caught up her reticule and yanked at the strings, fishing out a ludicrous amount of coin—“in mourning.”
She shoved the coins into the proprietor’s hands. It was enough to buy a dozen hats, at least based on her knowledge of Bond Street. She presumed Scottish headgear operated on roughly the same sales-to-cost ratio.
The milliner blinked down at the coins. He had a jolly round face and a superlative conical Paris beau hat upon his head, and he must have been familiar with the bizarre whims of the aristocracy, because he nodded and gestured to the shop at large. “Indeed, my lady. Take your pick.”
She gave him a grateful smile as she snatched up a black silk mourning bonnet. She thrust it onto her head, tucked the veil around her face, and made her way back to Arthur, vision only slightly obscured.
