Holding her gaze, he simply said, “Please, Diana, do this for Alicia and me.”
Diana looked into his eyes and felt her heart break. He meant every word, and if he had the courage to send his children off with her and Toby—if that was his last wish—she couldn’t refuse him.
She sighed. “All right.” She needed to slow events down so she could grasp every detail and, ultimately, take charge. “But there’s no reason we need to rush off tomorrow.”
Toby took in the set of her chin, so very reminiscent of his sister Pru, who was innately bossy and liked being in control, and instead of arguing, switched tacks. “Before we can make any plans to leave, we need to secure the dispatches.” He met Diana’s eyes. “Where are they?”
She frowned. “That’s another thing. I don’t know.”
He managed to keep his jaw from dropping. “Your father had them.”
She nodded. “And from his last words, he hid them somewhere in the house.”
“Your father died three weeks ago. You didn’t think to look for them?”
“I haven’t had time.” Her expression was growing ever more stubborn. “Given they seemed well hidden, I thought I might as well leave them wherever they are until Winchelsea’s man—you—turned up.” She paused, then added, “I thought you might have a better idea than I where to search.”
He swallowed the urge to groan. She was probably correct about him having more notion of where the dispatches would fit.
Fellows added, “Locke gave me to understand that the packet was safely hidden in the house.”
Somewhat reassured, Toby nodded. Resigned to a night of searching, he looked at Diana.
She rose. “We can go to Kleeblattgasse now and search. Then you can take the packet with you. I would rather you held it than me.”
Amen.With a curt nod, he stood. He glanced at Fellows, then looked at Diana. “I take it you’ve been staying here overnight.”
“For the past few nights.” She glanced at Fellows. “We can’t tell when…”
Toby met Fellows’s gaze. “Once we’ve located the dispatches, I’ll escort Diana back.”
He looked at her and found her bristling.
Chin rising, she declared, “It’s not that far, and this is Vienna, not London.”
“Nevertheless.” He shared a look of fellow feeling with Fellows. “Given the Prussians are in town, I believe Fellows and I will both sleep more easily knowing you’re safely under this roof.”
She looked exasperated, but then shook her head and swept toward the door.
With a nod to Fellows, Toby followed.
They donned their coats, and he accepted his gloves, hat, and cane from the butler.
As they left the house and the door clicked shut behind them, Toby inwardly admitted that sensible procedure dictated that, once he had the dispatches in his keeping, he should immediately put distance between himself and Diana Locke and the household in Lowelstrasse, yet the thought of allowing her to walk back to Fellows’s house alone in the middle of the night rose in his mind only to be dismissed. With prejudice.
Keeping pace as she walked briskly down the street, he dwelled on the apparent reordering of his priorities that the past few hours had wrought.
CHAPTER2
As Toby and Diana traversed Vienna’s darkened streets and the city’s bells tolled for eleven o’clock, he wryly recalled Drake’s instruction that, if necessary to get Diana to leave, Toby should use his persuasive talents. By that, Drake had meant gentle seduction.
Instead, three children and the last wish of a dying man had done the job.
The oddity was that Toby almost regretted that no exercising of his seductive skills had been required. He wouldn’t mind ruffling Diana Locke’s feathers. Only fair, given how distracting he was finding her nearness, even though they were walking side by side with nearly a foot of clear space between them.
In an effort to find an effective distraction, he focused on potential threats ahead. “Are there any staff at your father’s house-cum-surgery?” His contact hadn’t mentioned any, but the fewer who saw him with her, the better.
“No. Not now. I let them go, as it’s just me living there at present, and Herr Herschel—my father’s partner, who is taking over the practice—will doubtless bring in his own people after I leave.” She glanced briefly Toby’s way. “I was planning to leave, eventually.”
