Stokes muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath; Barnaby didn’t need to hear it to know that he’d be spending every minute of that day glued to Penelope’s side.
She came up to them, smiling delightedly, clearly taken with her new persona.
Even as he looked down into her dark eyes, a niggling warning took shape in his brain. When stepping into the shoes of someone from a much lower station, as now, he’d always found it easy to shrug off the social restraints that applied to a gentleman of his class.
In far too many aspects, Penelope was proving to be much like him.
His jaw tightened until he thought it might crack.
She blinked up at him. “Well? Will I pass?”
It took a second to master his growl. “Well enough.” Glancing over her head, he saw Griselda come forward. “Come on.” He reached for Penelope’s arm, then remembered and grasped her hand instead.
She started fractionally at the unexpected contact, but then smiled—still transparently delighted—up at him, and curled her fingers around his.
Swallowing a curse, he turned and towed her to the door.
They piled into a hackney for the journey to Petticoat Lane. They whiled away the minutes discussing the order in which they would approach the names on Stokes’s list, and making plans should they decide to split into two groups—a decision they deferred until they were on the ground and had assessed the possibilities.
Leaving the hackney at the north end of the long street, they plunged into the teeming mass of humanity filling the space between the twin rows of stalls lining the pavements, spilling over the gutters and into the road. No driver would dream of taking his carriage down that street with the market in full cry.
Sounds and smells of all kinds assailed them. Barnaby glanced at Penelope, wondering if she might quail. Instead her expression suggested that she was eager to get on. She appeared to have no difficulty ignoring all she did not wish to notice, and drinking in all that was new, all that had been until now unknown to her.
He seriously doubted that any other viscount’s daughter had ever rubbed shoulders with the denizens of Petticoat Lane.
For their part, said denizens cast her shrewd looks, but all seemed to take her at face value. With the hem of her full skirt, rather shorter than would have been acceptable in any ton venue, flirting about the tops of her well-worn half-boots, with her trim figure set off by the tight-waisted jacket, the lapels of which gaped provocatively at her breasts, all combined with her native confidence and perfectly sincere delight in all she saw, with her local accent setting the final seal on acceptance, it was hardly surprising that the locals swallowed her disguise whole.
Luckily, they also swallowed his. His face set, his expression an open warning, he hovered at Penelope’s shoulder like a prepared-to-be-vengeful demon. No angel had ever looked as black and menacing as he did, not even Lucifer. It wasn’t difficult to project such menace—because that was precisely what he felt.
When a grimy pickpocket edged too close to her, he met Barnaby’s shoulder and a blue glare. Eyes wide, the man righted himself and scrabbled away into the crowd.
Stokes halted beside Barnaby. Directly before them, Penelope and Griselda were exclaiming over a collection of tawdry bows displayed on a rickety stand.
Glancing around, over the sea of heads, Stokes said, “Why don’t you and Penelope take this side, while Griselda and I take the other?”
His gaze on Penelope, Barnaby nodded. “Figgs, Jessup, Sid Lewis, and Joe Gannon—they’re the ones we’re after today.”
Stokes nodded. “Either along here, or in Brick Lane, we should be able to get a bead on those four. This is their turf—people here will know them. But don’t push too hard—and don’t let Miss Ashford, either.”
Barnaby answered with a grunt. Quite how Stokes imagined he might accomplish the latter he’d love to hear. Penelope was entirely beyond his control…
The notion, or rather the notion of controlling a female in his present guise—and hers—sparked an idea. A glimmer of a possible means of survival. When Stokes moved forward to draw Griselda away, Barnaby swooped in, seized Penelope’s hand, and tugged her along to the next stall.
She stared at him. “What’s the matter?”
He explained Stokes’s plan, then waved down the line of stalls. “This is our side, and we have to get on. However, now we’ve split up, we’ll need to remain close, so I’m going to play the role of jealous lover disgruntled over the time you’re spending on furbelows.”
She stared even more at him. “Why?”
“Because it’s a role the locals will recognize—one they’ll accept.” And it would require no effort whatever for him to play the part.
She humphed; the glance she threw him suggested she didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
He answered it by looping an arm around her waist and pulling her into his side. She stiffened; she started to glare, but he grinned evilly and tapped her nose—thoroughly distracting her.
“No Covent Garden flowerseller would react like that,” he murmured. “You claimed the role, now you have to play it.”
She had to force herself to relax, but gradually, she managed it. They moved down the line of stalls, stopping to chat here and there, dropping the names of their targets whenever they encountered anyone who looked like they might know something.
