Grimsby twisted a little more and leaned closer. “Were they, by any chance, asking who might be running a burglary school hereabouts?”
Wally’s silence was answer enough.
Grimsby lowered his voice. “Did anyone say anything?”
Wally tried to shake his head and winced painfully. “No! No one was saying anything at all. They was just wondering about the people asking, and why, is all.”
Grimsby pulled a face; he let Wally go. “Get back to the boys.”
With a careful glance at him, Wally turned and went, rubbing his abused ear.
Returning to the counter, Grimsby stood looking down at the notice. The names and descriptions didn’t worry him; the boys hadn’t left the house, and now wouldn’t, except at night. And all urchins looked the same in the dark.
It was the reward that bothered him. No one had said anythingyet,but someone, sometime, somewhere, would. There were those in the neighborhood who would sell their mother for the whiff of a solid coin.
He read the announcement again, and drew a little comfort from the reward being specifically for information about the boys, not about any burglary school. As the boys hadn’t been seen, not even by his nearest neighbors, he wasn’t, he felt, staring at the prospect of being fingered by the locals just yet.
But the boys needed to be out on the streets for the latter part of their training. Normally, Wally would have first taken them out during the day to wander around Mayfair, growing accustomed to the layout of the wider streets, learning about possible places to hide, like basement areas and the steps leading to them. Such spots didn’t exist in the East End; good burglar’s boys needed to know the lay of the land they worked.
Now all that part of their training would have to be done at night, and Wally would be no use for that. Smythe would have to do it all. And even then…
No matter how set on his plan he was, Grimsby couldn’t imagine Alert would want to risk the whole thing blowing up in his face.
Yet by his reckoning, they were only a week or so away from concluding their business. Despite the pricking of his thumbs, Grimsby felt reluctant to pull back—especially not with Alert holding a sword over his head.
And there was Smythe to consider, too.
Grimsby glanced again at the notice. Had he been acting on his own, he’d turn the boys out, let them find their way home, and wash his hands of the whole business. He was too old for prison, let alone transportation.
But Alert would be a problem. He was a toff, and arrogant with it.
Smythe, on the other hand, knew the ropes.
That afternoon, Penelope lolled in Barnaby’s big bed, and couldn’t remember ever being so content. So at peace.
Outside the windows, the gray November afternoon was quiet, dull and subdued. It was Sunday; there was little activity on the streets, a nippy breeze carrying the scent of winter keeping even the more hardy within doors.
The room was cozy, warmed by the fire burning cheerily in the hearth opposite the end of the bed. Slumped on the pillows, she snuggled under the covers, warmed to her bones and similarly relaxed, all of which owed little to the fire. The bed curtains had been loosened; although only partially drawn, they created a sense of enclosure, transforming the bed with its deep, cushioning mattress and numerous soft pillows into a cave of secret pleasures and illicit delight.
It was the pleasures and delight that had melted her bones.
After an early luncheon she’d told her mother she was going to deal with Foundling House business, then had taken a hackney to Jermyn Street. While they’d been readjusting their clothes in Lady Carnegie’s parlor the previous night, Barnaby had mentioned that Mostyn had Sunday afternoons off. Barnaby had therefore opened the door to her knock—ready to welcome her, and entertain her.
Thoroughly.
“Here.”
She turned to see him standing by the bed—gloriously naked—offering her a glass of sherry. Smiling in transparent appreciation, she freed one arm and reached for the glass. “Thank you.” She could do with the restorative; it was early yet and, as she’d learned the previous evening—and had had confirmed over the last hour—she still had a great deal to learn.
To experience and absorb, not least about herself—how she reacted to his patently expert lovemaking and, more important, why.
She’d had no idea the activity would prove so enthralling. So engrossing. So demanding not just physically but in ways she didn’t fully comprehend.
Certainly there was more than physical communion involved.
And that only intrigued her all the more.
She sipped, from beneath lowered lashes watched as, after checking the state of the fire, he prowled back to the bed.
