She knew he was there, but she gave no sign.
Eventually, he asked, his tone the epitome of mild, “Why are you so set on seeing Roscoe?”
That was, apparently, the right question to ask to break the hold she was keeping on her temper.
She stopped walking, rounded on him; eyes blazing, she locked them on his. “It’s not Roscoe, you dolt! I couldn’t care less if I never set eyes on the man in my entire life!”
He searched her eyes, a frown in his; he was now entirely at sea.
She saw, and flung up her hands. “It’s you, you fool!” She thumped him on the chest with her reticule. “I don’t—can’t…”
He recalled—belatedly—her agitation over him seeing Gallagher.
She drew in a shuddering breath. Eyes still locked on his, she spoke through clenched teeth; although she didn’t actually stamp her feet, she managed to convey that impression. “I can’t handle not knowing what’s happening to you. Knowing you’re going into danger—and on my account. Knowing you like it, that you find it exciting—that you might do God knows what if the mood strikes you!”
Waving her hands, she continued to rail at him—in the middle of Piccadilly in the middle of the afternoon, with total disregard for the interested—nay, fascinated—onlookers.
He stood there and let her, while understanding slowly seeped into his brain.
“Didn’t you notice the damned track I wore in your rug last night? I’m a Vaux, for heaven’s sake—I can’t not know!”
He suddenly—in another road-to-Damascus revelation—saw the light. Just in time to stop himself from pointing out that he’d spent the past twelve years behind enemy lines doing supremely dangerous things. That wasn’t, he now realized, her point.
He suddenly realized, fully and completely, just what that was.
He would have beamed delightedly had he not also comprehended how strung up she was, how brittlely tense.
Finally comprehended that that was a measure of how much he now meant to her.
He trapped her gaze. “About Roscoe.”
She blinked, her tirade momentarily derailed.
Moving slowly, holding her gaze, he gently took her arm. “There is no physical danger of any sort involved in meeting with him.”
She frowned, but let him turn her and guide her onto the path behind her, one leading into Green Park. “So I can go?”
He steered her on, under the leafy trees. “Let me explain. While going to see Gallagher was dangerous, that danger stemmed from the area in which he lives, not from him. He might be an underworld czar, but he’s not about to attack anyone, at least not directly.” He glanced at her; she was looking ahead, as yet unmollified, but at least she was listening. “Regardless, even if Gallagher had lived in Chelsea, you still couldn’t have gone to meet him because of the risk of someone seeing you and speaking of it, ultimately resulting in a serious scandal. That—the threat to your reputation—was the reason, all physical danger aside, that you couldn’t go with me to meet Gallagher.
“The reason you can’t go to the meeting with Roscoe is the same—if anything, even more so. If you were seen entering or leaving his house, regardless of the circumstances, your reputation would be shredded irretrievably.” That caused her frown—the quality of it—to change. His eyes on her face, what he could see of it, he strolled slowly on. “Roscoe lives in Pimlico, in well-to-do affluence. If Gallagher was unlikely to pose a physical threat, Roscoe is even less likely—that would be total
ly and comprehensively uncharacteristic. Roscoe would think it beneath him to resort to violence of any sort.”
He drew breath, then quietly said, “So you don’t need to worry about me when I go to see him.”
She didn’t say anything, simply kept walking by his side. Then she glanced at him, quickly read his eyes, then once more looked ahead. And sighed—tightly, but a little of her dangerous tension slipped away. “I know it’s irrational—you don’t have to tell me, I know. I didn’t feel this way—well, not so strongly—before, when you went away to war, but now…” She gestured helplessly. “I can’t help how I feel. And what I feel—and when I feel….”
“It affects you strongly.” Raising her hand, he kissed her fingers. “I know. I understand.” She wouldn’t feel so powerfully unless she loved him even more powerfully.
He knew those feeling irrational fears couldn’t simply stop. And in her case, before, his “going into danger” had indeed been the prelude to something disastrous happening in her life; small wonder that she reacted badly to any such situation now.
“Tomorrow, I’ll go to see Roscoe with Dalziel and Justin in the morning, then I’ll come back—directly back—and tell you what happens, what he says, what we learn—what the status is regarding the sale of the company.”
The telltale tension that had kept her ramrod stiff beside him ebbed step by step. Eventually she glanced at him, met his eyes. “You promise you’ll come directly back?”
He smiled slightly, turned her around and started them back toward Piccadilly. “Word of an Allardyce.”
She nodded and looked ahead. “Good.” After a moment she added, “I’ll be waiting.”