To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

Jennings rushed to ask, “But what

about you?”

Facing the door, Malcolm smiled, letting his true emotions show where Jennings couldn’t see them. “Don’t worry about me. Even if the minions of justice bring my governor down, I doubt they’ll be concerned with a mere message-bearer.”

One, moreover, who’d taken care to appear an innocent-led-astray.

Raising his hand in farewell, Malcolm opened the door; without looking back, he left the tiny room.

As he threaded his way back through the dingy alleys, he swiftly reviewed his defenses. All were in place. All were rock solid. Jennings had been the only possible chink, and Malcolm now had the sealing of that in his control.

If Henry were caught, through either this latest folly or some other foolishness Malcolm knew nothing about and therefore couldn’t guard against, it would be impossible to hide his involvement. He’d realized from the first that his best defense was to remain in plain sight, but disguised.

In this case, the disguise he’d used for years with Henry, and which his guardian fondly, firmly, and irrevocably believed encompassed the true reality of Malcolm Sinclair, was essentially unassailable. It would protect him from anything beyond the mildest of repercussions; indeed, he’d own to surprise if he was even considered worth a formal warning.

As his boots struck the cobbles of a major street, he smiled cynically. If he played his cards well, he might even be viewed as a victim.

He was an excellent cardplayer. If Henry bought down their house of cards, his next challenge would be to see what hand he could get himself dealt out of the wreckage.

Pleased with the analogy, he whistled beneath his breath as he headed back to Mayfair.

Aside from all else, he had only a few days before fate would lift him into a new world, one in which he would be entirely his own master.

In just four days, he would turn twenty-one—and assume control of the inheritance he’d worked so diligently to protect from Henry’s depredations.

The following afternoon, Phoebe stepped out of the morning room onto the narrow terrace that gave onto the lawn of the walled garden of Edith’s house. Inside, lying down on the chaises in the drawing room after their afternoon’s exertions, Audrey and Edith were idly swapping anecdotes, eyes shut, recovering.

Smiling, Phoebe stepped onto the lawn and ambled, equally idle, down the path that followed the wide flowerbed along the laneway wall. It was after five o’clock and the sun was dipping below the rooftops, but the stones of the wall still held the full day’s heat; it was the perfect time for a lady to stroll without need of a parasol.

She often strolled at this time, the hiatus between the afternoon’s entertainments and the ritual of dressing for the evening. The lingering warmth of the day released the perfume from the blooms nodding in the border; she stooped to sniff a red rose, marveling as she always did at the richness of the scent.

Normally, she used these quiet moments to organize her thoughts, to review the day from the perspective of the agency and consider what the evening might bring, how she could best use its entertainments to further the agency’s aims. Today, however, she was fully engaged in suppressing her thoughts—from holding them back when they wanted to rush ahead. Soon Deverell would learn the identity of the dastardly procurer. Would he know today? Had Montague sent word to their meeting? Or had they already learned the answer via some other route?

Regardless, who was the man? Was he someone she knew?

More importantly, how would Deverell and his colleagues choose to act? Would they move today? Would he tell her first? Or…? “If I don’t stop thinking,” she muttered to herself, “I’ll drive myself insane.”

She glanced across the lawn to where Fergus sat on a bench by the house, mending a bridle. Continuing on, she passed the gate in the wall; reaching the back corner of the garden, she paused to admire a rosebush covered with fat pink blooms.

The sound of the back door opening had her glancing around. Milligan, the housekeeper, looked out. Seeing Phoebe, she beckoned and called, as she did most afternoons, “Mrs. Balmain’s called for tea in the drawing room, miss. I’m just about to take it in.”

Phoebe waved to show she’d heard and turned back to the house. “Thank you, Milligan. I’ll come in.”

Milligan noticed Fergus on the bench nearby. “You’d better hie yourself in, too, before my scones go cold.”

“Scones, heh?” Fergus laid aside the bridle. He looked across at Phoebe, returning up the path, then turned and followed Milligan through the kitchen door.

Phoebe didn’t hurry; it was so pleasant outside. She’d passed the garden gate and was halfway back to the morning room when a soft thud sounded behind her, followed immediately by a child’s wail.

“Noooo! M’ball! How’m I gonna get it back?”

Turning, Phoebe located the ball that had bounced on the lawn, then rolled a little way. From beyond the wall came sounds of an agitated conference debating the wisdom of climbing the high wall to retrieve the ball.

Quickly walking back, she picked up the ball; hefting it in one hand, she walked toward the gate. “Don’t climb the wall! It’s got glass shards along the top. Wait a minute and I’ll bring your ball out to you.”

She thought of tossing the ball back over the wall, but she couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t miss it, and then it might bounce into the garden across the lane, inhabited by a very large bullmastiff. Lifting the key from the nail, she slid it into the lock, then turned; the bolt fell. Grasping the heavy latch, she pulled the gate wide—and blinked at the empty lane.

The sound of rushing, retreating footsteps reached her. Puzzled, she stepped through the gate, looking toward the street—and caught a fleeting glimpse of three urchins fleeing around the corner as if the hounds of hell were snapping at their heels.