Coates frowned; he waited for Phoebe and Emmeline to sit, then took the chair opposite Deverell. “Spot of bother?” He considered Phoebe for an instant, then turned his gaze on Deverell. “I take it there was some threat that Fergus and Birtles couldn’t handle?”
Meeting Coates’s dark eyes and seeing the real concern therein, Deverell recalled thinking that Loftus Coates might well prove an ally. Inwardly congratulating himself on his farsightedness, he nodded. “A cosh and a swordstick.”
Coates’s lips thinned; he turned a reproachful gaze on Phoebe. “My dear—”
She stopped him with an upraised hand. “Before you begin any lecture, I’ve accepted Deverell’s offer of…” She caught herself before saying “protection,” caught his eyes for a brief moment then smoothly continued—“an additional escort, additional help whenever we perform a rescue.”
Coates studied her for a moment, then transferred his gaze to Deverell. After a moment, he nodded. “Very well. I’ll say no more on that head. Instead, I’ll ask what I came here to learn—is there any special client you need help with placing? If you performed a recent rescue, I imagine there is.”
Phoebe nodded and proceeded to tell him of Miss Spry. It quickly became apparent that Coates had a large network of acquaintances and business associates, wealthier merchants, bankers, and the like.
“A governess of impeccable character with some experience with very young children. I really don’t think she’ll be difficult to place, my dear.” Coates smiled at Phoebe. “Leave it with me. I should have an answer in a day or two.”
Phoebe exhaled. “If you can manage it, we’d all be very grateful. She’s a lovely young woman, but we’ve nothing in our books that would be suitable, and with the news about the Chifleys’ loss still doing the rounds in the ton, I fear it wouldn’t be wise to look in those circles.”
“No, indeed. Not for Miss Spry, and not for the agency, either.” Coates glanced at Deverell, then looked back at Phoebe. “You really do need to exercise great care, my dear. No placement is worth the risk of jeopardizing all the good work the agency still has before it.”
It was a gentle rebuke, yet Deverell was grateful to Coates for making it; it absolved him of the need. At present he was doing his best not to tell Phoebe things she didn’t want to hear, but he could only go so far down that road.
Phoebe grimaced but merely rose as Coates did.
Deverell rose, too.
After shaking hands with Phoebe, Coates turned to him. “Perhaps, Lord Paignton, you could spare me a few minutes?”
Deverell smiled. “Of course.” Avoiding Phoebe’s immediately suspicious gaze, he waved to the front door. “I’ll walk you out.”
With a gracious nod, Coates accepted; he turned back to Phoebe. “I’ll be in touch in a few days, my dear.” With a nod to Emmeline, Coates turned and followed Deverell up the corridor.
They both nodded to Birtles at his post behind the counter, then Deverell held the door for Coates and followed him onto the pavement. By unspoken agreement, they strolled a few yards until they were beyond the agency’s windows.
Coates halted; he stared across the street and awkwardly cleared his throat. “I assume I don’t need to inquire as to your intentions, my lord.”
Deverell waited until Coates turned his head and met his eyes. “No.”
Coates studied his eyes, then nodded; Deverell glimpsed fleeting relief in his. “In that case, might I ask your…ah, stance as to Miss Malleson’s activities with the agency. I should tell you that I’ve assisted in my small way for over three years, and in that time I’ve come to admire and, figuratively speaking, greatly applaud the work Miss Malleson has accomplished in saving so many poor girls from…from…”
“An unenviable and undeserved fate?”
“Indeed.” Chin firming, Coates nodded. “Just so.”
Deverell looked down, frowned slightly as he considered his position—considered the right words to describe it. “I see no reason—none whatever—to disapprove of Miss Malleson’s intent with regard to the females she rescues. Indeed, like you, I find her actions admirable. However, I cannot, and will not, permit her to place herself—or indeed, as I’ve informed her, any of her people or the agency itself—in any danger. Of any kind.”
Looking up, he met Loftus Coates’s eyes. His voice firmed. “My stance, therefore, is that as I have no wish to curtail her activities, I must of necessity join in them—but as her protector, her shield. That’s my purpose in joining her little band—keeping Phoebe, and all her works, safe.”
Coates held his gaze for a moment, then briefly smiled. He held out his hand. “Thank you. I believe we understand each other. It’s a relief to know Phoebe has such a shield. If you ever need assistance of the sort I’m able to give, I’ll be honored to provide it.”
Deverell smiled and gripped Coates’s hand. They parted, and he returned to the agency, still smiling, just a little smug.
He knew what he was doing, or at least he’d thought he did. But as the days went by and he learned more about the agency’s operation and scope, Deverell found himself increasingly drawn in. Not just because of Phoebe, because it was her enterprise, the daytime activity about which her life revolved, but for the purpose itself.
Two nights later, lying pleasantly sated beside Phoebe in her bed, he stared at the canopy above and pondered the depth of his developing interest in the agency’s work. Perhaps it wasn’t such a fanciful notion that a man like him, one who had spent so many years in pursuit of his country’s greater good, should be attracted to the battle Phoebe was waging. The scale might be a great deal smaller, the field more circumscribed, yet it was still a battle between good and evil, between right and wrong—and it was waged largely undercover, yet another aspect that made the whole seem comfortable and familiar to him.
He felt like he belonged. As if working alongside Phoebe, keeping her and the agency safe, was a position that had been crafted especially for him—the answer to the restless, unsettled feeling that had gripped him over the past months. His lack of purpose…but was it fair or right to make Phoebe’s purpose his?
Beside him, she snuffled, wriggled closer, her bottom to his side, then sank back into slumber.
Inwardly smiling, he turned his mind to the day just passed, and those before t