Passionately Yours (Hellions of High Street 3)
He nodded. “I suspect so, but have not yet discovered his motive. There is trouble in Scotland, however—”
A loud metallic rap on the front door reverberated through the whole house, followed in rapidfire succession by several more.
“The dastard didn’t waste any time,” growled Alec. “I assume that will be the magistrate.”
“Well don’t just stand there!” Caro snatched the eagle from his hands and thrust it back in the sack. “We have to hide it!”
“And you.” He glanced at the door. “There’s no time to reach the back stairs.”
Rap, rap.
“Damnation.” Alec grabbed her arm. “Come with me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Scandal. Ruin.
Alec felt the sharp taste of bile rise in his throat. It was all because of him that Caro had been drawn into danger.
She had taken a terrible risk in following Thayer. He could not—would not—let her be destroyed because of her own intrepid sense of courage and loyalty.
Though why she had felt beholden to come to his aid was a mystery. He had been nothing but rude and snarly…
“A-are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Caro, as he pulled her into his bedchamber.
“It’s a bloody awful idea, but I can’t see that we have any other alternative,” he replied, marching her past the ornately carved four-poster bed and into the small adjoining dressing room. “It’s the only chance we have of dodging disaster.”
She edged around a rack of boot brushes and bottles of polish. “You don’t think it will occur to the authorities to search in here? It seems an obvious hiding place.”
“Of course they will look in here.” Alec set to shifting a stack of trunks and bandboxes. “But with luck, they won’t find you.”
“Lord Strathcona…”
A last heave cleared a space near the right corner of the back wall, revealing the faint outline of a small door, only three feet high, set in the wainscoting. “It’s a storage nook,” he explained. “It’s lined in cedarwood, so it must have been used to keep woolens.”
He saw her stiffen.
“It’s dark in there.”
“So take a nap,” he replied. “You’ll find a blanket. Granted, it’s a bit cramped—”
“It’s dark,” repeated Caro a little shrilly, shuffling back a step. “As in ‘black as Hades.’ ”
Alec heard voices in the corridor.
“Your name will be even blacker,” he shot back, “if you don’t get inside there now.”
She didn’t move.
Which left him no choice but to seize her shoulders and give her a shake. “Trust me. Please.”
“All right.” Squeezing her eyes shut, Caro allowed him to push and prod her into the small space.
Her reaction seemed strangely at odds with her usual bravado, but Alec didn’t have time to ponder why. Already he could hear a clatter of steps in the corridor. He swung the door shut, scrabbled the trunks back in place, then stripped off his towel and bolted for the bedchamber.
“Here now, you can’t barge into His Lordship’s quarters without permission.” The housekeeper’s aggrieved protest rose above the grumbling of male voices.
“Oh yes, we can,” came a gruff reply. “Stand aside. I’m the head magistrate of Bath and I need to have a word with the baron.”