Caught in the beam of each other’s gaze, they were both motionless. Fascinated. Wary.
A breeze seized and tossed her bonnet ribbons.
And then he noticed her shoulders rising and falling, rising and falling with swifter breaths.
He exulted.
The next breath he took was hot and unsteady.
Then both turned at the sound of footsteps racing up behind them.
“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Breedlove, the girl is lazy as the day is long but she’s me sister’s—oh, my goodness it’s... Lord Bolt.”
She put a hand to her heart.
Helga was a handsome and formidably tall woman, with glowing cheeks, a pile of gray and gold hair, and biceps many a man would envy, earned from pummeling bread and hoisting roast haunches, stirring delicious things, no doubt. She was tugging her shawl about her.
“You must be Helga. I was just telling Mrs. Breedlove how much I enjoyed breakfast. You have a gift.”
He left two speechless and radiant women behind him when he strode off.
Bond Street was its usual lively deafening throng of men and carriages and horses, and, frankly, he’d missed it. Lucien waded into it as though it were a balmy sea, letting the shouts and laughter and furious arguments of pedestrians, the pye men and costermongers bellowing their wares, crest and break over him. But he kept his head down. A decade ago this had been one of his haunts, and little had changed about the storefronts. He was also, and had never been, an inconspicuous man, and his plans today, part of a multipronged plan, rather hinged upon anonymity.
He passed the watchmaker who’d repaired the watch his father had given him.
He passed a maker of fine stringed instruments.
He passed the jeweler where his father had bought for him the singular signet ring he wore.
And when he’d nearly reached Oxford Street, he ducked into an alley between a tobacconist and a haberdasher and waited. Mr. Exeter had done his research well.
At half past nine Lord Cuttweiler strolled briskly by, the picture of cheerful self-satisfaction. There was a good twenty pounds more of him than the last night Lucien had seen him, but the nose pointing skyward was unmistakable. The gold tip of his walking stick winked and tapped merrily on the ground.
Lucien slipped from the alley and fell into easy stride alongside him without saying a word. And such was the throng that one would scarcely notice a brushed elbow.
So when Cuttweiler glanced left, it was really more a reflex than anything else. He didn’t seem to notice a thing.
But something primal must have jerked his head back around in that direction again.
And when he did, he met Lucien’s gaze full on.
Cuttweiler stopped abruptly.
Another man tripped over him and uttered an oath.
Lucien didn’t blink as he stared at him.
Cuttweiler’s throat moved in a swallow. And before Lucien’s eyes he blanched to the shade of buttermilk.
“Oh God... Dear God... No... please no... it can’t be... no... No. No. NOOOOOO.”
Somehow Lucien doubted an innocent man would scramble backward with every “no” and turn the last one into a wail.
Cuttweiler ricocheted like a billiard ball off the pedestrians in the crowd, staggering, spinning, tripping, never quite getting control of his balance until he finally hurtled backward into a costermonger’s cart.
The stacked pyramids of apples exploded and rained down on the crowd amid shrieks and epithets.
That would do for now, Lucien thought with grim satisfaction.