Page 7 of Hazard a Guest
She was going to have to ask Freddy bloody Hightower, the disgraced Earl of Bentley, for help.
CHAPTER 2
Everything smelled wrong.
Joseph Cresson knew that didn’t make sense, but it was true regardless. Every scent they’d encountered since hitting the Thames estuary had been wrong, somehow. Even the ocean spray at the port call in Dover had felt alien.
The river, the streets, the hedgerows here, none of them were quite right, not quite what he remembered.
Perhaps it was because it was so dark. Perhaps it was because it was cold and the rain was coming down in icy globs that captured and distorted scent as they fell.
But Joe didn’t think so.
He suspected, with a growing sense of unease, that it smelled wrong because everything in Lisbon had come to smell so right.
It had been a year. Only a year, he reminded himself.
By tomorrow, London would smell like home again.
The gentle darkness of the night was so quiet. There was no revolution here; there weren’t midnight dance clubs or all-hour cafés turning out hot bread and sizzling meat with no regard for the crack of midnight.
There was no unrest here. There were no men to carry to safety. There was no contraband to stow and transport. There was no need to keep watch, lest an alarm sound.
You love the quiet, he reminded himself, but it felt odd, all the same.Peace is a gift.
He shivered, the cold setting in through his coat, which had often been entirely too warm back in Portugal. The plopping icy drops from the heavens soaked against the oiled leather, dribbling down his arms and into his pack.
Very few windows were lit along the avenues that led to Bow Street at this hour. Everyone here knew night was for sleeping.
Joe had known that once too.
He had been certain of it. Once.
He sighed and shifted his pack from one shoulder to the other, shaking out the thoughts and the clinging bits of sleet in his hair. He looked down at the gleaming cobblestone and firmly said to himself:Home.
He hadn’t intended to be away for so long. The trip to Portugal was supposed to last a matter of weeks. Perhaps two months at the very most, to attend to a Portuguese client’s necessary legal interests while the man was otherwise occupied here in Britain. However, arriving in Lisbon in the middle of a political upheaval had complicated things significantly.
Joe had found himself needed for far more than legal paperwork during his time in Dom Raul’s estate. And he had found himself more than happy to provide whatever aid he was able.
The ship back to London had made better time than intended. He was supposed to have arrived back firmly in the midst of daylight, when the contrasts would not be quite so sharp. And, most importantly, when the man he’d let stay in his flat while he was away would be awake.
He had already come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t getting his own bed back tonight. He could sleep in the sitting room. His couch was plenty hospitable. He only hoped his houseguest didn’t have a short fuse for unexpected guests or any weapons with which to dispatch them close at hand.
Freddy had, after all, gotten his letter. Some part of the man was expecting him, even if he was presently three hours into a ripping good dream. That, at least, should prevent any violence.
It should.
He passed a man, portly and bundled, nursing a cigar. They nodded to each other as though they were having the same night.
Joe’s little flat lived above a café near Bow Street called The Cuckoo’s Nest. He’d bought it some six years ago, directly from the café owner. It was a modest thing with a narrow landing and a narrower staircase, but it was plenty for him.
He’d filled it with books and green things and furniture that felt welcoming. He’d made it into a sanctuary here in this strange city, which ironically had felt so terribly noisy to him back then, when he’d first arrived from the Midlands.
He gave a small chuckle to himself at the memory because, once roused, it felt like a comfort.
Everything is familiar and right, he realized,once you’ve spent enough time with it.
His key still worked, still turned like he’d used it every night that he’d been a world away. The fourth step still creaked like a toad who’d been nudged by a boot. The landing was still too narrow and always would be.
