Page 64 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Dannyboy gave a jerky little shrug, struggling to remain an aloof demeanor. “I didn’t like the look o’ any of ‘em,” he said. “I came through the back, like ye said—but I didn’t let them get a peek at me afore I did.”
The boy had damned good instincts. Even at his age he had seen enough to know that some sorts of people were not meant to be crossed. That there existed a whole subset of the population who would not think twice about apprehending even a boy of his tender years. And if they were lingering outside of Rafe’s home, well—
He was about to be arrested.
He couldn’t even say it was particularly unexpected. He had always known it was a dangerous game he had played, and that Sir Roger made apowerful enemy. And now, somehow, he had been found out.
Rafe rose to his feet, shoving his hand within his pocket to retrieve his coin purse. “Mrs. Morris let you in?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Dannyboy said. “She weren’t pleased about it. Said I got mud all o’er ‘er clean floors.” His eyes fixed upon the purse in Rafe’s hand in expectation of the promised coin. “If you ain’t got nothing for me—”
Rafe tossed the entire purse to the lad. Unless he missed his guess, he wouldn’t be needing it any longer.
Dannyboy’s eyes rounded as he caught it in the cup of his hand. “What do ye want for this?” he asked.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Rafe said, “and to follow my instructions to the letter. You must leave the house the same way you entered and take Mrs. Morris with you.” The poor woman could too easily be caught within the web that Sir Roger had cast, and her only crime had been keeping house. “Tell her she’s not to come back. And then you must go straight to Emma’s, and staythere.”
“Fer ‘ow long?” Dannyboy inquired, though a long, hard swallow bobbed in his throat. Probably too much of Rafe’s disquiet had shown upon his face, and even a boy of his years could sense that something had gone terribly wrong.
Christ. He didn’t know. The tides had turned, pitching him overboard, and he could not see his way out. Could not see if therewasa way out. “Until she tells you it’s safe,” he said. “Tell her—tell her I’ve been arrested. Tell her that her brother likely has, too. And tell her that whatever happens, she must keep it hidden. She’ll know what it means.” His fingers itched to write out the instructions, but there was always the chance that Dannyboy would fail. That the note would be intercepted. That it would then be used against him in an attempt at the subversion of their goal, a perfect bit of evidence of a criminal conspiracy. “Have you got all of that?”
Dannyboy nodded, his fist clenched around the purse, his eyes growing wide and frightened.
“Go,” Rafe said. “Gonow. And take care of yourself.” He had grown rather absurdly fond of the boy, and it was as close to a farewell as he could manage.
Dannyboy made a queer little sound in his throat, halfway to a sob, and Rafe thought—just maybe, the boy had developed a fondness for him as well. “Goodbye,” Dannyboy said in a choked voice, and darted out of the room, his footfalls nearly soundless upon the stairs.
Rafe would have liked to offer the boy some assurance, some faint hope to cling to, but he could find precious little of it even within himself. He knew only too well the fate that awaited men in his position. A short drop and a sudden stop would be a mercy.
He was surprised at the steadiness of his hand as he poured himself one last glass of brandy and sat back in his chair to enjoy it. The last taste of freedom he was likely to have—and it tasted mostly of regret. What would Marcus think of him? Diana? Likely not much, given that she had been furious enough to refuse him the last two Saturdays he’d come for breakfast, as she had once demanded of him.
What would Emma think of him? Probably, he thought, nothing at all. Perhaps that he had earned his comeuppance.
He had almost finished his brandy when at last he heard the unmistakable sound of his front door being broken down, and he rose to his feet once more to descend the stairs and meet his fate.
∞∞∞
“Dannyboy!” Neil’s shout preceded the echoing stomp of small, booted feet in the hall without the room that had once been Ambrose’s study, and Emma jerked at the intrusion of the sound, her concentration ripped away from her.Dannyboy?
“Emma!” It was practically a wail, high and keening—the sort of sound that she would expect of a child in the throes of a nightmare, and it brought her surging to her feet, abandoning the books clustered around her as she strode for the door.
It had hardly opened beneath her hand before the boy barreled straight through it, and he cast his arms around her middle, his small shoulders heaving with each frenetic breath. “They got ‘im,” he said, his voice muffled against her stomach.
Her brow furrowed in confusion even as she draped her arms around him, offering a few soothing pats to his back. “Dannyboy, what—”
“The lad got away from me,” Neil said breathlessly as he appeared in the doorway, his chest heaving with the exertion of having raced after the child. “I can take him to the schoolroom—”
“No!” Dannyboy’s arms squeezed her as if he thought he might bepried away. “I gotta tell ‘er first,” he said. “’E said I ‘adto!”
“There now, it’s all right,” Emma said in what she hoped was a soothing cadence, with a brisk nod to Neil, a silent instruction to stand down for the moment. “Tell me what?”
“’E said to tell ye ‘e’s been arrested,” Dannyboy said on the tail end of a sob. “Said they got likely got yer brother, too. Said I was to stay ‘ere until ye said it was safe and that ye was to keep it ‘idden no matter what.”
Emma’s breath sailed from her lungs on a massive rush, as if a knife had slipped between her ribs and punctured them. Her legs trembled, her knees buckled—and Dannyboy came crashing to the floor alongside her in a tangle of limbs.Arrested. Rafe and Kit?
I am deeply, deeply sorry, Sir Roger had said. And this had been the why of it; his next move across the board. Two knights captured in one fell swoop. Hardly a sporting play, but she ought to have expected it of a man who would cheat to win.
“My lady!” Neil strode forward to help her regain her feet, but still Dannyboy clung to her with tiny whimpers of distress, and Emma did not think her legs would yet hold her besides.
