Page 32 of Let Me Be Your Hero
How he wished they were alone so he could kiss her. His house was only half a mile to the north, but it would be a dangerous business, moving her there. He knew her family would take every conceivable precaution.
But still, he didn’t like it, and he would not be able to relax until she was safely ensconced in his family’s fortress-like townhouse.
“I’d better go and get the special license,” he said. “What time should I expect you?”
“Half three,” Harrington called.
Archibald nodded. “Half three it is.” He pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “I’ll be waiting by the door.” He dropped his voice to a murmur. “Don’t worry. I would never let anything happen to you.”
“I know that,” she whispered.
“Until this afternoon, then.”
He pressed her hand one last time, then forced himself to leave.
CHAPTER 16
If anyone had been watching Astley House at a quarter past three, they would have seen Harrington Astley’s tiger, a skinny boy dressed in a groom’s attire of breeches, boots, tailcoat, and top hat, bringing Harrington’s curricle around to the curb.
Harrington emerged from the house, carrying the case containing his dueling pistols. He was careful to look nonchalant as he climbed into the curricle and stashed his pistols beneath the seat.
Once his tiger had taken his place on the tiny jump seat behind him, Harrington set a course south toward the shooting gallery run by Joseph Manton, the famous gunsmith. This was one of his regular haunts, as he was a marksman of some repute.
But he didn’t stop at the shooting gallery on Davies Street. Instead, he drove past it, then turned, plotting a circuitous route north.
Along the way, he caught glimpses of his brother Edward and his friends Thetford and Ferguson on horseback. They all pretended not to see one another.
An unmarked carriage pulled alongside them. He spied his sister Anne and her husband Morsley through the window. Theyhad a half-dozen firearms laid out on the seats beside them, and… was that abattle-axe? Harrington was fairly certain that was the battle-axe that had recently been hanging above the mantelpiece of the first-floor parlor at Cranfield House.
He couldn’t help but roll his eyes.Subtle, Morsley. Very subtle.
Anne and Morsley’s carriage turned off, keeping up the illusion that these were chance meetings, just as they had planned. Another carriage took its place, this one bearing a grey-haired woman with a fierce expression holding a blunderbuss at the ready. She was accompanied by a half-dozen brown and white speckled dogs. Good old Aunt Griselda.
His plan appeared to be working because they weren’t being followed, so far as he could tell, and none of the riders had dropped their hats, which was the designated distress signal. Twenty minutes after his original departure, he drove past the last of the older, more venerable squares of Mayfair and entered the area where the nouveau riche had built their mansions.
Most of the townhouses on the square where Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy lived were owned by rich industrialists like Harrington’s future brother-in-law. But there were a few families who were considered to be goodton. Caleb Stanhope, the second son of the Earl Stanhope and a preeminent barrister, had a house here. So did Andrew Milner, a prominent M.P.
Harrington drew his curricle to a halt in front of the Gothic monstrosity that was the Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy townhouse and waited for his tiger to climb down.
At this point, his actual tiger, who had walked over an hour earlier, came scrambling up the stairs that led to the coal vault and took hold of the horses.
This was fortunate because his other tiger was standing slack-jawed in the middle of the pavement, staring at theNettlethorpe-Ogilvy manse with its crenelated walls, arched windows, and turreted towers.
“This is it?” the “boy” said, entranced. “I get to livehere?”
“Only if you survive long enough to get inside,” Harrington said, grabbing his sister beneath the arms and hauling her up the six stone steps.
Izzie tried to twist out of his grip. “I just want to see—”
“You’ll have the rest of your life to look at it. Let’s make sure itlasts longer than three minutes, shall we? Don’t worry, I’m sure the inside is just as tawdry.”
Harrington wasn’t sure if the alacrity with which his sister hurried inside was a mark of how much she valued his sage advice or if she merely wanted to see if the house’s interior could possibly be as ostentatious as its façade.
He rather suspected the latter.
For the last half hour, Archibald had been pacing the foyer of his family’s home like the caged bear in the Tower menagerie and snarling a similar amount. He’d brought four dozen men over from Nettlethorpe Iron to serve as guards, and ten of them were stationed with him at the front door. By now they’d all given up on trying to offer him a reassuring word.
Jimmy Isaacs, one of the sharp-eyed apprentice boys he’d assigned to keep watch from the roof, came flying into the room, breathing hard from having run down four flights of stairs. “Curricle, coming up to the house, boss. Pulled by a pair of blood bays, just like you said.”
