Page 21 of Ghost in the Garden
“If you wait until I’ve spoken to Constance, I’ll come with you,” Solomon said. “Going into St. Giles alone after dark is not wise.”
“I have learned the worst places to avoid,” Dragan said. “The rest have grown used to me. Just drop me at Long Acre.”
“Be careful,” Solomon said uneasily, though Dragan had been a soldier and could presumably look after himself.
“You too. You are a little close to the Devil’s Acre, are you not?”
“I don’t like her being there,” Solomon blurted.
“You have to trust in her good sense.”
“As you do with your wife’s?” Solomon retorted, although the cases were, of course, far different.
“Yes,” Dragan said unexpectedly. He knocked on the carriage ceiling for the driver to halt. “It can be hard, but she would not be Griz if she didn’t try.”
He was right, Solomon realized as the hackney rolled on. Constance wouldn’t be who she was if she didn’t throw her heart and soul into things. And she had survived a dreadful past that had at least provided her with good instincts and the means to recognize and escape from problematic situations. He knew that.
He wasn’t sure it helped.
He alighted at Westminster Bridge and walked briskly toward the Lamberts’ house. Having worried about being late, he found now he was too early, and so, after peering along the street at the front of the house, he moved along the curving lane and around the back of the house, where smaller, meaner dwellings stood. They might once have been mews buildings for stables and carriage houses, though now they were mostly somewhat run-down cottages.
There were no street lamps here, only the faint glimmer from the street beyond and whatever light escaped the closed curtains and shutters of the surrounding windows. At least the sky was clear, revealing the moon and glittering stars.
A dog barked at his passing. A door closed in the distance, but otherwise he saw no one. Before he reached the door to the Lamberts’ garden, it opened silently, causing him to press back into the shadows of the wall.
A slender figure slipped through the door, silver in the beam of the moon, and apparently veiled. For an instant, he imagined he was looking at the ghost itself, and his mouth went dry. Clearly, he had paid too much attention to the Tizsas, for the ghostly figure turned, inserted a key, and turned it in the lock.
No ghost ever made a noise like that. Besides, it moved like Constance, quick, graceful, and sensual. He stepped out of the shadows, and her breath caught as she jerked to a halt.
“It’s me,” he said wryly.
A small, inarticulate noise spilled from her. She threw herself at him, clutching his arm with both hands, painfully tight. “Sol.”
He closed his free arm about her, but already she was hurrying him on as though ashamed of the weakness.
“I don’t have long. I don’t know when she’ll ring for me. Seven o’clock would be better tomorrow, while they’re dining.”
She said nothing else as they sped out of the lane and onto the street, where she pulled him away from the house.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
“Oh, nothing. I don’t like Lambert.”
“Is he a threat?” Solomon asked calmly while curling his fingers, itching to damage the man just for frightening her.
She drew in a breath. “No. I’ve faced worse and I can deal with it. I don’t have to like it.”
“Neither do I. Come out. We’ll investigate some other way.”
“We’ll never get in some other way. The footmen are more like bodyguards, one for her, two for him. They patrol the garden regularly—I only just made it unseen—and watch the street too.”
“For what? Ghosts?”
“I suspect the threats are more substantial. He’s a villain, Solomon, the sort you can feel without evidence. A nasty piece of work.”
“You wouldn’t let him near your girls?”
She cast a quick glance up at him, as though she suspected him of making fun of her. In fact, he was perfectly serious. She was an excellent judge of character, and whether she would permit men near her girls was a better guide than most.
