Page 4 of Peril in Piccadilly
“I have lived in England for twelve years now. I feel English, not German. I have no family left in Germany…”
“You have me,” Wolfgang said, which only served to illustrate that he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
I nodded. “Of course. But?—”
But I would have to leave Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert, and Francis and Constance, and most importantly, Christopher. And—yes—Crispin. Whom I would probably miss, too, if I never saw him again. I had a family and a life here in England, that had taken the place of the one I had had in Heidelberg. There was nothing left of that one, and much as I liked Wolfgang—and I did; I liked him very well indeed—he couldn’t make up for everything else I would be losing. It would have been different had I been madly in love with him, but I wasn’t.
He looked a bit as if he had bitten into a lemon, and it only got worse when I reached across the table and picked up the ring he had placed there and held it out to him. “I’m sorry I can’t accept it. I should have explained up front. It’s not you; please believe me when I say that. You’re a wonderful man, and a great catch, and I enjoy spending time with you…”
He forced a smile, and I trailed off because he looked pained. When he didn’t say anything, I did the only thing I could do, and pushed my chair back. “I think I should go home now.”
“Philippa…”
I shook my head. “Thank you for supper, Wolfgang, and for the theatre. It was a wonderful evening. You know where to find me if you want to see me again.”
He opened his mouth, and I added, before he could say anything, “I understand if you don’t. But I would hate for this to be it. I have enjoyed getting to know you. And I’m not saying I couldn’t learn to love you, or perhaps come around to your way of thinking. I don’t know how much longer you’re planning to stay in London…”
I trailed off for a second to give him the chance to jump in with an answer. When he didn’t, I continued, “—but for as long as you’re here, I would enjoy continuing to spend time with you. We’re family, aren’t we?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course—because yes, we were; at least according to Wolfgang—but he nodded, so I nodded back. “Good. Then don’t be a stranger. You know where to find me. I’ll see you again soon.”
I didn’t wait for him to speak, or to help me into my coat, I simply snagged it from the back of the chair beside me and threw it over my arm while I hustled for the street. The doorman swung the door open for me, and I burst into Piccadilly Circus in my evening dress with my coat flying like a flag behind me. My heels clicked rapid fire across the cobbles as I skirted the construction zone that would become the updated Piccadilly Circus tube stop, and headed across the street for the entrance to the current underground, dodging motorcars and pedestrians.
I don’t normally travel by tube late at night. Christopher would no doubt get on me about it once he found out that I hadn’t taken the time to flag down a Hackney for the ride home. But I felt pursued, for some reason. Not physically—there was no reason for Wolfgang to follow me, not after how we had left it in the restaurant, and it was even less likely that Crispin would abandon Laetitia at the supper table to trail me out of the Criterion—but I couldn’t shake the need to get out of sight as quickly as possible. And it wasn’t as if the underground was deserted at this time of night. Piccadilly Circus is one of the most traveled tube stations in all of London, hence the need for the upgrade.
When I ducked into the entrance and headed down the first flight of stairs towards the bottom, I was surrounded by people. Other women and men in evening kit, domestics making their way home at the end of the day, shopgirls and clerks, we all crowded each other down the stairs and into the curved, tiled tunnel with its white and green stripes.
To the lifts, a sign said, with an arrow pointing the way, and some of my fellow travelers veered off in that direction. I didn’t; I continued along the tunnel towards the next flight of stairs. There was still the need to keep moving, the knowledge—or fear—that if I stopped to wait for a lift, someone—I had no idea who; perhaps just the marriage I didn’t want—would catch up to me.
It was ridiculous, and I was well aware of it. No one was chasing me. And if I were wrong, and Wolfgang was behind me, the worst thing that would happen was that I would have to talk to him again. And since I had left the door open to do that at some point anyway, it wasn’t as if it would be a problem. But part of me was in flight mode, and I wanted to get out of the West End as quickly as possible. To put some distance between myself and the awkward conversation I had just had—in front of Laetitia and Crispin, no less; had they heard me, from where they were sitting?—and to get back to Christopher and safety and home. My heart was drumming in my chest as I turned onto the second staircase, with its arrow sayingTo the trains.
There was a smartly dressed young woman in front of me, in a brown cloche hat and a matching jacket. Beside me was a man in tweed and a Homburg. In front of the young lady was another man, this one in a black coat and bowler hat, and in front of him again was a young couple of the Bright variety: he in evening kit and she in a fur-trimmed coat similar to the one Laetitia had worn.
When something hit me in the middle back on the third step down, I took out the girl in the cloche hat. She took out the gentleman in the bowler, and he took out both parts of the young couple. And so it went, until we were all piled in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, groaning and whimpering about skinned knees and broken bones.
ChapterTwo
“I’m fine,”I said crossly, not for the first time.
It was an hour or so later, and I was seated on the sofa at home with my pyjama trousers pulled up above my knees to accommodate the plasters decorating both my kneecaps, and I was clutching a cup of tea in bandaged hands while I winced at the feeling of heat against my scraped palms.
“You don’t look fine,” Christopher answered, also not for the first time. He was sitting on the other end of the Chesterfield with a cuppa of his own, over which he assessed me critically. “You look like someone who was pitched down a staircase and who is fortunate to be alive.”
Since that was the long and short of it, there wasn’t a whole lot I could say in my defense, although I tried. “I’m hardly fortunate to be alive, Christopher. People don’t die from falling down stairs.”
“Certainly they do,” Christopher said tartly. “You’re lucky you had a soft landing.”
I supposed that was true. My pretty ivory frock was dirty and torn along the hem, and I had scrapes and bruises on my palms and knees, but I had been lucky to get away with no further injuries. The fellow at the bottom of the pile—a young and skinny specimen in evening kit—had, as far as could be determined, not only ruined his trousers, but had also quite possibly broken his nose when he landed face-down on it. It had been bleeding copious amounts, and had looked a bit crooked when he stood up. He had been clutching his wrist, too, so there might have been something wrong with that, as well. And the bloke in the bowler hat had seemed to have trouble catching his breath, so either he might have broken a rib or his heart was acting up.
“How many people were involved?” Christopher wanted to know.
I thought about it. “There must have been ten or twelve of us. I didn’t count specifically, but at least that many. Piccadilly Circus is always busy.”
“Do you have any idea what started it?”
I didn’t, and told him so. “I don’t think we ever found out. All I know, is that someone hit me in the back. That’s what everyone said, that someone hit them in the back and they fell.”
“Someone must have started it,” Christopher insisted, and then cut himself off to stare into the foyer as the buzzer beside the front door rang. “Now who could that be, at this time of night?”
