Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(67)

Cautiously Victoria stepped beneath the arches of the covered arcade, where people milled around shops and stalls. She blended into the crowd at once, letting the current push her past a profusion of flower baskets and old women who made bouquets on request. Dozens of hands skimmed over piles of vegetables, plucking and gathering the choicest ones for purchase. Strings of eels hung over fish stalls, where men deftly cleaned and gutted the freshest catch and wrapped them. A bird dealer held a screeching parrot aloft on his gloved hand, while cages of canaries, larks, and owls raucously advertised their availability for sale.

Victoria passed the doorway of an herb and root shop, where glass containers of leeches were lined along wooden shelves, and a perfumery with a window full of unguents, creams, and heavily fragrant oils encased in colored glass jars.

"'Ere, luv," came a cackling cry, and Victoria turned with a start as a clawlike hand caught at her sleeve. A diminutive, gaudily dressed old woman wearing bangles, scarves, and red skirts held tightly to her arm. "Let me tell yer fortune, dearie...a shilling to learn the secrets of tomorrow! Only a shilling, mind ye...an' wiv a face like yers, what a fine future it may be!"

"Thank you, but I have no money," Victoria said in a low tone, jerking her arm free and walking away.

The fortune-teller persisted, however, following with a spry step and catching once more at her wrist. "I'll tell it fer nothing, luv!" Her voice rose to an inviting screech not unlike the parrots at the bird dealer's. "Come one an' all...Who wants to 'ear the lovely lass's fortune?"

Realizing the woman intended to use her as some kind of advertisement, Victoria pulled hard against the restraining clutch of her hand. "No," she said sharply. "Let me go."

The minor scuffle attracted a few gazes, and Victoria glanced warily over the crowd as she broke free from the fortune-teller. Suddenly she caught sight of a gentleman's pale gray hat, and her chest contracted painfully with alarm. It looked exactly like the one Mr. Keyes wore. But he couldn't have followed her so quickly, could he?

She searched for another glimpse of the hat, but it was gone. Perhaps she had imagined it, she thought anxiously, and hurried eastward toward the massive pillared portico of the opera house. The towering height of the four fluted columns that fronted the building made the swarming public look like a colony of ants. Some sort of protest was being staged, a mob in front shouting at the closed doors. Gentlemen and beggars alike contributed to the tumult, all of them barking and braying about a recent increase in admittance prices.

"Old prices!" many of the disgruntled patrons were calling. "We want old prices!"

"Too high, too high!" others screamed.

Plunging into the noisy throng, Victoria pushed her way deep into the crowd until she came to the lee of one of the Doric columns. Leaning back against the cold stone, she stood very still, pulse thrumming, while the crowd surged and booed and moved around her. She stared fixedly at the reliefs set in the panel before her, a carved figure of Shakespeare, the Muses, and above it, a statue of Comedy set in a niche.

Keyes was following her; she couldfeel it.

Keyes thought she was Vivien, and he was going to kill her either out of vengeance or because he had been hired to do so. If he knew she had left the house, he would guess that her first thought of sanctuary was number 4 Bow Street. He would do everything in his power to stop her from reaching Sir Ross.

Suddenly Victoria experienced a flare of anger at the unjust situation. She was in danger through no fault of her own. She had come to London out of worry for her sister, and then one bizzare event after another had led to this.

It seemed the sky opened up, torrents of water suddenly breaking through the air, causing the mob to disperse rapidly and search for shelter. The heavy splashing rain saturated the scene, sluicing over umbrellas and hats, soaking through clothes and shoes.

Taking a deep breath, Victoria looked around the column again and glanced over the crowd. She caught sight of the gray hat again, and terror shot through her as she recognized Keyes. He was standing perhaps fifty yards away as he questioned someone, his face set and cold, his posture betraying extreme tension. "Oh, God," she whispered.

As if he sensed her gaze, Keyes turned and looked directly at her. His expressionless face suddenly contorted angrily. He shoved the man he was questioning out of the way and started for Victoria with murder in his eyes. Victoria bolted at once, pushing her way through the scattering throng and running alongside the opera house. She saw the corner of Russell Street and tripped on the cobbled carriageway. She fought to regain her balance, aware that Keyes was closing the distance between them.You won't stop me , she thought with grim determination. Shewould reach Bow Street, damn him...She had come too far to fail now.

Grant hurtled through his own front door, his face white as a skull as he beheld the unusual gathering of servants in the entrance hall, footmen and housemaids clustered around Mrs. Buttons.

"Mr. Morgan!" the housekeeper exclaimed, rushing forward without her usual calm dignity. She seemed anxious, perplexed, a few skeins of her graying hair escaping the usually immaculate coil atop her head. Grant had never seen her in such disarray.

"Where is she?" he asked savagely, though his insides were already screaming in denial at the obvious answer.

"Thank the Lord you're back," Mrs. Buttons chattered nervously. "I was about to take it upon myself to send a note to Bow Street, as we didn't know when you might return, and I thought it important to verify Sir Ross's request--"