Love's Harbinger Read Online Free Page B

tailor and probably a few gambling debts, but his father planned to take care of all that when they married.
    Tottenham Court Road was not in the elegant part of London familiar to debutantes. Faith felt a twinge of fear when she was let down into an unkempt shadowy street and approached the building where she and Thomas had once met Mr. Elwood. He had only one room in a corner of it. The front door was locked, of course. That was the first obstacle, and naturally the office door inside would also be locked. Mr. Elwood’s office window looked out on the south side, so she ventured to the side of the building to try for access there. The groom came after her, warning her away from the dark alley.
    “I must get inside. It is a matter of—of life and death,” she asserted. “Can you pry that window open for me?”
    “Let me call in Bow Street,” John Groom suggested.
    “That wouldn’t do, Nubbins,” she answered simply, but he understood that secrecy was vital and helped her. He also got the lantern from the carriage to aid in her search and suggested that she draw the curtains for privacy’s sake.
    “I’ll keep an eye peeled here and come to your rescue if you have company,” he offered.
    “Thank you, Nubbins,” she said as calmly and politely as though he were a footman handing her a glass of ratafia. Then Nubbins gave her a boost to allow her to scramble through the window into Mr. Elwood’s office.
    As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed that the places of concealment in the single room were few. There were three chairs, the large cubbyhole desk, a coat tree, and a row of cupboards along one wall. The lantern showed her the outlines of these furnishings, and she went directly to the desk. She was pleasantly surprised when the drawers slid open easily, but when she looked in at their emptiness, she knew why Elwood hadn’t bothered to lock them. Next she went to the cupboards. The lamp resting on the desk behind her threw long, menacing shadows on the wall. The office was perfectly still; you could hear a pin drop or your own breaths suspended on the air. The cupboard held some record books, which she took to the desk to peruse. She was reading a list of contributors to the Anglo-Gold Investment Company when she heard a soft sound in the hall beyond the locked door, and her heart raced in fear. The sound was so slight that she at first mistook it for a stray cat or a gust of wind. As she listened, the sounds came closer and then stopped at the door.
    Was it Nubbins, come to see if she was safe? She was about to call when it darted into her head that it might be Mr. Elwood. She hastily blew out the lantern and crouched behind the desk. She could feel the current from the open window and gauged her chances of getting out before he came in. They were slight, as she would require the chair to reach the window and a key was already turning in the lock. There was nothing for it but to stand up and face him, then. Yet when the key did not open the door easily, she hesitated. It might be anyone . . . a common thief who would slide a knife between her ribs before Nubbins came to her aid. The key turned, the door opened, and someone came in, closed the door quietly behind him, and turned the lock. The locking of the door was more frightening than the rest. He wasn’t locking himself in. Did he already know she was there? A cold sweat broke out on her forehead and she felt her skin turn to gooseflesh.
    From her hiding place behind the desk, she saw a dark shadow move and realized that someone was coming toward her but so softly she couldn’t gauge the direction. Even the shadow had disappeared. Her breath caught in her lungs while she waited, looking helplessly at the window, which was too high for her to jump out of, and then at the locked door, where the unknown person blocked her exit. It seemed she waited a long time, wondering why the person didn’t move, didn’t do something or say something. Who