gone to the Lass and changed out of this silly rig.”
“You weren’t thinkin’ of clothes at the time,” Maggie said with some sympathy. “Besides, all these petticoats is warm.”
“Do you think Claire was able to fetch the earl?” Down here, with only a thin yellow ribbon of electricks for light, she was cut off—buried as surely as any corpse in a grave. And for so long a time, it seemed eternity had passed.
Alice wobbled dangerously close to losing hope. “I’m going to give her another five minutes and then I’m going up there myself.”
“Wot ’ud you do?” Lizzie asked from within her turquoise-and-lace cloak. “Come to fisticuffs wiv that lot?”
“No, but I have a set of lock picks and I know how to use them.”
“Right, and they’ll ’ave left ’em unguarded.”
Alice exhaled in lieu of snapping at the child. “How can someone so small know so much about lockups?”
“Did the Lady ever tel Lang l you about Dr. Craig, and ’ow we broke ’er out of Bedlam?”
And she made the mistake of saying, “No,” and some while later when the two of them wrapped up their tale, Alice realized that the little scamps had actually made her forget what they were all doing there.
“Tell ’er about the time Lewis rescued all our poor ’ens off that barge, Liz,” Maggie said. Lizzie opened her mouth to do so when they heard a thump from the ground above them.
“Sssh! Wot were that?” Lizzie hissed instead.
“And which way did it come from?” Alice whispered.
Now they could hear a commotion—boots and angry voices and what sounded like fists landing.
“There!” Maggie pointed down the corridor. “The next set o’ steps, I’m sure of it.”
The girls scrambled out of the silken embrace of Alice’s skirts and all three ran down the corridor. Maggie was right—as they climbed the steps, they could hear snatches of people talking. Or shouting, more like.
“Leave them here,” an imperious female voice said quite clearly through the panels of the hidden door at the top of the steps. “My father and Mr. Penhaven will be along shortly to deal with the nasty miscreants. He plans to give them a fair trial, right there in the boardroom.”
“We’ll give ’em fair!”
“Just as fair as they gave our boys on the digger—a long dance on a short rope!”
“But the earl’s dressing room, Miss Meriwether-Astor?” said a calmer voice, more worried. “Is that quite proper?”
Meriwether-Astor? Alice’s mind felt like an unmanned dirigible being batted around by high winds. Where had the girl come from? And what did it mean that she was doing exactly as Claire had said? How could she? She was their enemy’s daughter!
So where were Claire and the earl? Had something gone dreadfully wrong?
Mumbletythump! A body landed against the door, then another a little distance away. And a third beyond that. Someone groaned right next to the panel against which Alice pressed her ear, and it was all she could do not to jerk back and send herself tumbling down the steps.
“Oh, yes. Why should they have the dignity of a drawing room, or even an office? A latrine is good enough for them.”
“I’d say so. Nothing but dung, they are!”
“Hey, don’t insult good dung!” Raucous laughter greeted this witticism.
“Come along, gentlemen. If you will arrange the boardroom and see that this door is securely locked, with a guard posted outside it and outside the window, I will inform my father that his wishes have been carried out.”
“Right you are, miss. Careful. Don’t step in the blood and spoil your pretty dancing shoes.”
“Thank you, Alan. You are the kind of gentleman I desentstep in paired of ever meeting in these parts.”
The door slammed, and the lock turned over.
Alice took a breath and listened. Nothing moved on the other side.
Oh, please don’t let him be dead. Please. I’ve only had a day …
She leaned gently on the lever next to the panel and the door eased open toward her, allowing a crack of light through from the electricks in the dressing room.
The man on the other side sucked in a breath through his nose, no doubt thinking he was suffering from both nausea and vertigo.
Perhaps he was.
Through the crack, she got a glimpse of matted blond hair.
“Pa?” she whispered. “Pa, can you hear me?”
He stirred, and clutched his arm against his ribs. “Alice?” he breathed. “Where are you?”
“There’s a movable panel behind you. We’ve come to get you out. Easy now, not so fast. The steps go straight down.”