let the carriage continue home, peering anxiously out of the window for a glimpse of either Gabriel or Dragan. Which was silly. Even if they were outdoors, they could be anywhere, in shops or hackneys… Did Dragan even have enough money to follow Gabriel about in hackneys?
And what if Gabriel saw him? Would he confront Dragan? Trick him into some quiet corner and kill him, as he had Nancy?
Dragan had been a soldier. He had dealt with more dangerous adversaries than Gabriel and survived. But the knowledge did not stop her worrying.
Her hope, as she stepped out the carriage at home, was that there would be a message from him, giving her a clue as to his whereabouts. Or even that he would be there, waiting for her, with news.
He wasn’t. Nor was there a note or message of any kind.
It was going to be a long day, and she could think of no useful way to fill it.
***
Shortly after midday and a solitary luncheon, she began to make plans for informing the police a crime was being committed in Gabriel’s rooms and hope that when they got there, they would find the hairpin that she and, at least Janet and Emmie among the servants, could identify as Nancy’s. Proof of an affair, perhaps, but not of murder. She began to think that concealing Nancy’s pregnancy from the police had not been the right thing to do.
In the same room as she had entertained Dragan yesterday, she pored over her notes once more, placing them in columns and using bits of string to connect items to other columns. Surely there was something there that would make the police act because if she sent them to Gabriel’s rooms under the pretense of a crime being committed, they would undoubtedly walk away again when they discovered all was quiet. They had no reason to search.
Unless she ransacked the place to look like a crime? Leaving the pin in a prominent position? Though that was resorting to the sort of tactics Art and Gabriel used…
Peter, the footman, stuck his head around the door. “Miss Derryn, my lady.”
“Oh!” In panic, she almost swept up her notes before she realized they might have finally convinced Penelope of her betrothed’s guilt. “Show her in here, Peter.”
She rose to her feet, straightening her shoulders to receive whatever fresh anger or accusation was flung her way.
But Miss Derryn flew into the room in clear distress, a handkerchief to her mouth. “I beg your pardon, Lady Grizelda,” she exclaimed. “My outburst yesterday was quite uncalled for, and I was wrong, so wrong to—”
“Penelope, please sit,” Griz said, going to her in some concern. “What is it? What has happened?”
“I cannot stop to explain, but I could not pass without apologizing for yesterday and to say…oh you are right and yet so wrong!” She turned on her heel, clearly about to dash off again.
“No, wait!” Griz caught at her arm. “What do you mean? If you have information, Penelope, you must tell me.”
Penelope’s eyes were wet and despairing. “I cannot stop. My stepmother is waiting for me. But yes, you have to know. I will show you.” She broke free, clearly still agitated, and then at the door, cast a frankly pleading look over her shoulder. “Can you come to Covent Garden tonight?”
“Of course,” Griz said at once. “To the opera house?”
“No,” Penelope whispered in clear anguish. “Mudd Lane.”
***
Griz spent the rest of the afternoon in an even worse state of anxiety. Penelope had dashed off, her nerves clearly in tatters, insisting only that she tell no one.
Griz had agreed in order to calm her, which had seemed to work, and had even won a wan smile from Penelope.
“It’s not as if we shall be in any danger, not now. I just cannot bear… Oh dear, I must dash. Tonight then, Grizelda. You are so good…”
Naturally, Griz racked her brains in the intervening hours to work out what it could be Penelope meant to show her. Perhaps Gabriel had told her about the drainage tunnel Inspector Harris had mentioned as another way to shift the blame from himself to Dragan. Griz wasn’t sure she wanted to inspect a drainage tunnel in the middle of the night. Or at any other time, really. But there must be some kind of evidence there, something that was clearly bothering her. Which surely meant the evidence was against Gabriel, not Dragan.
Or perhaps Penelope meant her to talk to someone, someone who knew something important,