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Quin leaned across the desk, righted the bud vase, dropped a copy of The Times on the puddle of water and spun the index slip around.
Mrs Anthony
Walker’s Lodging House
3 Trivett Street
He pushed it back and fell to his knees, murmuring apologies.
‘Not at all, sir, not at all. I will just pick this up and then I will take your details. Oh, dear...’
Quin slipped quietly out of the door and hailed a cab. Mrs Anthony—and Cleopatra...it has to be her.
* * *
‘I imagine school is like this,’ Cleo said with a sigh and blotted the fair copy of the translation before looking to see what else she still had to do. Arabic into English. Greek into Italian, English into French. Mr Trimm was very thorough, but then, it had seemed a most respectable agency and the rates he had quoted seemed reasonable.
‘Wouldn’t know—dame school wasn’t like that.’ Maggie shook her duster out of the window. ‘This place isn’t bad, but they could do with a bit more spit and polish.’
Two rooms—one shared bedroom and what was optimistically described as a parlour—and the right to cook their own food in the kitchen and have a shovelful of coals every day, would take all of Cleo’s money in three weeks. Earning was essential, although Maggie declared that she’d soon find a job in one of the inns and chop houses in the area.
‘There’s someone at the front door—sounds like a row,’ Maggie said unnecessarily as raised voices penetrated from the landing. The thin panels rattled as someone knocked and their landlady’s voice could be heard raised in protest.
‘’Ere, I don’t hold with callers in rooms. There’s a parlour downstairs for that. This is a respectable house, I’ll have you know. I’ll not have some rake upstairs!’
‘But I am a very respectable rake, madam,’ a familiar voice said.
Cleo dropped the pen, heedless of ink splatters. ‘Quin.’
‘Well, that’s that,’ Maggie said with a grimace. ‘We’re too high up to climb out of the window. I’d best open the door and we’ll see if we can make a break for it when we get outside.’
Cleo shouldn’t have been glad to see him, elegant and faintly smiling while Mrs Walker brandished a large wooden spoon and threatened to call the Watch, but she was. So very, very glad, just for a second. Then the unhappiness flooded back.
‘Good afternoon, my lord.’
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Anthony, Miss Maggie.’ Quin stepped inside and closed the door firmly on the furious landlady. ‘I suggest you pack immediately for I do believe she means to call the nearest Charlie with his stick to have me thrown down the stairs.’
‘You have come to take me back to Grosvenor Square.’ It felt better to be standing. Cleo put her shoulders back and her chin up.
‘No... Pack and come back with me to Albany and we can talk. Cleo, don’t look at me like that.’ Quin reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
Her eyes stung, her lids felt heavy. Cleo closed them for a moment until she had the tears under control. Quin would take her back, of course, but at least it was a respite. ‘How did you find me?’ she asked when she had her voice under control.
‘I thought about how you might earn your living and then Baldwin and I worked our way through all the likely agencies until I found Mr Trimm.’ Quin was talking in a calm, conversational tone as he ushered them out and down the stairs, pausing on the landing to juggle the portmanteaux into one hand while he offered several banknotes to Mrs Walker. The landlady changed from fury to fawning in the time it took her to look at what she had in her hand.
‘George is holding the fort,’ Quin continued as he opened the door of the waiting hackney carriage and helped them in. ‘The duke has been sending messengers demanding news of my progress at hourly intervals, which is a trifle wearying.’
‘My grandfather came to you for help?’
‘He summoned me,’ Quin said and leaned across to drop the blinds. ‘He told me to cancel whatever foreign trip I was about to embark upon and find you.’
‘He is the limit! The arrogance of the man is incredible—as if you would just drop everything and do as he asks.’ Cleo thought for a moment. ‘But you did, didn’t you?’
‘I was worried about you, Cleo. You and Maggie together are bright and you are brave, but you are not used to the perils of London and he told me you had little money. After that morning in the park I knew you were desperate.’
Nice sentiments. Quin had warned her about Dryton, he was kind to her—but he still answered to her grandfather. She was sore with disappointment and fearful of what would happen now, but most of all she was saddened that it had been Quin who had tracked her down.
