The Secret of the Lady's Maid by Darcie Wilde

Author:Darcie Wilde [Wilde, Darcie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2023-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

A Strange Confluence of Events

“. . . it was my pride to lose with as much gaiety as anybody else could win . . . ”

Edgeworth, Maria, Belinda

Goutier was the first to leave Faulks’s flat. He retreated quickly down the same backstairs he’d used to arrive unseen from the street. Adam took up his post at the window again, and waited.

After a long moment, Goutier stepped out of the alley that snaked alongside Faulks’s building. Adam’s attention shifted to their man, the footpad. There was no mistaking when he noticed Goutier, who was, after all, not hard to miss, being a burly Black man nearly six feet tall in a crowd of much shorter, paler persons.

Goutier adjusted his hat and walked deliberately down the street, away from the cookshop where Tauton was still loitering.

As soon as Adam was certain the footpad’s attention had been caught, he bolted out of the flat and down the front stairs.

When he reached the street though, Adam changed his pace. Now, he was moving quickly, but with deliberation. He set off in the opposite direction from Goutier, striding along the sidewalks as if he’d never noticed the footpad lounging with the other men. While Goutier turned the corner past the wine shop, Adam headed for the cookshop, and Tauton lounging against the wall, gnawing his chicken leg.

Come on, he thought toward the footpad. You’re not just going to stand there, are you?

He was not. From the corner of his eye, Adam saw the footpad tug on his hat brim. Perhaps he said something to the card players, because they all laughed. Then, the footpad tucked his hands in his pockets and strolled away, moving easily and without concern in the same direction as Adam.

Adam passed Tauton, and the doorway of the cookshop. As he did, Tauton pushed himself away from the wall where he was lounging, and stepped right into the other man’s path.

“Now then, friend,” Tauton said. “I want a word with you.”

The footpad pulled up short, and tried to duck around Tauton, but Adam had already pivoted, and now stood between the footpad and the street. The man turned on his heel, and found himself face to face, or rather nose to shoulder, with Sampson Goutier.

“You’re nicked.” Goutier laid his heavy, bandaged hand on the footpad’s shoulder. “So no fuss this time, eh?”

“Who are you?” the man demanded. “What right—”

“We’re Bow Street,” said Tauton cheerily. “And you, my fine fellow, are Jack Beachamp, thief-taker. At least you used to be. You may have found it useful to change your name a time or two.”

“Who the devil . . . ?” the man demanded.

“Sam Tauton.” Tauton touched his battered hat brim with the chicken bone. “We’ve had dealings, you and me.” Tauton’s memory for faces was legendary around Bow Street. He could recall any person he’d met, no matter how many years might have passed.

Beachamp blinked in a surprise Adam felt sure was feigned.

“By God, so it is!” Beachamp cried, as if suddenly meeting an old friend.

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