“Do you think so?”
“A shock,” he amended. “You should sit down.” He moved as if to help her into one of the courtyard chairs.
Teresa stepped away from him. She did not wish to sit. “Put on a ship. And you know this. Did you do it?”
He nodded. So did Tom. Oh so very proud, this smug pair. “For you,” added Lord Macklin.
“For me. Without saying a word? For example, asking me if I wished it?”
“I wanted to save you…”
“Save?” She was shaken by a storm of anger. That word had been something of a refrain for her former “protector.” Along with gratitude, which he thought she should continually feel for his magnanimity in giving her refuge.
“To prevent trouble from coming to you,” replied Lord Macklin.
“Because I am incapable of solving my own problems.”
“No.”
“Like a child, really. With no power of rational judgment.” The grandee had said that about her too. Time and again.
“Not at all. You are putting words in my mouth.” The earl was beginning to sound annoyed. Tom looked uneasy.
Teresa felt a savage satisfaction at that. “You throw a man onto a ship.”
“It was a better plan than shooting the fellow,” the earl interrupted. “That sort of thing gets you sent to the gallows.”
“Shooting? You were going to shoot him?”
“Not I!”
“Who then? Tom?”
The latter made warding-off gestures.
“Rigby told us you asked him to get you a pistol,” said the earl sternly.
“Is no man on Earth to be trusted to keep his mouth shut?” Teresa exclaimed.
“He simply mentioned it when we were…”
“Agreeing with each other what was to be done! Of course he did. All the men planning, in their gracious arrogance, how to save me.” When Teresa saw Tom flinch, she realized that she’d shouted. She clenched her teeth and paced across the courtyard and back, regaining control of her temper. “I was not going to shoot him,” she said more quietly. “I am not a fool. I thought it might be necessary to threaten him.” Or satisfying, at the least.
“That would not have gone well,” Lord Macklin replied. “When you start waving pistols about, someone usually is shot.”
“I was not going to ‘wave’ it about. And I am quite able to use a pistol.” She wished she had her pistol now. She would show him she could hit a pip in a playing card from ten paces.
“Even the most skilled…”
“Oh, do be quiet.”
He looked startled.
As her emotions caught up with events, Teresa silently admitted it was a relief to know that Alessandro Peron was far away. She wasn’t yet ready to say that to the earl, however. “Is this why you acted so strangely yesterday?” She turned on Tom. “Is this where you have been? Everyone at the theater was wondering.” The lad backed up a step.
“We had him tied up in the coach,” said Lord Macklin. “And I didn’t want…”
“In your carriage? In a public street? Right there where I was standing!”
“Yes. And I didn’t want my coachman to find out. The fewer people who know anything about this, the better.”
“As you have learned from your extensive experience of spiriting people out of the country against their will.”
“More a matter of common sense.”
She gazed up at him. Something was clogging her throat. Amazement? Laughter? “Are you really so calm about this deed?”
“I spring from a long line of ruthless marauders, you know. Came over with William the Conqueror to grab whatever they could, and continued to do so for quite some time.”
“Ruthless.” Teresa no longer felt like laughing.
“A joke. Actually I found it…unsettling.” The earl looked at her. “I was promised the conde would not be injured on the voyage. And I believed the man who gave his word on that.” He held her gaze. “There are many…opportunities for a clever man in the Indies. I think this will occupy the conde for quite a time.”
He was probably right. Alessandro Peron would find it easier to impersonate a grandee there than in London. He would most likely prosper and remain. Her relief became a more settled thing.
“So that he won’t come back,” Lord Macklin added, as if she might not have understood.
“Yes, I see that.” Only then did Teresa realize that the earl’s absence and his behavior yesterday had been due to this—admittedly unrequested—service he had done her. He had not been avoiding her because of her history. In fact, he had been moved to help. But where did this leave them? “So,” she said.
“So,” he said at the same moment.
Teresa felt as if her confidences came to hover in the space between them. Things were not the same.
“That’s that then,” the earl said.
Tom nodded.
What was what?
Lord Macklin cleared his throat. “Did you say there was something you wished to tell us?”
“Ah, we are going to be English,” Teresa said.
“Eh?”
What else could he be, after all? Any more than she could help what life had made of her? He had been raised to be estoico. And did she not love him for what he was—upright, steadfast, kind? And so they would not speak of what lay between them. Not now, at any rate. Later, then they would see. “I believe I know where the missing dancers have been taken,” she said.
This drew a gratifying reaction from both her companions, which only grew as she told them her tale.
“You could find this place again?” Lord Macklin asked when she was done.
“Of course.”
“We gotta go after them,” said Tom, looking as if he was ready to race away immediately.
The earl nodded. “Indeed. We must make a plan to get in and discover what is inside that house.”
“We,” repeated Teresa with emphasis.
“The three of us and others,” Lord Macklin answered. “We will require help and unfortunately some little time.”
Teresa was as eager as Tom to move. She hated thinking of what might be happening to the dancers. But she knew he was right.
“We should get hold of that dismal scut who took Jeanne there,” said Tom.