Mrs. Price considered. “The street was mostly empty by then. It was growing dark and time for supper.”
“What about when you were watching him walk to the shop?” Belle asked. That had been Hew’s next question. “You said you watched him through the window.”
“Oh, I can’t see much through the window.”
Hew rose and went to the window again. She had a very good view from her window, but she was right that she couldn’t see much of the shop front as it was on the same side of the street as her flat. She would have been able to see the street before it or the buildings across. He turned back to the table. “No one was standing about across from the shop, perhaps watching it?”
“Oh, not that I noticed. I wish I had known to pay more attention.”
Belle rose and came to stand with him at the window. “Mrs. Price doesn’t have a clear view of the shop, but I know who does.”
Hew looked at her.
“Mrs. Tipps,” she said. “We should call on her.”
“We’ll go now.” Hew turned back to Mrs. Price. “Thank you for your help.”
She rose, her hands fisted in her skirts. “You will find George? You will bring him back?”
Hew put a hand on Belle’s shoulder before she could pounce on Mrs. Price and rip her to shreds.
“We will, Mrs. Price. In the meantime, if you think of anything or remember anything, send a note to Mivart’s. That’s where I am staying now.”
“Oh.” Her mouth made a round O. “No longer with the fine lady who came in the coach?”
“No. I’m at Mivart’s,” he said, deciding he would make certain to mention it to Mrs. Tipps as well. With any luck, the ladies would spread that news about and the assassins would search for him there. If he didn’t find them first.
Mrs. Price’s gaze slid to Belle. “Where will you stay, my dear? You are welcome to stay with me, of course. I think that’s what your father would have wanted.”
“I’ll stay in my own home,” she said.
Hew wasn’t about to let that happen. The last thing he needed was the men after him abducting her as well. Hew was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and save that conversation for another time. Mrs. Price was not quite so clever.
“But you can’t possibly think to stay alone. You’re a young, unmarried woman.”
“Oh, I see. I’m so old I’m called a spinster, and yet I am too young to live in my own home without a guardian.”
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Mrs. Price sputtered.
Hew moved away from the window and toward the door. Belle had her hands on her hips and looked as though she had much more to say, but if she saw him leaving, she would most likely cut her tirade short. But Hew halted before the door then bent to scoop up the slip of parchment that had been tucked beneath it. The paper had not been there when they’d entered. Surely, he would have seen it.
“What is that?” Mrs. Price asked.
“It’s not yours?”
“No, sir.”
Hew opened it.
Serpentine Bridge in Hyde Park. Tomorrow. Midnight.
He crumpled the paper and raced back to the window, looking up and down the street. A man in a dark coat and hat moved away at a brisk pace, but then there were other men and women walking about as well. There was no way to know if the person who’d delivered the note had just done so or a quarter hour before.
“Let me see.” Belle took the note and read it. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“They want a meeting. Probably to exchange your father for me.”
Now she was staring through the window as well. “Did they slide this under the door now? While we were speaking? We could have caught them, could have made them tell us where they have my father.”
Hew turned to her and took her shoulders. “It could have been them, but they might have given a boy a penny to slide it under the door as well. Our best hope is to find them before midnight tomorrow.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then I’ll go with them, and you’ll have your father back.”
Chapter Fifteen
The lump in Belle’s throat at the thought of losing Arundel wouldn’t go away. She wanted her father back—desperately—but that didn’t mean she wanted to sacrifice Arundel. Not that he was hers to sacrifice. No doubt he could take care of himself. He could defend himself. They probably taught him that in the Royal Saboteurs just as they’d taught him how to ask questions and think on his feet. She didn’t know how she would have managed the last few hours without him. Her thoughts were all jumbled, and she felt on the verge of tears, but he was calm and collected, methodical and meticulous.
He'd had to be if he was to squeeze any useful information out of Mrs. Price. “I hope Mrs. Tipps is more helpful than Mrs. Price,” she told Hew as they walked down Fenchurch Street to Mr. and Mrs. Tipps’s flat.
“Mrs. Price is upset. Emotions do tend to interfere with clear thought.”
“I don’t know why she should be upset. He’s my father. But as I’m sure you noticed she wants to make him her husband.”
Hew didn’t respond.
“That’s why she was so eager to take him in, you know. She wants him for herself.”
“And you want to keep him for yourself?” He gave her a sidelong look.
“No! That’s not what I said. I meant—” But what had she meant? And what did it matter? She didn’t have to defend herself to Hew Arundel. Thankfully, they were only steps away from the ground floor of a residential building where the Tipps lived. They had a large window overlooking the street with a clear view of Howard’s Teas & Treats. Belle had often waved at her when she opened the shades of the shop in the morning as Mrs. Tipps was inevitably cleaning her window or bustling about in her front room. Mrs. Tipps had remarked more than once that Mr. Tipps liked a tidy home.
Arundel paused in front of the Tipps’s window and looked across Fenchurch Street to the shop. To Belle it looked strange and sad. Except for Christmas and Sundays, the shop was never closed. Would their customers find other shops to patronize if they came for tea and found the shop closed? How would she pay to repair the damage to the store if they didn’t open again soon?
“If anyone saw what happened, it was Mrs. Tipps,” Arundel said, hands on hips. “She has a perfect view. I was somewhat delirious when I met her, but if I recall, she is not as forthcoming as Mrs. Price.”
“If by forthcoming you mean she is cranky and set in her ways, then you were not at all delirious.”
Arundel gave her a sidelong look. “Perhaps you should let me do the talking.”
“Gladly.”
The door opened before they had a chance to knock, and Mrs. Tipps stood in the doorway, frowning. “This is a fine state of affairs,” she said, gesturing to the shop. “Where am I to buy my tea?”
Belle opened her mouth to retort that she had just been in to buy her Darjeeling and should have plenty, but Arundel reached over and put a hand on her arm. She supposed it was meant to look like a comforting gesture.
“Miss Howard and her father plan to open the shop again as soon as possible,” Arundel said. “Perhaps you could help with that.”