Effington, then, damn and blast the luck. “Did Lady Susannah hear the altercation?”
The groom squinted down the shady lane. “She might have. I was sitting on yon bench, and I heard it. I don’t think her ladyship saw me but from where she stood, she would have seen down the alley.”
Had Susannah followed the viscount, or kept to her original itinerary and gone to Hanford’s? Will had told her finding the dogs was the imperative next step, but would she have trailed Effington on her own?
The Haddonfield mews sat on the corner of two alleys, one route leading northeast to Bloomsbury, one southeast to Bond Street. While Will debated in which direction to travel, Georgette nosed at the weeds along the northbound alley.
“Georgette, we haven’t time to explore now.”
She ambled back to Will’s side and dropped a printed page at Will’s feet.
“Come, Georgette,” Will said, taking the southeast direction. “I will be much more willing to admire your treasures when I know our Susannah is safe and firmly—”
Georgette picked up the paper again and brought it to Will. “Woof.”
Will wanted to speak very sternly to his dog indeed, for now was not the time for her to cast aside years of training, and yet—
Instinct, or something like it, prodded him to study the mastiff. Georgette was looking at him the way he often looked at Sycamore. Will you never learn?
“What have you got there?” Will asked, crouching to take the page from Georgette.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, until his height be taken.
“Woof.” Georgette had found this page of sonnets several yards in the direction of Bloomsbury rather than Bond Street, which meant…
Susannah had gone after Effington without an escort, but she’d brought both the Bard and a full ration of cleverness, for this page had been neatly parted from its binding.
“To Bloomsbury, then,” Will said, giving Georgette a pat and addressing the groom. “Would you please have Lady Della send a note asking my brother Ash to meet me at the King’s Comestibles.”
“Your brother Ash,” the groom repeated, “the King’s Comestibles. Aye, sir.”
Will strode off along the alley leading north. “Georgette, come.”
But the dog was already several yards ahead of him.
*
Susannah was destroying her most treasured book, page by page, even as she knew that paper lying in an alley was probably the least obvious means of leaving a trail for Will.
She tore out number sixty-five—“In black ink, my love may still shine bright”—as Effington paused to sample the contents of a silver flask. Either his horse was tired, or Effington himself lacked fitness for travel on horseback, because Susannah had managed to keep up with him through several turnings and crossings.
Effington knew the alleys, and he had a specific destination in mind.
Find the dogs, Will had said. Everything depended on finding the dogs before Effington could use the poor beasts to hurl accusations and lay information.
Or just as bad, consign innocent pets to a brutal, undeserved fate.
Effington gave his horse a stout kick, and the gelding plodded on.
Susannah’s doubts and misgiving were proceeding at a dead gallop: I should have sent for Willow. I should have let Della know what I was about. I should have alerted Nicholas—no, that could not have ended well.
Effington was working his way north and east, and though Susannah was tiring, though she was second-guessing herself, though Will would be wroth with her, the thought of the feckless dogs, consigned to suffering they did nothing to deserve, drove her on.
*
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate…
“I do not curse myself, or my fate, but I am heartily out of charity with Effington,” Will said.
They’d come to another crossroad, and Georgette had again found the requisite evidence before Will could spot it. Effington was heading straight for the neighborhood of the King’s Comestibles, which, as luck would have it, was where Sycamore was likely searching for Alexander.
“When we find them, no heroics from you, my girl,” Will said, stroking Georgette’s head. She was panting, but also clearly eager to continue this new and interesting game. When Will paused, Georgette went looking for Shakespeare, and thus another leg of the journey was saved from turning into a goose chase.
They’d crossed Soho, and Oxford Street lay ahead, but still, Will hadn’t caught a glimpse of either Susannah or Effington.
He stuffed the page into a pocket along with all the others and continued his pursuit.