Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

“Good work. Did you see anything interesting?”

“I don’t know. I brought it with me. I wanted to look through it with you. We’re partners, through thick and thin.”

“That’s quite considerate of you,” he said, rather touched.

“No matter what happens in our personal lives,” she said in neutral tones.

“Oh. Right.”

That conversation at the conclusion of their interlude on the boat had been uncomfortable.

While Poppy flipped through the slender volume, Nicholas watched over her shoulder. Her mother’s handwriting seemed to leap from the page, so energetic yet elegant—like Poppy.

She looked up. “Mama mentions many times that she has a sitting with R.”

“Revnik.”

“I think so.” Her face brightened. “Perhaps this might be of interest. She mentions a monetary amount—quite a substantial one—to be given to R.” She grinned. “She did buy the portrait, then. For Papa!”

“It seems like it,” Nicholas said. “But we still have no proof. Cryptic notes, which we all jot down in appointment books, are not enough to establish provenance.”

“What a shame.” Disappointment clouded her eyes. “This seems like proof to me.”

“It wouldn’t hold a bit of water in any legal battle,” he said gently.

She sighed. “It doesn’t seem right that Sergei has our painting.”

“Go through the book one more time,” he encouraged her. “Only this time, from back to front. You might have missed something.”

A tense minute passed.

“I see nothing else,” Poppy whispered. “Except perhaps”—she stared at one page—“here’s one line—it looks like an address, 15 Vine Street.”

“No name with it?”

“No.”

“Nor city?”

“No, unfortunately.”

“Then we’ll assume it’s London.”

“But my mother had this book in St. Petersburg.”

“Yes, but she might have written that address down as a place to mail something. If it were a St. Petersburg address, it would have a Russian name.”

“But 15 Vine Street could be an address anywhere in England!”

“I know,” said Nicholas. “But she lived here, in London. And I know of a Vine Street near Spitalfields Market, in the East End. Sometimes you simply have to go with—”

“Intuition.” She smiled.

“Exactly,” he replied.

CHAPTER 31

Poppy had never been in this part of London’s East End, and now she was navigating narrow, unfamiliar streets with Nicholas in an unmarked carriage.

Only a few days before, she’d promised to give up indulging in whimsy, but here she was, dressed like a milkmaid. “I can’t believe you have things like this in your possession,” she marveled.

He’d even given her a small wooden pail to carry.

He laughed. “I usually don’t keep disguises for women. But after our meeting at St. Paul’s, I decided I’d best be prepared with you involved.”

She rather admired how quickly he’d developed a five o’clock shadow on his jawline. “Burned cork can do wonders. You look rather roguish.”

“My intent.”

Poppy couldn’t help being amazed at the transformation in him, from London gentleman to rough workman. His broadcloth shirt gaped to his muscled belly. His pantaloons were tucked into a sturdy pair of boots. He had a broad piece of canvas rolled tight and tied with a worn rope—it looked as though he used it as a sleep roll and traveled from job to job with it.

She had a sudden urge to jump in his lap and run her hands all over his broad chest. She remembered what it had looked like when they’d been completely naked together atop the sailboat.

She looked up and caught him looking down her bodice. It was rather tight.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said dangerously.

“Yes, but guess what? I’ve been around you long enough now to know what you’re thinking, too.”

“You knew from the very beginning when you saw me on the stairs at the Grangerford ball.”

“Not the very beginning.”

“Are you sure?” He gave her a devilish smile. “I think you knew well.”

She pressed her lips together. “What a thing to say to a lady.”

But he was right. She had known.

The carriage turned onto Vine Street.

“There it is,” she said. “Number fifteen.”

It was a plain, modest row house with clean windows and a freshly painted blue front door. No smoke rose from the chimney. A small tree out front rattled its leaves in the stiff breeze.

She smelled that peppery smell that comes before a storm.

The hired driver took the horses by the house at a slow walk.

“It appears no one’s home.” She craned her neck to see into the house, but it was nearly impossible from where she was in a moving vehicle. “Shall we knock anyway?”

Nicholas shook his head. “I instructed the driver to make a slow inspection of the street and to come back around in fifteen minutes. See if there are any changes.”

“I don’t see any neighbors about.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” he said. “We don’t want to attract any attention.”

“You mean, you don’t want to talk to the neighbors?”

He shook his head. “Not if we can help it. We don’t want them going to the man who lives here and telling him someone’s snooping about his business.”

“How do you know it’s a man?”

“No curtains.”

Aha. Poppy felt a dash of admiration for Nicholas’s skills of observation. “He must not have anything to hide, then. Which is a good thing. My mother wouldn’t have a sinister man’s address in her appointment book.”

“You’d think not. But having no curtains could also be his cover. Hiding out in the open, so to speak.”

“Why would Mama have his address? She wouldn’t know anyone in this neighborhood.”

“It could be 15 Vine Street from another city or village,” Nicholas reminded her, and called to the driver to go to the opposite end of the street.

“We’ll walk back to the house on foot,” he said. “And don’t worry. Just stay with me.”

She let out a nervous breath. “Of course I’m worried. It’s not every day a girl breaks into someone else’s home.”

“We’re going straight to the front door. I’ve got my bundle of wood, so if someone answers, I’ll offer to sell it. What will you do if we’re discovered?”

“Run to the designated meeting place on Pearl Street,” she said. “If you don’t appear within fifteen minutes, I’ll have the driver take me home.”

“Good.”

Poppy’s chest tightened when they strode up the pavement toward 15 Vine Street.