“I am distracted, sir. Upset at my discoveries and distracted and now concerned about Mrs. Ballantyne.”
We reach the door. I wave for him to wait while I peek out. There’s nothing to see, though—just the stairwell. We creep out, and I ascend first, scanning the yard.
We jog to the road and then stride along it. Or Gray strides, while I need to stay jogging to keep up.
“You said you knew I was up to something earlier?” I prompt carefully, mostly just to get him talking. He’s trying to act normal, but I feel the edge of a chill. I didn’t confide in him, and that stings, however much he wants to pretend it doesn’t.
For a moment, he seems ready to brush off my question. Then he says, “There was something you were not telling us. Something about Constable Findlay. You discovered something else earlier today, and I had the distinct impression that you did not trust Detective McCreadie with the information.”
“That’s not it.”
“No?” He glances over as we turn the corner. “Yes, perhaps I misspoke. You did not trust Detective McCreadieormyself.”
“I suspected Constable Findlay, and I know he is very close to Detective McCreadie, so I wanted proof before I took my suspicions to him.”
“That is what I presumed,” he says. “I followed you, and I saw where you were going, and as it seemed unlikely to be an assignation, I knew you must be investigating Constable Findlay. I am resisting the temptation to lecture you on the dangers of what you did. I know you are not a child, even if you do seem very young to me. However, you are very obviously able to take care of yourself, as you proved when attacked the other day and as you proved again tonight.”
“I did not prove it so well tonight,” I mutter. “Detective McCreadie wasn’t joking when he said you know how to fight.”
He shrugs, relaxing a little. “A skill I learned early in life. While my former public school now admits international students, I was an anomaly at the time, and some people do not like anomalies. They mistake difference for weakness. I learned how to teach them otherwise, sometimes with my grades and sometimes with my fists. The problem, as my mother would say, is that I came to enjoy the latter an unseemly amount.”
I smile. “Well, you are good at it, which always helps.”
“It does, and so I say, as a fellow student of the art, that you have obviously had training yourself. You would do much better without those damnable skirts.”
“Tell me about it.”
He relaxes more, even offering a faint smile. I’m about to say something else when we turn the corner and I stop short.
Isla is gone.
“Catriona?” Gray says, frowning at me.
I hike my skirts and break into a jog. He follows, and I run as fast as I can to the spot where I last saw her.
“She was right here,” I say.
“Are you certain?” He peers across the street and answers his own question. “Yes, that is the town house.” He straightens. “Do not panic. She has simply gone home. She saw us round the corner—or heard our voices—and fled, and we shall find her at home, slightly out of breath, acting as if she has been there all along. Yes, no need for panic.”
I don’t point out that he’s said that twice. The reassurance is for himself as he paces, scouring the street and frowning.
“Unless she heard our skirmish in the apartment,” he says. “She may have come to your aid. Perhaps she went the other way around.” He squints down the street. “Blast it. We shall be running in circles trying to find her, while she will be at home. I know she will be.”
I’m only half listening to him. I’m pacing on the sidewalk, thinking. Yes, Isla would have fled if she heard us. We weren’t whispering once we came outside. Yes, she could also have heard a crash or a grunt or a cry from in the apartment—it’s hard to look back on a fight and know whether you made some involuntary noise.
“I will run home,” Gray says. “I am dressed to move faster. Whethershe is there or not, I shall return with the coach. You check around the back of the town house. See—”
He cuts himself short. “You have not said whether you found evidence that Constable Findlay is guilty of anything.”
“He’s the person who attacked me the first time. I am certain of that.”
“What?”
“He thinks I double-crossed him.” I keep pacing, my gaze on the ground. “A woman I believed to be a friend told him so, and she lured him in that night to the public house where I was seen. I found the evidence in his rooms. Yes, you go home and get the coach. I will check behind the house.”
“Not if Findlay is the one who tried tomurderyou. What are you doing?”
I’m standing in the spot where I’d seen Isla as I work this through. It’s not as if the imposter could have crept up behind her. That’s the thing about town houses—there aren’t any side passages to sneak up through. Also no side passages for her to hide in, which is why she’d been so exposed.