Finlay glanced briefly at Sophia before turning to Mr Ashwood. “Would you remain here until we return this evening? I wish to apprehend the doctor at what we hope is his residence in Miles’ Lane. I need Sophia to accompany me.”
Mr Ashwood inclined his head. “Of course.”
“I suppose I am to play host while you romp about town,” Mr Sloane said with a frustrated sigh.
Finlay smiled. “You and D’Angelo may accompany us. When it comes to the doctor, I have a strange suspicion nothing will go as planned.”
Chapter 17
The cobbled thoroughfare of Miles’ Lane was barely wide enough for a carriage and provided little scope for those wishing to hide in the shadows. The lack of street lighting helped, as did the fact the entrance to the mews was directly opposite a row of four townhouses.
“If the late Mr Goodwin worked at Coutts, then one would presume he’d own the most elegant house on the row,” Sloane said, drawing the brim of his hat lower on his brow. “Bankers are renowned for their greed. I doubt he lives opposite the church.”
“And St Michael’s occupies the upper half of the lane,” Finlay added. “Then we agree, one of these four houses must belong to Dr Goodwin.”
“Well, we cannot stand here all night wondering.” Sophia pulled the hood of her thick blue cloak around her ears. “We shall catch our deaths if we linger.”
“Have no fear, my lady,” D’Angelo said. “I shall remedy the situation.”
D’Angelo ushered them back into the shadowy entrance of the mews. He tilted his hat, loosened his cravat and staggered across the cobblestones, singing a ballad to a lost love as he approached the door of Number 2.
Sloane sniggered. “If he’s not careful, someone will raise the sash and shower him with gold.”
“Shower him with gold?” Sophia repeated.
“Drown him with the contents of the chamber pot.”
“D’Angelo could reek of piddle and still charm the ladies,” Finlay replied as Sophia sidled beside him, hugged his arm and shivered. “They’d scramble over a pit of vipers to bathe those hard muscles and slide into his bed for the night.”
Finlay would wrestle vipers, too, if he thought he might earn an hour locked in a bedchamber with Sophia.
D’Angelo rapped on the front door and called, “Matilda, my love! Open the door lest I die of a broken heart on the doorstep. Matilda!” He broke into drunken song and banged the iron knocker.
The curtains in the upper window twitched.
An elderly gentleman sporting a jaunty mustard nightcap raised the sash and thrust his head through the gap. “Who goes there?”
D’Angelo stumbled back and met the irate man’s gaze. “Matilda, my love. Let me in so I might make amends.” He clutched his chest as if the shards of his broken heart might tumble onto the doorstep. “Matilda!”
“There is no one here by that name. Move on before I call the constable.”
“Ah, you’re still angry with me, my love,” D’Angelo drawled.
Sophia squeezed Finlay’s arm and whispered, “I imagine most women would unlatch the door just to watch him grovel.”
“One day, I hope he meets a woman who pelts him with the pot and curses him to hell.”
Sophia chuckled. “I suspect the woman who refuses him could well be the one who steals his heart.”
“She would have to be a thief in the night,” Sloane said, joining their conversation. “She would have to catch him unawares. In short, she would have to be a damn sight more inconspicuous than Miss Hart.”
Miss Hart?
Finlay couldn’t help but notice the vexation in Sloane’s usually smooth voice. “Who the devil is Miss Hart?” He glanced at Sophia, who looked equally bewildered.
Sloane grumbled something incoherent. “A lady usually found clinging to the ballroom wall. She spends so much time watching from the periphery, one might mistake her for a potted fern.”
“She’s that unremarkable?”