A Buccaneer At Heart. Stephanie Laurens

middle class.

      There were still a good fifty yards between the carriage and the priest when Undoto crossed the road, went up a short path, climbed a few steps to a house’s porch, then opened the door and disappeared inside.

      Aileen shifted to the window on that side and, as the carriage rolled closer, studied the house the priest had entered. As the house neared, she again drew back into the concealing shadows, but with her eyes fixed on the building, she cataloged every identifying feature she could spy.

      The carriage rolled on, and the house fell behind. Satisfied, she sat back. She would recognize the house, even by night.

      Her afternoon’s work—laying the groundwork for her evening’s endeavors—was done.

      She let the driver steer his horses on for a full minute more, then she lifted the trapdoor again. “I’ve seen enough for today. Back to Water Street. You can let me out near the middle of the street.”

      She had a milliner to visit.

      And then...

      She couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that the house Undoto had entered was his own abode, yet there’d been a lack of concern, of even the slightest hesitation, in the way he’d walked up the front path and had opened the door and gone inside. If it hadn’t been his house, surely he would have knocked?

      Still, tonight would tell. If Undoto was still there when night fell...that was really all she cared about.

      As the carriage rocked slowly down the hill and turned toward the center of the settlement, she reviewed her preparations. Once she bought what she needed from the milliner, there was one last issue to address.

      To keep watch on Undoto’s house, she would need the concealment of an anonymous carriage, much like the one she was presently in. But she couldn’t risk hiring just any coachman and trusting him to keep his mouth shut about her peculiar excursions, much less the address from which he picked her up.

      Unfortunately, she couldn’t see any way around trusting the driver she hired. “Which means,” she murmured, “that I’ll have to make sure the driver I hire is, indeed, trustworthy.”

      Hat and veil first; carriage and trustworthy driver second.

      Once she’d succeeded in securing both... “Then I’ll be ready to keep watch and see who comes calling on Undoto.”