Evermore by C. J. Archer Page A

probably want to die as the pain worsens."
    "I wonder if this was all he had left." Theo
took the package out of his jacket pocket again.
    George gasped then half rose out of his seat.
He removed his hat, pulled down the window, and shouted at the
driver to stop and return to the Institution. We jerked back and
forth as the coach halted. The movement sent me closer to Theo. Our
thighs touched. Neither of us shifted away.
    "I hope we're not too late," George said, his
eyes sparkling like gems.
    "Too late for what?" Theo asked.
    "To follow him," I said, as George's
intention became clear. Excitement trickled down my spine. "If
Blunt has no more opium, he will probably go to buy some before his
condition worsens. If we can stop him but promise to let him go if
he answers our questions, we might finally find out if he is indeed
the villain."
    "Blackmail." Theo grinned. "Brilliant!"
    "I prefer to think of it as an incentive,"
George said. "Blackmail sounds so despicable and our intentions are
honorable."
    The coach swung into the traffic and headed
back the way we'd come. Within moments it had pulled up outside the
school again. Theo got out and spoke to the school's footman. A
moment later he returned to the coach and spoke to our driver.
    "Blunt did indeed leave just after us," he
said as the coach rolled forward. "I've given the driver
instructions to slowly scour the nearby streets to search for him.
He cannot have gone far."
    George looked out one window and I peered out
the other. Theo, sitting next to me, reached over my shoulder and
lifted the curtain higher. He was so close I could feel his warm
breath on my ear and his chest against my back. His heart drummed a
strong, rhythmic beat. I liked it. Liked it very much. But I was
acutely aware that he wasn't Jacob. I closed my eyes and threw up a
prayer that he was all right.
    Theo drew in a deep, shuddery breath then
shifted back a little. I applauded him for doing the honorable
thing, yet part of me missed his solidness, and the way he made my
nerves thrum with anticipation.
    "I think..." George was off his seat, his
nose squashed against the window pane. "There! Getting into that
hansom."
    "Has he seen us?" I asked. George's coach was
distinctive with the Culvert escutcheon painted on the door. Blunt
would recognize it instantly.
    "I don't think so. By the look of
concentration on his face, he's trying not to be sick and doesn't
seem to be noticing anything except the cab." He pulled down the
window and ordered his driver to follow the hansom but to keep some
distance.
    "Let's hope they don't travel too fast," I
said. "There's an awful lot of traffic. It'll be easy to lose him
if your driver is not vigilant."
    "I'm not so worried about losing him as I am
ending up at an opium den," George said.
    Theo murmured agreement. "I've heard some of
them are gruesome, certainly unfit for a lady to enter. We must
decide who goes in and who stays here with Emily."
    "You are not leaving me behind!"
    George put up his hands, placating. "Let's
worry about that when we find out where he's going. If we can stop
him entering the den altogether, we will not need to separate."
    I had never seen an opium den before and I
wasn't going to see one today. I knew where we were heading as soon
as we hit the newer, blander streets of London's outskirts, and it
wasn't to a squalid back lane. We drove past houses that were all
the same, their features indistinguishable from each other, their
facades unassuming.
    "He's going to Price's house," I said.
    "Leviticus Price?" George screwed up his
nose, pushed up his glasses, and squinted at the houses sliding
past the window. "Good lord, I think you're right."
    "You've mentioned Price before," Theo said.
"Is he the paranormal expert?"
    "Yes, and now the Grand Master of the Society
For Supernatural Activity," George said. "He's very
knowledgeable."
    "He has helped us in the past," I said.
"Albeit reluctantly. He is not the nicest of men."
    George snorted.