Read Online The Watchtower by Lee Carroll - Free Book Online

recognition in Marguerite’s eyes and waited hopefully for something more—a profound look, expressive words, some other reassurance—but she just nodded with an amiable smile and appeared about to move on to her next congratulator. Was it possible she did not feel what he was feeling? Had the flash of recognition simply been her recalling his name? Or maybe, he tried to reassure himself, she was more adept at masking elation than he was?
    Perhaps in response to his perturbed expression, she did add, “Yes, Will, I have heard wonderful things about you. I am very pleased to meet you.” But she moved on.
    “Wait, please!” he called, catching awkwardly at her sleeve. “I must see you—”
    She glanced sharply back at him.
    “I mean, the two of you … in a less hectic setting and as soon as possible? May I pay a call on you tomorrow? Or Tuesday?”
    “I am sure there will be an occasion for it,” Marguerite said distantly. She seemed to reflect for a moment, then glanced more directly into his eyes again. Will thought he saw a tremor pass over her features. But if it had, she retreated from it.
    “I must go,” she said with formal coldness. “We will send you a note.”
    “I know you have something to tell me,” Will said with an uncomfortable smile.
    Marguerite’s expression grew pained, and she moved on to a large woman in a flowery dress, who held out both hands to her in a warm greeting. Will turned away then in despair, finding the front door with much more ease than he had found the stairs, and leaving the party without bothering to seek out the poet. His elation had turned to ashes with Marguerite’s final chill words.
    Darkness had fallen outside, broken only by intermittent torchlight along Lyme Street, as if Will had plunged into a pool of gloom emanating from his mood. He could not believe that Marguerite had not felt what he’d felt, but it appeared to be true! Why had she rushed away like that? And what did her pained look mean? Of course, things might be awkward among the three of them for a while if his and Marguerite’s feelings were truly aligned, but the poet’s plays were filled with more entangled circumstances than theirs that were nonetheless overcome by the parties to them. This woman wasn’t one of the inane flirtations at Swan Hall! She was his love and his destiny. He would suffer unbearably over her if she couldn’t be his.
    So engrossed in this view of possible heartbreak was he that he didn’t feel the intrusion of a hand in his satchel until it had begun to withdraw. Whirling, he caught the pickpocket by the arm. It was a young boy—one who had been at the party whom the others had called Finn. Round eyes blinked in a round face beneath a tattered cap.
    “I wasn’t stealin’ nothin’, sir, I was putting something in.” The falsetto voice made Will look twice at his captive. He might be a boy … or might be a girl, he couldn’t say. He snatched the cap from the pickpocket’s head … and was startled to discover pointed ears.
    “If you look, you’ll see I’ve given you the address where they stay. Go there tomorrow morning; the poet will be out. And do not delay. She is smitten by his words but she will be drawn to your blood.”
    “But how do you—”
    The pointed-ears waif twisted out of Will’s grip and vanished into the shadows. Swearing, Will dug in his satchel, expecting that his money would be gone, but found that everything was intact. In addition was a scrap of paper with an address written on it: 39 Rood Lane, written in a flowing script that Will was instantly sure must belong to his beloved Marguerite. It was far too fine and feminine a hand for the androgynous waif. Will kissed the paper, imagining that he kissed the fingertips of she who had written it.
    His steps were much lighter all the way back to the inebriated din of Mrs. Garvey’s tavern. The occasional torch was more than a match for the blackened gloom of London’s night. He was in