He paused at the drawing room door. Priscilla Nathans’s emerald gaze snapped up, sharp with instant calculation through the haze of cheroot smoke and insufficient candlelight. At another table, Abigail Carmichael hung upon the back of a gentleman’s chair, her expensive dress revealing a deep bosom and her stunning face mottled with drink. Her fogged gaze rose to his. Ben lifted a hand and gestured, a mere indolent flick of his fingers. But the beautiful widow responded, moving to him without hesitation and tucking her hand around his arm.
“You called, my lord?” She batted thick lashes and clung. Her eyes did not focus.
Ben cast Styles a slight grin and drew the lady toward the stairs to the upper story. He did not look back to see if his ruse had the intended effect.
The retiring chambers had been redecorated in the past seven years too, but Ben noticed little save the paper and pen on the dressing table. He poured a glass of ruby liquid from a carafe and Lady Carmichael drank greedy mouthfuls while he undressed her to her shift. He laid her on the bed then turned to his more pressing task.
“Come now, Doreé,” she slurred. “It has been far too long. No more making me wait.”
“A moment, my dear.” The brief note written, he went into the corridor and gave it into the hands of a footman along with a guinea.
“Make certain he has this before he leaves his house or receives any callers in the morning, and you will be well rewarded.”
“Yes, my lord.” Face eager, the servant hurried off. Ben returned to the bedchamber. Sparing a glance for the unconscious figure sprawled atop the mattress, he went to the window. Within two hours it would be dawn. Before that he would be gone from this place of loneliness and unquenchable thirst and return to the woman who made all of it seem like a distant bad dream. He settled into the chair at the dressing table to wait.
When the darkness thinned sufficiently for Tavy to discern details of the bedchamber, she rose, drew on her clothing, and opened the door. In a chair against the opposite wall, a housemaid dozed. Tavy cleared her throat. The girl startled awake and leapt up.
“Is your master at home?”
“No, mum.” The maid curtsied. “But he bade me assist with anything you might be wanting.”
“Please have a carriage called for me, then return and help me dress properly.”
The maid curtsied again and hurried off. Tavy moved back into Ben’s bedchamber. It all seemed like a strange dream, stranger than her night with him at Fellsbourne. Then, she hadn’t any reason to worry about his safety any more than she always had from thousands of miles away. Now someone threatened him. But perhaps he received this sort of threat every day. And perhaps women declared their love to him as frequently.
The maid returned, laced Tavy into her clothing, and pinned up her hair. In the corridor, the familiar footman met her and escorted her to the mansion’s rear entrance. The morning had not yet come, and the gray of predawn lay thick about the alley. A closed carriage waited, enormously elegant, with shiny black panels and sparkling wheels, the pair drawing it gorgeous from braided manes to powerful haunches. No noble crest decorated the door. An anonymous vehicle for a clandestine departure.
“Did he tell you to bring me out through the tradesman’s entrance?”
“No, miss,” the footman said, handing her up into the carriage. “I took the liberty, thinking you would prefer it.”
“What is your name?”
“Samuel, miss.”
“Thank you, Samuel. I appreciate your consideration.” She sat back.
“Miss?”
She studied his face framed in the doorway. He had an honest look about him, as all of Ben’s servants did. Interesting quality for the employees of a man who lived a life of masquerade.
“Yes, Samuel?”
“If I may say, I don’t think his lordship had the notion you’d be leaving a’tall.”
“His lordship has never been an unmarried lady in London with only a single change of clothes.” Or a sorely confused heart.
Crinkles formed about Samuel’s eyes. He shut the door, spoke out a word to the coachman, and the carriage rumbled into action. Tavy leaned into the velvety squabs and closed her eyes.
She reached home in the first light of dawn and passed through the rear gate into the garden behind the town house. The back door was locked. Given to significant self-deception until mere hours earlier, Tavy had not thought of bringing a key the previous evening. The kitchen boy answered her knock.
“Mornin’, mum,” he grumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Mistress’s been up the night worryin’ on you. Don’t think she told the master, though.”
“Thank you for the warning. What about Mr. Abha?”
“Went out last evenin’. Hain’t seen him since.”
“I am here, memsahib.”
She turned as Abha came through the door behind her.
“Where have you been?”
He did not respond.
“Did you follow me?”
He nodded. She folded her arms, shoulders drooping with weariness.
“Well, if you were going to spy on me you might have relieved my sister’s worry by telling her where I was.”
“I did.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She went directly up to Alethea’s dressing chamber. Infant swaddled in her arms, her sister dozed upon a divan. Her eyelids flickered open and she released a long breath of relief.
“I am so sorry, Thea. Truly.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Mostly.”
“Is he here?”
A sweet, sharp ripple passed through Tavy. She shook her head.
Alethea’s brow knit. “What have you done?”
“Nothing that I have not done before.” Except the part about declaring herself in no uncertain terms. But it had stumbled out of her overflowing heart and she could not regret it.
Her sister’s eyes widened. “Before?”
Tavy waved her hand about. “At Fellsbourne.” Her cheeks were hot. But she deserved this, although perhaps not the ache of uncertainty pouring through her every cell.
“While you were betrothed to Lord Crispin, or before?”
“After, actually. Or, well. Yes.”
“Has he offered you marriage?”
“Um . . . Betrothed to another man until yesterday.” Or perhaps he had not offered simply because he did not wish to. But Alethea needn’t know that, and Tavy did not think she could say it aloud in any case.
Alethea’s expression remained unusually firm. “Be that as it may, now we must discuss this.”
“Allow me to sleep first. I will be a great deal more rational after, I suspect.”
Alethea nodded. Tavy went to her bedchamber and undressed. She crept under the bedclothes and tucked her hands beneath her cheek. A sleepy Lal crawled onto the pillow beside her and curled into a ball.
Upon awaking, she took only a cup of tea in her bedchamber then searched out her sister. St. John and Alethea sat in the parlor in which Ben had kissed her and made her forget everything but him. As he always did.
“I am sorry to have kept you from the office today, St. John. And sorry to have kept you awake through the night, Thea.”
“St. John just came home for lunch, and I slept all morning as you did. It is past noon already, you know.”
“Oh.”
Silence descended.
“Well?” Tavy finally said. “You are not Mama and Papa, and you allowed me to do mostly whatever I wished for nearly five years in Madras, so you will not chastise me, I hope.”