Dread washed over Camilla, erasing all feelings of awkwardness.
“Oh, God, no. Hide! We mustn’t be seen together. Especially like this.” She pulled uselessly at the torn edges of her bodice, but the curve of her breast remained stubbornly free.
Indeed, Vexley sounded intoxicated enough to cause a scene. He stumbled along the corridor, cursing as he smacked into things, drawing slowly closer.
Synton, having restored his own cool, didn’t seem concerned. He merely straightened his jacket and arched a brow.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll be ruined!” Camilla tidied her hair and smoothed her skirts, but the gaping seam couldn’t be hidden. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is a nightmare.”
She glanced up at Synton, who, if anything, was growing more amused by her foul language.
“Why in the name of the Crown are you just standing there, my lord? Do you want us to be discovered?”
“I couldn’t care less if that inbreed found us.”
“You should!” She couldn’t help but drop her gaze. “If you cannot get that situation under control, we’ll definitely look guilty, my lord.”
“That situation, Miss Antonius?” Synton’s voice was amused. “Have you never seen a situation before? I suppose propriety would have me offer to marry you immediately?”
She gave him a withering look. Her lack of virginity, such as it was, was none of his damned business.
“I’m not marrying.”
“Hullo?” Vexley called out from the room next door, his voice slurred. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! No fornicating up here, least not without me!”
“We could pretend,” Synton went on thoughtfully as if Vexley weren’t coming to destroy everything she’d worked so hard for over the last two years.
“Pretend?” She must be having a nightmare. “Are you mad?”
“I don’t see how that would be a terrible thing,” Synton said calmly. “He’d stop ogling you if he thought you were involved with someone else. Unless you actually enjoy his advances?”
Camilla shot him an incredulous look.
“It’s not just about Vexley finding us,” she hissed. “If I’m found in a compromising position, society will either demand we marry—not pretend, my lord, but actually marry—or I will be forever ruined. My gallery. My life. I’ll never be accepted again. Surely you know this!”
“Rules are made to be broken.”
“For you, perhaps. But women here do not get that same grace. You have a duty to do the honorable thing!”
Camilla ran to the window, looking down into the dark garden below. There were no guests or, worse, columnists lurking that she could tell, at least.
If only they weren’t two stories up, she’d toss herself out. She cast her eyes around the shadowy corners of the room, but wherever Vexley kept his wardrobe, it didn’t seem to be here, as each wall gleamed closet-free.
“The forgery!” she cried as her attention landed again above the bed.
“Forgery…”
Before Synton could say more about it, she rushed past him, leaping back up on the bed to snatch the painting off the wall.
But this time it didn’t move an inch, catching her off guard. How the hell had Vexley attached the thing? What had changed?
Camilla worked her fingers underneath the frame and heaved her weight away from the wall, doing her best to pry the painting free. But it didn’t have the common decency to even pretend to budge.
She stared at the cursed thing, wondering how on earth she’d managed to move it not ten minutes prior. She couldn’t have imagined she’d nudged it before Synton interrupted her. Could she?
“Helllooooo.”
The bedroom doorknob rattled, chilling her blood. Any second Vexley would charge into the room and find them alone, and disheveled. And knowing Vexley, he’d embellish the tale until they were both nude and caught midact. Or worse: Vexley would claim he’d ruined her dress and say Synton had found the two of them together. It would be his word against Synton’s, and Synton was a newcomer.
Camilla yanked at the painting one last time, swearing as it remained stubbornly fixed to the wall. Vexley pounded against the door violently now.
“I’m no longer amused. Open the damned door!”
The knob jangled again but held firm.
Softening her grip on the painting, Camilla looked back at Synton. He held up an ornate skeleton key that apparently locked any door as well as opened it, flashing a devious grin.
“That should slow him down for a moment. Maybe two,” he whispered, his voice enticingly smooth. “But we must hurry.”
He pocketed the unique key and moved to the window, scanning the garden below. Seeming satisfied, he pushed open the window, then held out his hand to Camilla.
“Are we making our grand escape, or not?”
Camilla glanced between the lord and the forgery. Freedom was so close she could taste it. How could she willingly leave it behind? Synton made an annoyed noise, drawing her attention back to him.
Grinding her teeth, she climbed down from the bed, keeping her voice low. “My lord, you can simply walk out the door unscathed. Why are you helping me?”
“Trust me, I’m as far removed from a saint as one can get.” He flashed his teeth. “What I am is someone completely uninterested in society games or playing the role of a besotted fool, Miss Antonius. I do not desire the complication. If you’re ruined, it will negatively impact my plan. If you’re attached to that drunkard, it will also complicate matters for me. I’m helping myself first, which has a trickle-down effect of assisting you.”
“How very noble,” she murmured. Of all the men in Waverly Green, how had she ended up stuck with him?
Without another word, Synton nimbly hoisted himself out the window, finding purchase on the edge of the iron roof, then poked his head back inside. Shadows carved his face into dangerous lines, and for a moment, his eyes became ebony pools. Then he blinked and whatever hidden depths she thought she’d seen vanished.
Who is this man? She paused halfway to the window, indecision warring inside her. To be so close to her goal and to walk away was unfathomable. To climb out the window with this stranger seemed insanity. Yet if she stayed, she’d find herself in worse circumstances.
“Camilla.” Synton’s voice rang with authority. “Vexley will break through that door soon. Unless you wish to become his bride, I’d hurry.”
With one final look at the forgery, Camilla made her choice and prayed she would live to regret it.
NINE
ENVY HELPED CAMILLA onto the metal roof, more concerned by the way she squeezed her eyes shut and teetered across the steep incline than by the loud banging still coming from the door inside.
He’d have them down in the garden and off to his waiting carriage before Vexley could find them, but only if Camilla didn’t have a stroke first.
“Open your eyes,” he demanded quietly.
Having her break her neck would be inconvenient, to say the least. He had no idea what her death might mean for the game, but it certainly wouldn’t be good.