“This is not as happy a message as the first, I take it?”Sylvia queried.
“No, it’s not,” Heloise replied.“It seems someone is in need of our help.”
“Have we got another job to do, then?”She sidled closer to peer over Heloise’s shoulder.“They appear quite desperate.You should visit them straightaway.”
Heloise glanced at her in surprise.“What, now?”
“There really is no better time than the present, my dear,” Sylvia replied.Then, placing a firm hand at the small of her back, she steered her toward the door.“I shall inform Strachan to prepare the carriage for you.”
“I cannot go this minute,” Heloise balked, trying to dig in her heels.But Sylvia, to her surprise, was much stronger than she’d believed.
“Oh, but you must,” the other woman said, her tone firm and brooking no argument.
“But Isaac, Teagan, and Parsons are due to arrive shortly to continue our fencing lessons.”
By then they had reached the landing.Sylvia, hands firm on her arms, continued to propel her down to the ground floor.“Strachan,” she called out.“The carriage please.”
That woman glanced up with a scowl before, huffing a beleaguered “Aye,” she stormed off.
Sylvia gave Heloise a bracing smile.“I am quite certain the men will not mind the delay,” she proclaimed with certainty.“And in any case, I should dearly love to visit with them.It is not every day a person has three gaming hell owners at her disposal.”She laughed delightedly.
Just then they reached the front hall.Before Heloise could continue her resistance, Sylvia grabbed her outerwear and helped her put it on.Or, rather, she forcibly tugged it on before spinning Heloise about and pushing her out the front door.And then the carriage was pulling up in front of the house, and she was ushered inside and was on her way.
Later, much later, when her senses had returned to her, Heloise would laugh at herself for not realizing that there was no way in heaven or on earth that the carriage could have been readied and in front of the house in such a short time, much less know where to go without her telling the driver.The only thing she could wonder in that bafflingmoment was why Sylvia was so eager for her to leave, and what exactly was waiting for her at the address in the mysterious letter—an address that they reached much more quickly than she could comprehend.
The driver opened the carriage door, offering a hand, and helped her down to the pavement.Still quite dazed, Heloise looked about, blinking in surprise when she saw the long row of elegant town houses, all shining in the early morning sunlight.Brook Street.The name had not fully sunk in when she’d initially read it.Now, however, as she stood on the pavement gazing up at their destination, with its quietly beautiful bright white stone and sparkling windows, she recognized what this place was: a fashionable street in Mayfair, most certainly not where their typical clientele came from.
Suddenly inexplicably nervous, Heloise cleared her throat and smoothed her skirts before climbing the steps to the front door.
Her knock was answered immediately, a stoic butler pulling the door wide before the sound echoed away, as if he had been waiting on the other side of the door for her.
“Madam,” he said, bowing deferentially, stepping aside so she could enter.
Blinking, Heloise paused for the briefest moment before, taking a deep breath, she crossed the threshold.The butler closed the door behind her, indicating she should follow him.
The nervousness that had begun to fill her upon her arrival multiplied tenfold as he led the way up the curving staircase to the first floor and no doubt the drawing room.The house was light and airy, decorated in gentle blues and ivories that reminded her, strangely enough, of Ethan’s private apartment at Dionysus, with the addition of the palegreens of her own rooms at the Wimpole Street house.It gave her a feeling of familiarity that should have been jarring, yet it felt oddly comfortable.Which only served to increase her nervousness even further.Why, she wondered a bit wildly, did she feel as if something momentous was about to occur, as if her life would be forever changed in the next minutes?That feeling only intensified as, much to her bafflement, they bypassed the doors on the first floor and headed for the next staircase and what no doubt were the private apartments.
“Excuse me,” she called after the butler, “but are you certain I should be shown to the family floor?”
“Yes, madam,” the man said, not so much as glancing back, keeping on his determined path.
Still utterly confused, Heloise nevertheless continued after him.Finally they stopped at a white paneled door, and the butler threw it wide.
“Please wait in here a moment,” he murmured with a bow.A bow he did not rise from until Heloise, on shaking legs, stepped into the room.One glance about the space, however, and she quite forgot the man altogether.
While the rest of the house had seemed vaguely familiar, this room felt as if someone had reached into her mind and filled it with everything she loved.There were several swords displayed on the wall, ones eerily similar to those she’d made herself, as well as books she loved, paintings of some of the places she dreamed of visiting, even an embroidered pillow that looked like one Sylvia had been working on these past weeks.And then there was a faint sound at the door, and she turned to see that person she loved more than any other enter the room.
She shook her head in confusion.She was supposed to be meeting a client; what was Ethan doing here?She mustbe seeing things.But he remained solid and wonderful as he strode toward her.And then he smiled, a nervous, lopsided thing, and took her hands in his, and she knew that her future, that future she’d been so certain was soon to change, was about to become more beautiful than she could ever have imagined.
Ethan had never been more nervous.Even so, as his insides quaked and his legs trembled beneath him, he knew he had never been happier.Heloise had given that to him, had brought light and joy to a life that had been nothing but darkness and anger, had worked her way into his heart and cleared away the cobwebs of his unhappy and brutal past, replacing it with a bright and shining future.
He had never given his future much thought before now.It had been something to bear, to get through, a burden he’d been forced to shoulder.Now, however, as he held Heloise’s hands in his, that future beckoned him, like the warmth of the sun rising, ending the pitch-black night his life had been and lighting his world with beautiful, brilliant color.
“Ethan?”she asked faintly.
He soaked in the sound of his name on her lips, a beautiful sound he would never tire of hearing.
“You’re finally here,” he breathed.
