“They’re not for you,” Rose blurted out, horrified. “Leave them alone.”
Gavin stared at her with a ghost of a smile. “Why invite them, if not for the master of the house?”
She slumped against the wainscoting lining the shadowed hallway. “I’m not matchmakingthem. I’m matchmaking my eldest. My husband hopes Mr. Teasdale will offer for Nancy.”
Nancy. Yet another niece Gavin hadn’t been allowed to get to know. He hadn’t been a welcome caller ever since his parents’ fateful ride the night he’d—
Gavin glared at his sister, realizing now how she’d managed to turn his dark sprawling mansion into grounds for a house party. How dare she use the past against him, dangle forgiveness as a lure? The stratagem had worked. He had been enticed. Eager. But no longer. He would send themallhome at dawn. Not just the Stantons.
“I needed other guests here to make it seem…” His sister’s voice faded to nothing, but he somehow still heard her final word. “Respectable.”
That much was true, at least. His company could hardly be seen as respectable.
“Why come at all?”
A sudden draft accompanied his words, setting the wall sconces to popping. Shadows flickered across the whorls and swirls of his papered walls, giving the dark gray pattern the appearance of movement.
Rose’s shoulders shook. “You mean…who would accept the invitation of a known…”
He inclined his head, his expression hard.
“I—I’ve known Lady Stanton for years and years.” Rose nibbled at her lip, as if deciding whether a breach of confidence would occur if she told a secret to a man with no one to pass it on to. “Her daughter got into a scrape last Season and is most likely not welcome back. I knew they would jump at a diversion.” Rose tossed him a nervous glance as she clenched her fingers together so tightly the knuckles went white.
“I was utterly alone in the hallway, I would swear it. And then there you were. I even looked over my shoulder to see if…” Her words trailed off as another crimson stain spread up her throat.
“Ah,” he said. “You worry you will be spied upon. Have you something to hide?”
“As I recall, you are the one who sneaks about sabotaging carriages.” Although the words were bold, she did not meet his gaze.
“Exactly so,” he agreed, despite the tightness in his jaw. She started and blanched, looking as though she wished she’d never mentioned carriages in the first place. “Make no mistake, you’ll be getting in yours tomorrow morning. You all will.”
Her eyes widened, their blue gaze first dry, then damp. She looked away, eyelashes quivering, and he could smell the unease in her sweat. “Can we not start anew, brother? Nancy marrying well is of the utmost importance to me. I cannot stress that point enough. She’ll be eighteen soon, and the sad truth is we cannot afford a Season. We’ve already sold our town house, our best horses, let go most of the servants. The jewels I wear are paste. Please. Just let me have one fortnight.”
A very pretty speech, but he didn’t believe a single word from her lips. After all, Rose had just admitted that only the outcast and the destitute were willing to risk their lives and reputations beneath his roof. “May I ask what you have planned for tonight, Rose?”
“Supper,” she said instantly, as though her mind was focused solely on her next meal. Perhaps her husband’s pockets held even less than she’d intimated. “And then dancing. Do you…?”
His jaw clenched. “I do not dance.”
With guests I did not invite, he might have clarified, but the blatant relief bathing her face at the thought of spending some of the evening without his company changed his mind.
“Tonight,” he continued with a lift of his brow, “I shall make an exception.”
Chapter 3
With her back flush against the closed door, Evangeline stared at her bedchamber in horror. She was supposed tosleephere?
To one side stood a cavernous fireplace, its embers glowing and crackling. Despite the feeble light cast by the dying fire, the room was as dark and foreboding as the rest of the house.
Evangeline inched forward to nudge at the charred logs with a poker.
Sparks spit at her. Sinuous shadows danced across the murky walls as the flames lengthened.
On the other side of the fireplace was a single wooden door. According to Lady Heatherbrook, this led directly to Susan’s bedchamber. Near as Evangeline could determine, proximity to another living human was the sole redeeming quality of her assigned quarters.
The gray swirls above the wainscoting matched those in the outer corridors, lending all the walls of the mansion the alarming appearance of swarming with snakes. The flickering shadows caused the serpents to teem, to undulate, until Evangeline was certain she could hear them hiss. She resolved not to edge too near, lest they bite.
Chiding herself for the unease tensing her muscles and chilling her skin, she crept cautiously around the room.
