“Climb into the wardrobe,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
He gawped at her. “What?”
“You don’t want to marry me? I shan’t make you.” Miss Wynchester flung open the wardrobe door and jabbed a finger toward a dust ball in the back. “Get inside. You can return the favor later.”
He hesitated. Hiding inside a wardrobe would make him look even guiltier…if he were caught. Was she really offering him a way out? Or had he misjudged her entirely and was now walking into a trap?
Footsteps thundered up the stairs.
Miss Wynchester arched her delicate brows. “Unless you prefer—”
“Don’t let him find me. I’ll owe you any favor you please.” Lawrence stepped past her and scrunched himself into the narrow wardrobe. “Er, not money, that is. Or objects. And no—”
She shut the door in his face.
He fought the urge to sneeze. Or yell. Or break through the wooden panels and hurl himself out the open window and drive away high in the coachman’s seat for everyone to see, as long as it took him far, far from the Wynchester clan.
Everything had been at sixes and sevens since the moment he’d arrived at the Yorks’ town house. Lawrencehatednot being in control.
“There you are,” came a muffled male voice. Miss Wynchester’s brother was right on the other side of the wardrobe door. “Are you alone?”
The moment of truth. Lawrence held his breath.
As much as he hadn’t meant to insult her when he discovered her identity, even a platonic relationship with a Wynchester would be disastrous. The last thing a man guarding his reputation needed was an association with a walking scandal related to a dozen other walking scandals.
For Lawrence to restore lost respectability, he couldn’t justact“better than thou.” He had tobeit.
Beginning with not being caught hiding inside the furniture of a shabby coaching inn with an incomprehensible spinster.
His breath came shallow and uneven. Time seemed to slow.
“It’s all right,” he heard her say. “I’m safe. I’m alone.”
Lawrence would have sagged against the wardrobe’s thin interior wall in relief if he trusted it not to fall apart with his weight.
“Can we go home now?” came Miss Wynchester’s tired voice.
“Of course.”
When the footsteps faded, Lawrence counted to four hundred before easing open the door to the wardrobe. His heart jumped. He’d left hishaton the windowsill? Thank God her brother hadn’t seen it. Lawrence might be a skilled statesman, but no amount of talking would satisfactorily explain hiding inside a wardrobe.
He returned his hat to his head and hurried down the stairs, tossing a crown he could ill afford to part with to the proprietress for her discretion. After looking both ways, Lawrence returned to his rented carriage and untied the reins from the post.
With luck, that would be the last he’d see of the Wynchesters.
6
Chloe’s home!”
The cry rang out the moment she and Graham walked through the front door. Her family surrounded her when she was barely up the stairs to the Planning Parlor.
“Do you have it?”
“What went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong. It’s Chloe!”
“She released Tiglet, didn’t she?Somethingmust have happened.”
