The cottage was neat as a pin, and walking past the modest parlor, which served dual purposes as dining and sitting room, she headed up a narrow staircase. Upstairs, where a thin wall separated the two sleeping quarters—and beyond both was a bathing room—she found her cot, rested the lamp down on the end table, and her knees gave out from under her.
Looking down at her trembling hands, she could still feel the sliver of scar under her forefinger and the heat of his palm around her wrist. She glanced at the window and down at the blooming hedgerows and vegetable garden—hoping and praying that the presence she had felt at the door had belonged to someone. But nothing, no one emerged from the darkness.
Her heart sank.
Still, even though disappointment reigned—the mysterious lord had been right. She had been safe coming home.
Maybe it hadn’t been a dream after all.
Four Days Later
“For Christ’s sake, Arlington,” a surly Colin Lightholder, Baron of Thornbury, huffed, nearly spilling his brandy, “Have you heard a word I have said all night?”
“You have eleven tenants who have mystically forgotten to pay their taxes, your prized phaeton has a broken wheel, the country house in Leeds that you have hoped to stage a hunting party is now infested with termites.
“Your parents are still hounding you to marry and this time they are set on making a match with the utterly repulsive Lady Carrington who does not speak a word of French and continues to ride astride like the tomboy we know she is—not to mention your new ball suits that are still not ready for the upcoming season,” William Hartwell, the Duke of Arlington, drawled, refraining from brushing a finger down his scar. “In that order, I believe.”
“Wiseacre,” Colin grunted.
“How did you manage to hear all that when it is clear your mind is ten leagues away,” Andrew Pembroke, the Viscount of Sutton, said knowingly.
Sipping his brandy, William gave his oldest friend a slanted look, “Must you always bear my true emotions to the rest of the world?”
“When it is clear that you are brooding over something, yes,” Andrew replied, utterly immune to William’s glares. Leaning in, he demanded, “What is troubling you?”
Before he answered, William pressed his lips tight and thought back to that night in the alley. First, he condemned himself for getting into that mix. In the name of discretion, he had takenpains—discreet hackney and all that—to warm a forlorn young widow’s bed in the countryside but had allowed his discretion to slip on the reverse journey.
Of course, someone had taken the opportunity to corner him and pay him his just desserts. What rubbed him the wrong way was that… they might have succeeded too if a young lady hadn’t materialized, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Five nights ago, I went to see Lady Madeline—”
Variations of aggrieved groans rose from the table; it was clear that neither of the two were in favor of William’s liaisons with the notorious widow, but William ignored them all—again, “However, on the way back, two henchmen from Lord Harcourt’s slums, poised as hackney drivers, managed to accost me.”
This time, the cries of grief became ones of outrage.
“Good God man,” Andrew shook his head. “How did that happen? Were you drunk?”
“Against all reason, I had one foot over the line, yes, but believe me, I got starkly sober very soon,” William toyed with the rim of his glass, sliding a long forefinger around its crystal edge. “They had almost gotten me until an unlikely aide came my way. A woman. Her scream made my training unfurl and I soon dispatched them to the ground, perhaps with a broken bone or two.”
“Ah,” Colin lifted his drink. “Good man. Do you know who this woman is?”
“No clue,” he shrugged. “But I kissed her and saw her home, in secret.”
“Oh, good god,” Andrew sighed, then waved to a waiter to refill his glass. When it was topped off, he took a mouthful and asked, “So you came from onerendezvous, almost got murdered and then kissed a strange woman and followed her to her home?”
“Yes.”
“And may I assume your distraction is because your mind is lingering on that woman?” Andrew pressed.
“Partly,” William nodded.
He remembered the moment the young Miss had entered the alley, how her skin glowed like porcelain in the moonlight, her small, neat features and uncommonly large doe eyes had possessed a delicate charm. She put him in mind of a painting of Daphne escaping Apollo.
The other two men shared a look before Colin asked, “Are we the only ones seeing the sticking pin in this matter? Clearly, you want to see this woman again and you know where she lives. Why not go and see her?”
“Because she is innocent and I do not dally with innocent Misses,” William’s words dropped like a judge’s gavel on its stone.
It was true. The young woman was the epitome of virtue. After his romp with Lady Madeline, he had not bothered tying his cravat, so his throat was bare above his collar and the faint musk of sex clung to his skin.
