Frowning, she belatedly remembered the friends of Lady Isolde from London who were to arrive today.
Uffa.
Surely Allie looked a mess—tear-streaked, red-eyed, and rumpled from running. She would simply slip in the front door and escape to her room to freshen up. Perhaps she could even claim a megrim in order to beg off the evening’s activities. Burrowing her head in a pillow and sobbing her anguish for a night held a certain maudlin appeal.
Slipping past two footmen carrying a heavy trunk through the front door, Allie kept her head bent, eyes intent on the stairs.
“Lady Allegra!” a decidedly familiar aristocratic voice called.
Allie froze, one foot on the bottom step.
Porca miseria.
“Where have you been?” The voice was closer now.
Spinning round, Allie scowled up into the stern, handsome face of her twin brother.
“Kendall.” She bobbed a curtsy.
No need to askwhyhe was here. Apparently, her twin had decided to follow immediately on the heels of his letter, likely realizing after the fact that if she were forewarned, she might bolt.
His reasoning was not wrong.
A burst of laughter sounded from the open doorway to the drawing-room . . . Lady Isolde with her friends.
Kendall seemed not to hear them. Instead, he stared at her, gaze flitting over her face and likely cataloging the aftermath of her weeping. His brows drew down. “What on earth has—”
“Lady Allegra, it is a pleasure to see you again.” Another voice joined them.
Allie looked past her brother to see a smiling Lord Charswood hand his hat to the waiting butler.
Of course.
Of course Kendall would bring Charswood along.
The earl’s smile faltered as he, too, noted her face. He darted an apprehensive glance up at Kendall.
“Are you well, my lady?” his lordship asked, his eyes so very kind.
She hated that Charswood was a good man. That she couldn’t find him odious and loathsome and, therefore, easy to dismiss . . . for practical reasons, that was. Which once upon a time were the only kind of reasons she believed in. Now, however . . .
“I fear I have the beginnings of a headache,” she said, pressing fingertips to her temple.
It was not a lie. A steady hammer was picking up pace behind her right eyeball.
Another round of laughter came from the drawing-room, a group of newcomers stepping into the doorway. From the sound of things, Lady Isolde’s intellectual friends seemed just as likely to reach for a glass of brandy as a copy of Descartes.
A dark-headed man separated from the group, meeting her gaze.
Allie’s heart sank to her toes.
Fabrizio smiled, nodding his head in her direction.
How the hell was he here?
She could guess why. Buthow?
His smug expression intimated he was up to no good. His carefully tailored superfine coat and silk waistcoat declared he had come prepared for diplomatic war. The confident set of his shoulders said he had a plan.
