Every day, when she returned to her lodgings, she expected to find annulment papers waiting for her. It had been a month, and the papers hadn’t arrived. But they would.
By now, Jamie would have come to his senses about their time together. He would have seen that danger and intrigue had a way of creating a heightened sense of emotion that quickly faded after the threat was gone and life resumed its normal pace. He would be thinking himself well shot of the thieving guttersnipe he’d wed. She simply wasn’t marchioness material.
He would see that by now.
And her? What did she see?
It mattered not. Her feelings were best tucked away, where they belonged.
Within a block of Number11, she noticed a coach and four. Her heart banged out a series of hard thumps. Could it be—
It wasn’t. Glossy black paint shone where the crest would be. Yet she did recognize the vehicle. It belonged to Nick and Mariana. Dread snaked through her and settled in her gut. She’d skipped Monday night dinners for a month, and she intended to beg off again tomorrow. She needed time away from all people with the surname Asquith. At least, that was what her mind kept insisting.
Yet there was this part of her—a part rooted in her body at the chest level and decidedly independent of reason—that carried a soreness. If she let down her guard—let’s say, in the small hours of the night—it could feel less like a twinge and closer on the pain scale to an ache. It could throb and make her chest feel heavy, as if it harbored a deep, unresolved sob. Sir Bacon could sense it, too, for he whined plaintively when it happened.
At the boardinghouse, she didn’t take the alley entrance to her rooms, but instead entered through the front door. Mrs. Hayhurst stood in the corridor, worrying her hands, an anxious expression on her face. “You have a visitor,” she said in a loud whisper and handed Hortense a calling card.Lady Mariana Asquith.“She insisted on staying until you returned. She’s been here for nigh on an hour.”
“Is she in the drawing room?” Hortense was already on the move.
“That she is.”
Closing the drawing room door behind her, Hortense found Mariana perched uprightly on the edge of the sofa, shimmering with impatience. “Mariana,” she said haltingly, wary of her friend in a mood.
“Where have you been?” Mariana would get right to it.
Hortense took her time unknotting Sir Bacon’s lead, hoping her outward calm would serve to soothe and diffuse. “Working a few investigations here and there. The usual.”
Mariana’s eyes narrowed, tension soothed not one whit. “We haven’t seen you these last four Mondays.”
“No,” said Hortense. She wouldn’t elaborate.
“Are you planning to dine with us tomorrow night?”
“No.” A direct setting of expectations was best.
Mariana flicked her wrist. “Please do sit. We have ever so much to discuss.”
With no small amount of suspicion, Hortense did as her friend suggested, if suggestions were demands. This blithe change in tone didn’t bode well. She had a nose for that sort of thing.
“Can you guess whohasbeen gracing us with his presence?” Mariana asked, the words light, even if her eyes had lost none of their intensity. “And who will be there tomorrow?”
“Jamie, I suppose.” Oh, that her voice hadn’t broken just a little on the sharp edge of his name. Time should dull it.
“That’s right.” Mariana hesitated. “And Rafe.” Another hesitation. “His son.”
“I suppose that was a shock.”
“It was, and it wasn’t. Jamie has always been rather opaque.”
Against her will, Hortense was becoming drawn in. She couldn’t help it. She’d been wondering about Rafe. “How is the lad?”
“He’s a little tough, but a sweet sort.”
Hortense nodded. “I could see that about him.” Like his father, she wouldn’t say.
“Geoffrey has taken right to him.”
“Geoffrey would.”
