But she couldn’t stop thinking that she shouldn’t have let Richard whisk her away. She was meant to be watching her niece, not hearing passionate declarations of love herself—even if it had made her heart flutter in way she hadn’t felt in years.
Richard came up the stairs, so rapidly she knew he also had no news. When he turned around the banister and their eyes met, her composure began to crack.
“Where is she?” she whispered as he strode toward her.
“Shh.” The retiring room door had opened behind him, and he stepped to the side, shielding Evangeline from view. “Neither has left the house.”
“Via the front door,” she replied in an urgent whisper. “Whereisshe?” Panic rippled along her nerves.
He glanced over his shoulder. The woman with the repaired glove was slowly going down the stairs, craning her neck to stare at them. Richard led her toward the back of the house. “I also checked the antechamber and morning room. I saw neither on that floor.”
And Evangeline had opened all the doors on this floor. That left the upper floors, with the family’s private rooms, or theservants’ rooms. No matter how fascinated Joan had been by the water heater and new plaster in Burke’s Hanover Square home, Evangeline thought it very unlikely she and Burke were studying the Brentwoods’ flues and linen closets. Which meant...
She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight and dry. She knew very well why a woman would sneak off to a private room with a man; she’d done it herself. But she’d trusted Joan to be moresensible, more aware. Surely Marion had raised her daughter to be more conscious of propriety than Evangeline had ever been.
But Joan has already done this,whispered a terrible voice inside her head. Joan let Burke take her ballooning, without a word to Evangeline. And she’d enjoyed it.
She gripped Richard’s arm so hard he started. “We have to find her. Now!”
For once he didn’t argue. Up the back stairs they went, as rapidly as possible. With Richard reminding her to be as quiet as she could, they opened every door that wasn’t locked.
“Joan!” she whispered, trying to keep her voice down but nearing hysteria. “Joan!” The last door opened under her hand and she lurched into the room, only to stop short.
There stood her niece and Lord Burke. His arms were around her, and they might have been admiring themselves in the mirror over the small fireplace, a lovely romantic couple.
But Evangeline’s frantic eyes took in Joan’s high color and disarranged hair, Burke’s sleepy-eyed smile, the wrinkles in both their clothing. Behind her, Richard swore under his breath. He could tell, too.
Her heart seemed to stop, then resume with a ferocious banging that made her vision dim. Oh God. George had trusted her to keep his only daughter safe, and she had failed, distracted by her selfish desires, her lack of sense, and her complete and utter stupidity.
“What the devil are you doing?” Richard snarled at Burke.
The younger man gave him a cocksure glance before giving Joan an intimate look that made the girl blush and smile. “What does it look like?”
If there had been any kind of weapon in her hand, Evangeline would have murdered him on the spot. “Joan—Joan, come with me right now. We have to go!” Before she flew at Burke and gouged out his eyes, before she flung herself off the roof of this house in shame. Now the only thing she could do was get her niece safely out of this nightmare. She couldn’t think of anything else.
And Burke, the reprehensible scoundrel, merely kissed Joan’s hand and gave her another searing look.
Leaving Richard to deal with him, she seized Joan’s wrist and towed her out of the room, down all those stairs, into the hall where she hissed at a servant to fetch their things and summon their carriage. Her hands shook as she practically pushed the girl into it.
Once inside, she took a deep breath to calm her thundering pulse. “I hope,” she said carefully, “I shall have nothing dreadful to confess to your parents.”
Joan’s reply, cautious but still entirely too self-satisfied, made her throat clench. “I’m sure you don’t.”
Her brother would never speak to her again. Marion would despise her until the end of time—with good reason. She would be banished from her family forever. She tried to hold herself together; Joan was at fault, too, but only because Evangeline had been criminally negligent.
Joan began to apologize, seeming to sense at last how badly she’d erred. Evangeline’s hopes that she would disclose good news—namely, a marriage proposal—were crushed, as the girl went silent at that query.
“But Iwantto marry him,” Joan added in a small voice.
“I should bloody well hope so!” she snapped. “You may have no other choice.” She couldn’t fend off the memory of her father’s expression when he’d walked in on her and Court—the contained fury, but also the stony acceptance, as if he weren’t surprised at all.George isn’t like that,she reminded herself frantically—but then, she’d at least been a widow, not a modest, virginal young lady. And while Court had been brazen in his seductions, he’d recoiled from any actual danger. She had no illusions Burke was the same. If George lost his temper and called out Burke, Evangeline had no doubt the viscount would meet him.
Perhaps she could prevail upon Richard to give her his pistols, and she could save her brother the trouble of shooting the viscount, she thought wildly. She would ambush him on his way home. Perhaps she could whisk Joan away to Chelsea and pretend she’d been taken very ill, and not bring her back to London until any scandal had blown over.
And then she stopped thinking at all, as the carriage turned into South Audley Street. A travel chaise stood outside the Bennet home. Janet, Marion’s maid, stood on the steps directing the unloading of luggage.
George and Marion were home. And her sins were about to catch up with her.
Chapter 31
