“Very well,” she said. She moved toward the door, but before she exited, she turned back. “Goodbye, Father.”
A lump nearly choked her words, but he didn’t notice.
“Hurry along.” Her father waved her away.
Which was just as well.
Climbing the stairs back to her room, she blinked away tears.
Her father did not deserve them.
And by the time she had located her valise and begun filling it with belongings she couldn’t live without, she was fuming. At her mother, at her father, but also at herself.
She had courage. Scads of it!
Tons of it!
She simply needed to use it. And she would use it to take control of her own life.
She secured the case closed and, with one last glimpse around the room, slipped into the corridor and down the servants' stairs. Once she was sure no one was watching her, she snuck out the garden gate and all but ran to where she remembered Lord Standish’s Mayfair townhouse was located—on Hanover Square. Luckily, Nia had pointed it out to her last spring.
It was set back from the street, but grand, and visible from St. George’s Cathedral. She would know it when she saw it.
If only she was half as confident that Lord Standish would be there.
Because if he wasn’t, she…
Hadn’t figured that out yet.
“There must be something we can do. Perhaps I can stir up some other scandal to squash these rumors. Because I refuse to allow my favorite brother to live out the remainder of his life in Newgate.” Caroline pinned a stern look on him. “Or worse.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Reed spoke in stern tones because he wouldn’t put it past his sister to do something stupid for him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Despite the five years he had on her, she’d stood up for him more than once.
“Perhaps I can talk to Lady Marigold…” Caroline pondered aloud.
Reed contemplated it for half a second. Caroline could be quite persuasive when she put her mind to it. And yet…
Goldie had made her wishes quite clear. By marrying him, she’d have to give up her family. It wouldn’t be fair to manipulate her decision.
“No…”
Earlier, after being refused, Reed had walked around the blasted park more times than he could count, first, in an attempt to tamp down his inconvenient arousal, and once he’d succeeded with that, he’d racked his mind in search of another answer to his problem.
He was going to have to speak with West—and Helton, of course. The publisher had seemed somewhat sympathetic, or he would have run the first story already—despite his arm-twisting.
But first, Reed returned to deliver the bad news to Caroline.
Smoothing his hands down his thighs, he pushed himself off the settee and glanced at the clock. Five past one.
He felt ten years older than he had yesterday at this time.
And he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol he’d consumed last night. No, he could blame that on the fact that he’d run out of time.
Caroline rose as well. “I’m going to talk with her.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Caroline. I mean it.”
She didn’t get the chance to argue because a knock on the drawing room door cut into the conversation. How long would it be before the rumors solidified suspicions? Before the magistrate acted upon them?
