“She did a good job proofing, too,” Wallace added.
“Let's hope it helps.” Maxwell gave a half-hearted wave. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Which could, honestly, mean any time between now and the crack of dawn. How many times had Maxwell risen from his warm bed at Black House so he could be at the offices first thing in the morning? And he came because he wanted to.
Because he belonged.
Wallace lumbered toward the back and Maxwell made his way to the front entrance, where Caroline stood wearing her coat and clutching a small reticule, waiting for him.
“That was fast,” he said as he held the door, a cool breeze finding its way inside.
“I didn’t bring much with me.” She touched her forehead and grimaced.
“I’m afraid I don’t have my coach here,” Maxwell apologized, glancing up and down the street, hoping to catch a hackney driving by. But none appeared. It was too late, or too early, depending on the hours one kept. “My horse is stabled in back.”
“I can walk. My mother’s home isn’t far.”
“Standish Place is in Mayfair.” Too far to walk, to be sure.
But she was shaking her head. “My mother and sisters and I don’t live at Rutherford Place with my brother. When he married Goldie, we decided my father’s townhouse was more than adequate for the rest of us. No new bride should have to share her home with a house full of in-laws. Our townhouse isn’t far from Mayfair. Up Wellington, near Covent Gardens.”
When no familiar black vehicles appeared, Maxwell glanced at his fob and winced. “You don’t mind walking?”
“Of course not. And really, if you—”
“You aren’t walking alone.” He cut her off. “We’ll take a hackney if one comes along. For now…” He offered her his arm.
She hesitantly took it.
“Your townhouse is in Mayfair?” she asked as they left the Gazette offices behind, their footsteps unusually loud in the quiet of night.
Maxwell dipped his chin. “I’ve made Black Hall my permanent residence.”
“It’s true, then, that you never spend time at your country estate?”
Maxwell pictured the sprawling mansion where he’d spent a good deal of his childhood—the seat of his disillusionment. “I only go to Hell House when it’s absolutely necessary.”
He felt her swing a startled gaze around to him. “Hell House?”
“Helton House.” Maxwell should have realized she wouldn’t let that go. “God-awful place.”
“But why?”
“It’s complicated. Suffice it to say, I don’t belong there.” The rest was better left unsaid, as far as he was concerned.
“Of course you do,” she argued. “You’re Helton.”
And that was the crux of it.
Ever since the day he’d learned of his father’s betrayal, he’d wanted to be anywhere but home. As the country seat of all the earls who’d come before, he felt mocked there—taunted. He’d spent as much time at school as he could get away with.
And when he finally reached his majority, Maxwell had planned on entering the military. It was to have been his escape. But his father died two weeks before Maxwell’s birthday, leaving his mother inconsolable.
Maxwell couldn’t leave her. And with each passing year, he wondered less and less how his life would have played out otherwise.
Before Maxwell said something else he oughtn’t, she squeezed his arm.
“I feel that way every time I step into a ballroom—not to mention the elaborate garden parties. I felt most at home at that recital. I’m not sure why, though.” She tilted her head and it bumped Maxwell’s shoulder.
If someone told him a week ago that he’d be walking down Fleet Street in the middle of the night with this woman, alone, he would have said they were dicked in the nob. So why did it feel so…
