“Are you finished packing, then?” that damned voice said behind her, his presence explaining her maid’s suddenly slack jaw.
She shoved a jewelry pouch into the corner of her case. “Why don’t you bother Carla? She seems quite excited for the attention.”
“I’m hurt, Marietta. Truly.”
“I’m sure.” As if she had the ability to hurt anyone these days. Someone would have to care first. She shut her eyes. Idiot. She was going to have a breakdown if she kept up such pitiful thoughts.
“Is this all you have?”
“If you are going to be obnoxious, I’d prefer for you to wait elsewhere.”
He picked up the edge of a black gown, and she slapped his hand away.
He whistled and touched the edge again. “Fashionable. And here I thought little could outdo your current dress.”
“I’m in mourning.”
“Your parents have been dead for two years.”
She glanced up sharply at his display of knowledge once more. “How do you know that?”
“I know many things. Such as when you lie.”
That she had stretched her mourning period into a second year was pushing things, but she couldn’t afford new dresses, and altering her older, out of fashion garments would only get her so far. Besides, the dark gowns protected her in other ways. Silly, insidious ways where her femininity wasn’t threatened. She couldn’t be held responsible for her lack of feminine wiles in dresses likethose.
She shut down that line of thinking. Here she thought Mark the prideful one.
“You know no such thing.” She pushed his hand aside and folded the dress.
“Don’t spend too much time worrying about which beautiful dress you can’t live without.”
Mocking words, words that made her want to lash back, but she read the truth in them and the seriousness in his eyes. She turned to her personal effects. Dresses could be replaced. Personal possessions could not.
The servants were untrustworthy, and Mark soon wouldn’t be able to keep away the mobs. The streets were calling for revenge. Noble’s house, though it chafed her to admit, was a safer place to store her mementos and more precious items. She might not trust him, but deep inside, underneath her tired and irrational anger, she perceived he had a code he would not cross.
The irritating man poked around her room, flashing smiles at the giggling Jeanie and sending Carla on repeated errands downstairs while Marietta gathered the last of her things.
Jeanie disappeared to gather a last box. Noble leaned against a pillow, as if he owned the world. “Did you know they were selling your brother’s things before?”
Her lips tightened. “No.”
She needed to let her older brother know somehow. She picked up a pen and jotted a note. She crept into Mark’s room and tucked it into his hand so the servants would have less of a chance of finding it. For the first time in two years she was glad her brother was passed out. She didn’t know if she could deal with him now, and had a strong feeling that he and Noble would not get on well at all.
Mark would be very angry that an outsider was aware of their economic straits. Even to help Kenny, he would not divulge such information. It was why she hadn’t talked to him before embarking on her mission.
She walked back and looked around her room. The most important items were packed. She nodded to Noble and they carried her boxes and case into the unmarked carriage they had taken earlier.
She saw three sharp pairs of servants’ eyes and one glassy-eyed pair watch them depart. The carriage took a number of turns that seemed unnecessary, as if they were going in circles, and Marietta had to wonder if they were trying to evade followers. But as Noble was up top with the coachman, she had no one to ask. Twenty minutes later the carriage pulled onto a nondescript street.
The street was well-lit with gas lamps, but there was an air of disuse about the lane. There were no lights shining inside the houses. It was as if they were uninhabited—their plain fronts hiding gaping holes inside. Empty boxes stacked side by side.
She watched through the window as Noble leapt down, all insouciant grace and easy movements. He opened the door, picked up the two heaviest boxes, and walked toward the front, leaving her to step down unattended. She followed, fuming in his wake.
The door opened and Marietta was relieved to see a sturdy older woman. She drew close enough to hear Noble ask whether everything was ready.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Noble. I received your urgent note. I’ve stocked the pantry and larder. There is some of that hearty stew still warm near the stove. Everything is cleaned from last time. I’ll come by in the mornings to help the girl.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rosaire.” His voice was rich and warm, nothing like the cold, mocking tones he used with her, or the empty sensual ones he had used on her maids.
