He couldn’t imagine how Adelia would handle that moment except to know in his heart, it would destroy her.
And as soon as he thought of her, the nagging sensation that something he’d heard or seen related to her was important. And the only way he could rectify it was to speak with her at once before it drove him mad.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Owen found himselfknocking on Adelia’s door at an unreasonable hour of the evening, hoping she had finished her dinner and was in her drawing room. Their butler opened the door.
“I know you,” Owen said to the man, startling him. “Do I not?”
“Indeed, my lord. I have opened this door to you previously.”
“No, no,” Owen said testily, striding into the front hall. “From elsewhere. It only just dawned on me. Have you been the Smythe’s butler for very long?”
“Twelve years to be precise, my lord.”
“Were you at Eton prior?”
The man’s eyes widened. “I was, my lord. I served the former headmaster for a number of years until he retired.”
Could this be what was unsettling him, a familiar face he hadn’t placed before?
“And how do you like serving the Smythes?”
“My lord, that is a highly unusual question. Are you in the market for a butler? If so, I may know someone. As for myself, I am content in my position here.”
Apparently, the man thought Owen was attempting to poach him.
“That’s fine, Mr. Lockley. I am not in need of staff. I’m sorry I brought it up.” Considering Adelia’s somewhat odd wallflower behavior and the earl dressing beneath his class in order to go to seedy pubs, Owen added, “Sometimes, things seem a little strange with the Smythes, that’s all.”
As soon as he said it, he bit his tongue. Owen had mused out loud to a servant, and if he could call the words back, he would.What an ass he was!
“My lord, another unusual thing to say.”
Owen nearly smiled. It was Mr. Lockley’s word for inappropriate or impertinent, but the man could not rightly reprimand a peer of the realm.
“Right, Mr. Lockley. Let’s leave the matter.”
He was about to ask for Lady Adelia, in spite of the house feeling empty and quieter than usual, already giving him the impression she was not at home.
Before he could inquire, Mr. Lockley suddenly added, “The earl and his sister have been graced with a far less strange environment this past year.”
Ah, that would be since the death of the old earl, Owen surmised.
The butler was undoubtedly telling him—without telling him—that the Smythes were better off since their father passed. He’d heard rumors the man was a hard-headed tyrant. Indeed, Adelia had started to tell him as much when defending her brother, but Owen knew nothing of him personally.
If the Smythes’ situation had improved, it had now greatly worsened again. Perhaps the young earl had learned to be a savage from his father.
“I am here to see Lady Adelia.”
“Neither of the Smythes are home, my lord.”
The butler said it as if the murderous earl were out at a party or a play.Did he know where his master presently resided?Perhaps Adelia had kept the truth from the staff.
“I am not interested in his lordship, only his sister. Do you know when she is expected home?”
The man had a pained look upon his face. “She has only recently gone out.”
“That tells me little. Is she next door, on the other side of Hyde Park, or headed for Spain?”
