“I see that, miss.”
“Maybe there’s a reason for this. Farley must be staying with Paxton’s valet.”
“He wouldn’t allow that.”
“We’ll ask,” she said, still fighting to stay calm and keep her inner turmoil from spilling out. “Farley’s here. Somewhere. He must be. We’ll find him. We’ll check every room until we do.”
Yet the only thing the search of the rest of the town house revealed was that there was no sign of Farley.
Loretta returned to the chair before the fire in the drawing room, refusing dinner, refusing to believe that the wayward lad wasn’t coming back with her jewelry to explain what had happened.
The night wore on. The earl came home and went tobed, but there was no word from Farley. Paxton came home and went to bed, but there was no sign of the youngster she’d tried so hard to help. She’d put on a brave face and had spoken briefly to both her uncle and brother, promising them she’d be up to her room soon. She didn’t mention the missing jewelry or the missing boy. She couldn’t make herself tell them. The burden was too great to share.
Loretta kept thinking that Hawk was right from the very first night he saw Farley. Hawk had tried to warn her, and she wouldn’t listen. Now she was devastated. She’d not only lost precious remembrances from her mother but also lost her faith in Farley. The two were equally painful, just in different ways.
When the last ember of fire went out, Loretta rose and went to her bedchamber. But not to go to bed. She dismissed Bitsy, who had fallen asleep waiting for her to come up and change. Loretta then donned her hooded cloak, grabbed her reticule with her pin money in it, and quietly slipped out of the house.
Loretta knew the duke lived in St. James, but not exactly where. That didn’t matter. She was fairly certain every hackney driver in London would know where the Duke of Hawksthorn’s town house was located. She hurried along the streets until she came to one that still had a small amount of traffic for the late hour. Several carriages passed her, but none stopped. Frustrated, she tried to wave one down by standing in the street. All that accomplished was having the driver curse at her, call her an unspeakable name, and yell that he didn’t carry the likes of her kind in his carriage after he’d almost run her down.
A cold, misting rain fell and she pulled her cloak and hood tighter about her neck. Not thinking clearly about what she was wearing, Loretta had left on her satin houseslippers instead of putting on walking boots. Soon her shoes and feet were soaked from puddles. Her toes were freezing, but she refused to give up and walk back to her uncle’s house. Her determination paid off when a hackney approached, slowed, and stopped. An old man with a gray beard looked down at her from his high perch.
Rain dripped from the brim of his hat. “Where ye going?” he asked.
Too cold to care that she might once again be mistaken for the type of person she wasn’t, she swallowed and said, “To the Duke of Hawksthorn’s house. Can you take me there?”
Loretta held her breath while he ran a hand down his long beard and looked at her.
“Do ye have enough pence to pay?”
“I’ll double the fare, if you can get me there,” she said, loosening the drawstrings on her knitted reticule.
“Then I know where he lives.” The man jumped down, opened the door, and said, “Climb aboard.”
The ride wasn’t long. Loretta watched out the window and looked for landmarks to remember in case she had to find her way back to Mayfair on her own. She hadn’t even begun to stop shivering, let alone to get warm, when the carriage stopped in front of an imposing, stately home. She hadn’t expected a tall iron fence enclosing it. Some of the homes in Mayfair were bordered by tall yew hedges or short wooden fences, but few had tall iron gates.
Loretta wouldn’t let the unfriendly entrance stop her. She paid her fare, thanked the man, and hurried up to the gates. After a couple of deep breaths, she grabbed hold of the gates and pushed. Relief flooded through her. They weren’t locked, and a lamp was lit above the door.
Keeping her hood low to cover her face, she walked upto the house and rapped the knocker. It sounded so loud in the still of the darkness, she was afraid it could be heard all over London.
She waited and was about to knock again when the door opened. A slim man with narrow eyes and a long nose frowned at her.
Before she could open her mouth, he said, “Beggars go to the back door, and they wait until morning.”
“Oh, wait,” she said, sticking out her hand to stop him from closing the door. “I’m not a beggar. I’m here to see the duke.”
“No, madame, you are not. The duke doesn’t allow solicitations”—his eyes looked her up and down—“of any kind.”
“I am a miss, not a madame,” she said indignantly. “And I am most assuredly not whatever it is that you’re thinking,” she continued. “I am a proper lady.”
His expression didn’t change. She realized too late that it was her own fault. He knew that proper young ladies wouldn’t knock on a gentleman’s door in the middle of the night or at any other time, either. Loretta knew that, too, but sometimes she simply couldn’t follow the accepted rules of Society.
“It doesn’t matter to me who you are, miss, madame, or madam. If you want food, come back in the morning. To the back of the house.” And with that, the door shut.
This was ridiculous! “By the saints!” she whispered out loud to herself. It shouldn’t be so hard to see the duke. She didn’t appreciate the assumption she was an unrespectable lady, or having a door shut in her face, or the fact her toes were slowly going numb from thin wet slippers. She hit the knocker again and again, determined not to go back to her uncle’s until she saw Hawk.
The man opened the door with such a forceful jerk it rattled the door knocker. A snarl wrinkled his nose and curled his lip.
“Tell the duke there is aladyhere to see him. I know he will come to the door.”
