“Then you do need saving.” He folded his arms. “If we make good time, we could return in time for the rehearsal of my next play. Yes, Miss Croome. Let me be the one. Let us elope, tonight.”
“No one is safe from my father’s wrath. Josiah Croome’s temper is legendary. Once he figures it out, he will give chase. The more I think about it, the more I fail to believe we have a chance. Forget I said anything about eloping tonight. Thank you for the tea, Mr. Bex.”
“I like challenges, particularly one with poor odds and dire consequences. Let’s try, Miss Croome. Let’s prove wrong the naysayers, even the ones beneath your pretty bonnet. I’ll take a gamble on a fellow Shakespeare lover. Where do I meet you?”
“Come to Nineteen Fournier. At five minutes after midnight, I’ll be at the far corner of the house, waiting in the parlor beside the wide window. I’ll jump down from it, and we can ride off to Gretna Green.”
Ester stood up, but he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I’ll be there, five after midnight.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t show, Mr. Bex.”
“I’ll be there to catch you, my future wife. And I’ll knock on the door and come inside if you don’t come down. Don’t make me ascend a balcony for you. I will. You’ve seen me do it.”
The smile he sent her made her knees knock, even more so than the eyes of everyone in the inn looking at Bex romance her. She shook her head and focused on him. “I remember your performance as Romeo inRomeo and Juliet. It was quite good. This isn’t pretend.”
“I’ll be there, for we are now engaged, my sun.”
This could be fun with endless references to theater plays. She smiled at her sweet prince. “Sorrowfully parting from you until tonight, Mr. Bex.” She floated out of the inn, not looking back, not wanting this moment to be taken from her. Arthur Bex knew Ester’s name and wanted to elope.
She leaned on Frederica’s carriage door. Everything would change at the toll of midnight. This daydream of marrying Arthur Bex would surely go away. At five minutes after midnight, the truth would return and the arranged engagement set up by her father would begin. Josiah Croome believed he could run the world and that included his daughter’s domestic happiness. The men who crossed him were doomed. One had even fled to the Americas. Would that be Bex’s fate?
She hugged her sketchbook before taking the door handle. The naysayers in her bonnet, as Bex had put it, were robbing her of the joy she’d stumbled upon. Tonight, she’d be engaged, either to Arthur Bex, the man of her dreams, or the womanizer dreamed up by her father. Ester shook her head. The hours until five after midnight would be the longest ones in her life.
Chapter Four
Pacing and Partying
From the top of the stairs, Ester snuck unnoticed past the floor where the dining room was and on to the lower level. On the bottom tread, she took a breath and traced the glow of the tall beeswax candles in the Rococo chandelier in the main hall of Nineteen Fournier.
It had been old and dusty when Papa first took possession of the house, but Mama had cleaned it, found artisans amongst their old neighbors to make it shine, like she had done for the rest of the house.
Ester had been such a fool to think them happy. The grim look upon her mother’s face when they’d first lit the chandelier should’ve been a warning. How could one be saddened by a fixture with gilded carved acanthus leaves made to suspend cut glass that looked like diamonds? With the long candles installed on the chandelier and even in the mirrored wall sconces, this party would go to three or four hours in the morning. Very good. She and Bex would have a head start—if he came—if she leaped to him.
Though indecision warred inside, she’d changed her dress to one she could manage without a maid and her undergarments to ones with a corset and ribbons in the front. Being on the run meant being quick, and she’d not be the reason they’d be caught. In her bag, she’d packed two easier buttoning dresses, a nightgown and robe, lilac soaps, a sack of charcoal, and her never-to-be-forgotten sketch pad. She was ready to elope. That seemed brave, but could she truly do it? Did that type of courage exist in her bones?
“Miss Croome, shouldn’t you be upstairs readying for dinner?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin at Clancy’s sudden appearance. “Yes.” Her voice sounded like a croak.
“You have your traveling bag? You going to stay with your friend with the two names, now Cecil-Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam-Cecil after the party?”
Ester never lied, but misdirection—that was something entirely different. “I’m planning to leave by the time the party ends or even before. You know how long these things go.”
“Sounds like you’re up to something.”
Her eyes popped wide, but she relaxed at the wail of his laughter.
“I’m just jossin’ with you. Here, I’ll take that.”
Ester’s heart started to beat again. Time to act as if nothing was wrong. She handed the bag to him then adjusted her creamy silk gloves. They matched her robin’s-egg blue gown with its high lace surrounding her neck. “You are a dear. Put it in the closet in the parlor.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He picked it up. “Your mother’s upstairs in the dining room. I think she’s looking for you.”
“Thank you, Clancy. If I’ve ever failed to thank you for your service, for every kindness you do, let me tell you how much you mean to me, this family.”
The old man dimpled and then headed to the parlor. He was a dear, and his humor would be needed to help soothe Mama and Papa when they discovered Ester had eloped.
The upstairs grandfather clock’s moans reached her ear.
