“Either I’ve successfully drunk myself into a stupor and you are a hallucination, or else I am dreaming.” Wearing the lopsided smirk of someone who had imbibed heavily in spirits, the handsome stranger shared Weston’s dark hair and gray eyes, although his were lighter and far less solemn. He was larger as well; broader in both his face and his shoulders. Weaving an uneven line, he tottered over to her and bounced into the railing with a grunt. “Bollocks. Didn’t see that there.”
“It’s very dark,” she said, biting back a smile. While he was obviously foxed (if his slurred speech and stumbling hadn’t given him away, the scotch on his breath surely would have), the man seemed harmless enough. And charming besides, especially when he swept off his hat and lowered himself into an exaggerated bow.
“You, my darling, must be Miss Thorncroft. Or else an angel sent from heaven above.” His eyebrows wiggled suggestively. “Might I have a peek at your wings?”
“The last I checked, I hadn’t any of those.” She canted her head to the side. “How do you know who I am?”
“A lucky guess. And Weston told me you were here. Though he failed to mention you were even more gorgeous than your sister. Then, I’ve always preferred brunettes to redheads. Less prone to fits of temper.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “But Kincaid seems smitten enough, so maybe I need to consider widening my horizons.”
Evie was taken aback. “You-you know Joanna and Mr. Kincaid?”
“Aye. They’re working on my case. Met with them right before I came here.”
Had everyone known her sister was still in London except for her?
“Whoareyou?” she wondered aloud.
“Sterling Nottingham, Duke of Hanover, at your service.” With a cheerful grin, he tossed his hat over the edge of the terrace. Then he frowned. “Did you see where that went?”
“No, I am afraid I did not.”
“That was my second favorite hat,” he said, peering over the railing.
Her lips twitched. “Then I’d advise you to be more careful with your favorite.”
“You’re probably right.” With a sigh, Sterling crossed his arms. “Seems I’m losing everything these days.”
“I’m not surprised, if you do to them what you just did to your hat.”
His frown deepened. “I didn’t toss my mistress over the balcony, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Evie blinked. This was, she reflected, one of the most bizarre conversations she’d ever had. And it was only getting stranger by the second. “I’d never dare imply such a thing.” She paused. “Wasyour mistress thrown over a balcony?”
“Last I checked, I dumped her in the Thames.”
She started to laugh. Then her eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
“Yes. No,” he corrected hastily when she started to slowly back away from him. “I mean, I don’t know. What happened to her, that is. There was blood. Lots of it. And I was the last person to see her alive. Except for the killer, naturally. Whoever he is. But that’s for Kincaid to figure out.”
Evie considered his words. “I actually think I might have followed that. Maybe.”
“I’m glad someone did.” For an instant, the duke’s countenance crumpled into misery. Then he cleared his throat, and flashed her another grin, this one even brighter than the last. “But enough about me and my misfortune. Tell me about yourself, Miss Thorncroft, and how it came to be that you’re standing all alone on a terrace in the middle of the night.”
She pulled her wrap more snugly around her shoulders. “I could not sleep.”
“Fancy a nip?” Sterling asked, removing a flask from the inside pocket of his emerald green jacket. “Does the trick for me. Except when it doesn’t.”
As she eyed the flask, it occurred to Evie that this, right here, was one of the reasons she’d agreed to come to London in the first place. To find the ring and uncover Joanna’s secret parentage, yes, of course. That was, without question, her main motivation for leaving Claire and her grandmother behind. But she would be lying if she didn’t admit that she had also held out hope for a private rendezvous with a handsome duke. A rendezvous that would have blossomed into a courtship, and that courtship into a proposal.
Her Grace, Evelyn Nottingham…the Duchess of Hanover.
Nowthatwould have set all of Somerville back on its heels.
If everything had gone as she’d first envisioned it, she’d be in a gown instead of a nightdress. With champagne in crystal flutes instead of scotch in silver flasks, and the strains of a waltz dancing on the air instead of chirping crickets. Most importantly of all, she wouldn’t be standing in front of a duke…and secretly wishing he was an earl.
“I shouldn’t,” she told Sterling. “The last time I drank from one of those I found myself with a lamb.”
Sterling chuckled. Tilting the flask to his lips, he guzzled down what remained and then returned it to his pocket. “Petunia, isn’t it? I met the little fur ball yesterday. Never seen a sheep in a parlor before. Thought Weston had adopted a new breed of dog until it bleated at me.”
