But then she’d said that Lady Evie had intended to run away from her betrothed, which was him.
He frowned.
There was a twofold message in there. Firstly, she had known who he was, so she knew whom she was speaking to. Well, naturally she knew, since he’d introduced himself to her companion in her presence. Whatever she had said about him then, and of her wanting to run away, had been intentional. She had wanted him to know.
And secondly was the matter of the engagement itself.
She did not want to go ahead with it, evidently.
Very well.
He certainly would not force the matter if she was reluctant to wed him; there was nothing he would loathe more than being married to someone who did not want him.
It just surprised him that the issue was brought up now, of all times. She could have called it off in England and not come here to begin with.
Which begged the question, of course: why did she come? Why had she allowed it to go on for as long as it did? Was it to please her brother? She did not appear to be so biddable.
Once more, he returned to the thought that he really did not know her at all. He had no idea what sort of woman she was, this Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill.
That was something that he had to remedy.
In this sense he held a clear advantage: she did not know that he now knew who she was. What if he were to continue the game, but this time on his terms? What if he were to let her remain in the belief that he was still thinking she was Miss Clara Honeywell? She felt safe in that guise. Wouldn’t the advantage be that this would allow him to study her, seeing through her guise? If he exposed her now, he might lose the opportunity to observe her. It was a contradiction, of course, a paradox.
By allowing her to be someone else, he could discover the truth of who she truly was.
He could test her.
Discover her true intent.
And then decide what to do with her.
It was an excellent plan.
Evie was beginningto feel rather bored.
Certainly, Wolfsthal was a lovely place, a fairytale castle with a pretty garden. Her room was pleasant, too, though a shade more humble than she was used to.
As Clara Honeywell, Lady Evie’s companion, she’d been given a simply furnished room in the darker parts of the castle. The windows did not face south and the fireplace in her room smoked. There was a plain, no-nonsense bed, a commode with a pitcher and a bowl for washing, a chair and red-and-white chequered curtains hanging in front of windows that faced the kitchen garden. It was a practical room. And that was all.
She’d only had a peek into Clara’s rooms from outside, when the maids came and went and left the door open for a moment longer than was necessary.
All the furniture matched the elegant light-blue satin wallpaper, and every piece was exquisitely crafted by Parisian furniture makers. The bed had a massive baldachin with heavy brocade curtains, and the carpet was thick and soft. Clara’s rooms were as elegantly designed as any that would have been for the mistress of the house.
Which would have been her, of course.
Evie.
She would have loved those rooms had they been truly hers.
Which of course they were.
She frowned.
And yet it did not feel like they were for her, at all.
She sighed. What was she even doing here?
If it were not for poor Clara, she would have left long ago. She would have returned to Vienna and…what? Rejoined the ballroom-party-concert-celebration madness that had erupted in Vienna.
