That would take the better part of an hour.
“I’ll be with her anon.”
He took two steps at a time up the staircase and tore open the door to the drawing room.
A gentle fire was burning in the grate, a tea set on the table, her blue shawl draped over a chair.
His mouth curved in an involuntary smile. He’d been pondering on never allowing a woman into his home, and yet he was all too glad to see her here. But where was she?
His glance travelled through the room.
Perhaps she’d had to step out to seek the privy.
He stepped further in and saw that the adjoining door to his study was slightly ajar.
His brows drew together as he crossed to it and opened it.
The room was half in shadow. A single candle stood on his desk. He scanned the room: the desk, the shelf, the lamp on the table. Then his eyes shot back to the desk.
There, in the shadow. Against the wall.
He narrowed his eyes.
A figure was crouching on the floor.
In front of his open strongbox on the shelf.
Evie.
Chapter Twenty
It was,of course, a terrible idea.
Evie had told herself that at least a hundred times in the last half-hour, but it had not changed the fact that she had gone ahead with her plan anyhow.
Concocting terrible ideas was Evie’s speciality, so she did not allow that to deter her from her plan.
To be fair, it had not been a plan, exactly. She’d cobbled it together on the spur of the moment. She had no idea what exactly she’d intended to do.
She only knew that she had to see Hartenberg, and so she’d taken her maid and a coach to his town house.
The butler had been surprised when he saw her, but he’d quickly masked it with a formal bow and by letting her in, albeit reluctantly.
“His Excellency is not home,” he’d announced, clearly uncertain how to proceed. She was the bride of his master and his future mistress. One did not send his future mistress away when she came to call. On the other hand, to admit her when the master of the house was not at home? Which was worse? She could see the dilemma play out on his face.
Before he had had the opportunity to send her away, she’d sailed right past him. “Then I shall await him until he returns.”
The butler followed her, defeated.
He did serve her a rather nice tray of tea, andApfelstrudelwith vanilla sauce. It was just the right kind of thing to eat in weather like this.
It was quite a masculine dwelling, she noted as her gaze travelled over the room. There were leather armchairs and a heavy leather chesterfield sofa arranged in front of the fireplace. The walls were panelled in wood, and bare of any kind of decoration save a single massive portrait that hung over the fireplace. Evie went over to inspect it. It was a landscape scene, and in the distance, a castle. She leaned forward to look at it closer. It was Wolfsthal Castle, surrounded by the forest. A smile of recognition stole over her face.
Then there were bookshelves to the left and right of the fireplace.
His drawing room looked more like a study than a reception room for guests.
The study!
