Page 33 of Secrets of the Heart

“Yes, of course I will. It is just—” he sighed “—it is not the best part of town, but I suppose if she goes there during the day, it would be all right.” He gave her the address, still looking doubtful.

“Thank you. I will write to Michael this afternoon.” She began to walk toward the door, eager now to get rid of him.

As soon as he was gone, she hurried back upstairs to her bedroom. There she dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, not giving herself time to think about what she was about to do. She had to do this, and she refused to admit fear or hesitation into her mind. Whatever consequences came, she would deal with them later. Right now she was determined to act.

She wore a plain dark dress and no jewelry. She did not want to give the impression that she was flaunting her position in Mrs. Neeley’s face. It would be difficult enough to get her to talk to her as it was. Over her dress, she put on a long cloak with a hood. It was a trifle warm for the day, but she knew that both Anthony and Perry were right in warning of the scandal if she were seen entering or leaving a gambling den—especially one run by the mistress of her husband.

The footman offered to ring for her carriage to be called up, but she declined, saying with what she hoped was a look of calm that she preferred to walk to the lending library. He would find it odd, perhaps, that she took no maid with her, but Rachel was counting on his not daring to question her.

She slipped out the front door and started along the sidewalk in the direction of the lending library in case the footman or anyone else might be watching. Their street was a wide thoroughfare, with ample traffic, and Rachel felt sure that she would be able to hail a hansom cab once she got out of sight of the house.

In the next block she hailed a hansom and gave the driver Mrs. Neeley’s address. He looked down doubtfully at her, and she repeated it firmly, then climbed in and closed the door, leaving him with little option but to go there.

She sat tensely inside the carriage, her fists clenched in her lap, going over and over in her head what she should say and how she should say it. When the cab rolled to a stop, she pulled the hood of her cloak up around her face and alighted cautiously. Rachel glanced up and down the street, having to turn her whole head because of the covering of the hood. It was a narrower street than where she lived, with smaller houses and buildings, and there was, she noted, a tavern at the end of the block. Still, no one walking along the street looked actively dangerous.

After paying the hansom driver, she turned to the house where he had stopped and climbed the stairs. It was a narrow stone house, with freshly painted shutters, clean windows and a gleaming brass door knocker. Not an elegant house, but one on which care was expended.

She knocked on the door, and it was opened by a male servant so tall and with such broad shoulders that he almost filled the doorway. His face was marred by a broken nose and small scars near his mouth and one eye, and one ear looked, strangely, as if a small piece of it was missing. Rachel suspected that he had been chosen more for his abilities in a fight than for any serving skills he might possess.

He leaned down, peering into her face beneath her hood. “Can I help ye, miss?” he asked, looking doubtful.

“I would like to speak to Mrs. Neeley, thank you. Mrs. Lilith Neeley.”

He continued to look doubtful but backed up a step, allowing her to enter. He gestured toward a bench in the hall, saying, “Sit here. I’ll ask her.”

Rachel complied as he closed the front door and marched up the stairs. She glanced into the rooms on either side of the hall. It did not, she thought with some disappointment, look like a den of iniquity. She had imagined something altogether more ornate and colorful, dimly lit, perhaps.

After a few minutes the man came back down the stairs, followed by a slender, attractive blond woman. “I am Mrs. Neeley,” she said in a quiet voice, with only a hint of an accent—Northumberland, perhaps, or some other northern county, Rachel thought. “May I help you?”

“I hope so.” Rachel reached up and pushed back her hood. “I am Rachel Trent.” She purposely did not use her title, hoping again not to appear snobblish, thinking that if the woman did not recognize the name, she could add “Lady Westhampton.”

But Mrs. Neeley obviously recognized the name, for her eyes widened. “Oh. My lady—I—”

“I came to talk to you about my husband,” Rachel went on.

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Neeley cast a nervous look around her, perhaps seeking support, but the large man had walked on down the hall into some back region of the house. “I am afraid I cannot help you.”

“I think you can,” Rachel countered, clasping her hands together to hide their trembling. Now that she was standing here, looking at this woman, who had none of the crassness or vulgarity that she had expected from a mistress and owner of a gambling den, Rachel was at something of a loss for words. “Please do not lie to me. I was told about you by several people. It seems as though everyone knows about you but me. Westhampton hid it very well from me. It seems I know nothing at all about my husband.” Rachel could not keep the bitterness from her voice. “But I am aware now that you have been Michael’s mistress for some years.”

The other woman gaped at her, her astonishment seeming so real that Rachel almost wondered if she had somehow gotten it all wrong.

“Lady Westhampton! No! Oh, my—this is awful!” Mrs. Neely reached out toward Rachel as if to take her hands, then pulled her own back hastily. “I’m sorry. Yes, I do know your husband. Or, at least, I know who he is. But I am not his mistress. I have never been. It distresses me terribly that you should think so. Oh, dear…There is someone else—I mean, I have a…Please, you must believe me. I am not Lord Westhampton’s mistress. He does not come here at all. It is something else altogether.”

Strangely enough, Rachel found herself believing the woman. Mrs. Neeley looked so genuinely upset and concerned, stumbling over her words, that Rachel felt herself relaxing a little. Had everyone gotten it all wrong somehow? Perhaps there was some rational explanation after all.

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Did I—I’m sorry, but—people told me that he had been seen coming in and out of here. And Araminta—his sister—knew about it.”

“She did not say that, surely! She couldn’t have said that he and I—that we—”

At that moment there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Mrs. Neeley let out a small, choked cry and swung around, looking up the stairs. Rachel’s eyes followed hers.

Michael was walking down the stairs, buttoning the cuff of one sleeve. He wore no jacket, and his waistcoat hung open down the front. “Lilith, do you know where—”

He stopped, seeing for the first time the two women standing to the side of the stairs, and whatever he had been about to say died in his throat.

“Michael.”

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