Page 5

A rather urgent matter, Grieves had said.

But Adam could not fathom what manner of urgent matter a stranger would have with him and his estate at this hour.

Now, hearing his daughter’s voice carrying not an ounce of fear, his spine only stiffened even further. Eloise had always been a rather outspoken child, but hearing her say that to a woman neither of them knew?

Grieves trailed behind him silently, no doubt hearing the exchange as clearly as he had. Eloise’s governess, Miss Ada, turned when she heard his footsteps, and her eyes widened.

“Your Grace, I truly thought she was asleep—” She started to plead her case, but Adam wasn’t focusing on her.

He opened the door, and the smell of damp silk and caked earth hit him immediately.

Someone had come in soaking wet, and there were dark tracks caked into the floor as he looked across the room.

Then his eyes fixed on the armchair, where a young woman was sitting.

The only thing he could see of her, really, was a great mud-caked hem fanned around the armchair itself. Eloise was perched on the stool beside the chair, leaning forward so far her nightgown had come off one shoulder.

Adam took in a deep, calming breath even though his instincts screamed at him to storm the parlor and yank his daughter away from the stranger.

“Step away from my daughter,” he commanded.

They both started in surprise, and Eloise twisted around first. When she met his eyes, her bright expression immediately crumbled into guilt; she knew very well she was not meant to be up this late.

“Come here this instant, Eloise,” he told her, holding out one hand. His daughter knew not to argue, hurrying towards him without a word. When she reached him, he crouched down, and gripped her shoulders. “What have I told you about speaking to strangers?”

Eloise at least had the sense to look properly chastised. Yet a second later her eyes sparked, and she said, “But, Papa, she’s a princess!”

Adam closed his eyes for a beat, taking in yet another calming breath. No, he was not going to yell at his daughter in front of a strange woman.

Princess?

Adam highly doubted it, given Eloise’s obsession with the bedtime stories Miss Green read to her almost nightly. Given those tales, every woman would look like a princess to his daughter.

“And princesses don’t harm little girls, do they?” Eloise continued stubbornly.

At that, Adam barely managed to bite back a snort. “Not in stories, they don’t. But in the real world, we’re not as certain,” he said. Eloise pouted.

“No,” she whined, “but I promise, Papa, she’s very nice!”

As his daughter continued her protest, the woman finally rose, turning with the same urgency as his daughter had. Adam got his first proper look at her⁠—

And his eyes widened.

Grieves, it seemed, had left out some very important details in his report, namely that a woman was currently seated in his parlor wearing a wedding dress.

He turned to look at his butler, and the man had the sense to lower his head as if sensing Adam’s thoughts.

The dress certainly looked as if it had been expensive: heavy silk—and even though most of the beading had come off, he could tell it had cost a great deal of money. The skirts, almost wide enough to fill a doorway, were spattered with mud and grime from the knee down, and the bodice was stained along both sides where grime had dried into the silk.

He did not know how she had come here, but it had clearly been a taxing journey.

She was covertly trying to pat down her matted hair—unruly sandy-brown wisps long since escaped the painstaking arrangement made earlier in the day.

Eloise, pressed against his side, looked up at him. “Papa, remember your manners,” she said, and he leveled her with a look.

“Eloise.”

“But she has come a long way, Papa!” Eloise could be stubborn when she wanted to be. And she definitely wanted to be now. “She rode a horse!”