Chapter Ten
Slowly—very slowly—Eliza opened the back gate of Asquith House.
After a night of breathless, heart-pounding excitement, moving steadily enough to keep the hinges from announcing her presence to every sleeping groom in the stable took concentration.
She opened the door far enough to slip inside, and then she motioned to Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s coachman to carry on. The glossy black carriage pulled away as she slipped safely within.
She’d cleared her first hurdle.
Next, she shrugged out of the cloak she’d borrowed from a stable hand as she crept alongside of the mews house. After ducking in through the harness room door that had never latched properly, she returned the cloak to the same peg she’d taken it from.
Hurdle number two surmounted.
Emerging back into the garden, she tuned her ear to the sounds of the late night/early morning, seeking signs of life. She heard only crickets. Well, crickets and a single bird singing—to Eliza’s mind—loud enough to wake the entire household.
Foul fowl. Not dawn yet!
Then again, she’d no need to fret. She was home.
Well, not home. Willowhurst Manor had been home. Home to the Wainwright family since Norman times. Now, a stranger owned the old manor. Her step faltered as wave of grief rose unexpectedly. She steadied herself by casting her eyes upward and placing a calming hand over her stomach.
Silhouetted against a blue-gray sky, the dark, slanted eaves of Asquith House frowned down, as if chastising her for ingratitude.
But even though her grandfather had been Lord Asquith, the present earl was but a distant relation.
The Wainwright girls were there on the charity of his mother, Eliza and Cassie’s godmama.
Asquith House could never be home.
Taking one step at a time, she descended into the darkened door well that led to the kitchen. When the latch clicked closed behind her, she finally allowed herself to slump against the door jam.
Her weary body wanted nothing more than silence and a comfortable bed, and yet her mind raced like a coach purloined and driven by a member of the four-horse club, rattling perilously from thought to thought.
To make things worse, every explanation of her adventures madly circling her consciousness held two contradictory truths.
She’d made a terrible mistake, yet she’d had the most thrilling night of her life.
She was still chaste, yet she was also wanton.
She was ruined, yet she had never felt so free.
Redver had been as arrogant as expected, yet Redver had been attractive, intriguing, and even occasionally witty.
She still hated the marquess, yet she longed to spar and challenge and, yes, lie with him again.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Nothing made any sense!
“Sssst!”
Eliza’s sister Millicent emerged from the darkness.
“Look who finally decided to return.”
“Heavens, Millie.” She curled a hand against her chest. “You scared the life out of me.”
“Not half as much as you’ve scared me! Just how long does it take to meet with the proprietress of a gaming hell? You’ve been gone for hours.”
“Hush, you! I had to cross London by foot.” As for everything else? Well, count that a lie of omission. “If I had known you would wait up for me, I would never have told you where I was going!”
“Oh, please. If I’d insisted on undertaking the same fool’s errand, you would have waited up for me.”
True. Her heart softened. In a world that had never been—and never would be—fair, her sisters had been her rock.
“Now come on before you get caught.” Millie grabbed her hand in the darkness. Together, they felt their way to the servants’ staircase.
Not the first time they’d snuck together through a place they shouldn’t have been. Mille, in fact, was a clandestine escape scholar. And, though Cassie was Eliza’s twin, she and Millie had always been the most daring of the group.
“Did anyone notice I was gone?” Eliza asked.
“Would have done. The whole house has been upside down all night. Grandmama barking contradictory orders at poor Mrs. Blanc, Mrs. Blanc directing the staff this way and that, passing on her own upset. Asquith flitting in and out, face as dark as a bat.”
Gah. She could picture the scene.
“Just after he stormed the parlor for the third time, Godmama summoned both you and Cassie—”
Eliza jerked to a stop. “Pardon?”
“Oh, settle down. No one discovered you were absent. Cassie pretended to be you.”
Eliza winced. “How? She was prostrate when I left.”
“Necessity is a miracle worker, apparently. She dried her eyes and pinched her cheeks and went downstairs haughty as you please. She told Godmama, pretending to be you, that ‘Cassie’ couldn’t possibly come down, and that ‘you’ needed to be with ‘her’ alone and would not tolerate her being disturbed. ”
“I’m astonished Cassie dared.”
“Be glad she did! One scandal a night is more than enough. Imagine what would have happened if they’d discovered you’d run out into the London night on your own.”
“I was trying to fix the situation!”
Millie shrugged. “Well, so was Asquith.”
“Did he talk to the Patronesses?”
“No, he’s leaving the Patronesses to his mama.”
“Then where did he go?”
“If you’d let me finish—” Millie yanked Eliza’s arm—“I will tell you. First, he retrieved Lord Neville from whatever dull amusement he’d been indulging in.”
Good God. She’d seen Neville in the gaming room last night, meaning Asquith had been to the Lyon’s Den. What if she’d run into him there?
“Then,” she continued, “together, they went in search of Harbury. Rather clever of Asquith to involve Harbury’s pompously dull cousin, don’t you think? I never have understood Lenora’s infatuation with Asquith, but, tonight, he showed pluck I’d never suspected.”
“Do you mean to say Asquith challenged Harbury?”
“Not publicly. My understanding is that he merely threatened the duke. Harbury would never have agreed to meet at dawn with the shame of having his own cousin playing Asquith’s second hanging over his head.”
Eliza shivered, forgetting that she, too, had intended to challenge Harbury.
She’d narrowly missed discovery three times this evening. Not only had her godmother summoned her presence, but Asquith had also been to the Lyon’s Den.
And what if Harbury had taken up Asquith’s challenge?
No doubt he’d have chosen Redver for a second. Harbury might have sought Redver at the Lyon’s Den and caught them together in bed.
Eliza bit her bottom lip.
Right now, Asquith could have been charging his way to Putney Heath for insult to both Wainwright twins.
Curse her temper! How foolish she’d been.
“By the way,” Millie continued, “you owe the pin money jar.”
“What for?”
“Dipped in on your behalf. Had to pay off the stable hand whose cloak you stole. Nettie and I just happened to be in the kitchen when he stomped in from the stables about to raise a stop-thief alarm. Put out, he was, even after I explained his coat had merely been borrowed. Howled on and on about girl-smell until I exchanged the shilling I’d just given him for a crown. ”
“Why were you and Nettie in the kitchen?”
Mille snorted. “Stealing the last of cook’s apple tarts, of course.”
Her youngest sister Annette had a penchant for sweets—especially in times of conflict and uncertainty. The last two years had been nothing but uncertainty.
Conflict had been added tonight.
“So, what happened between Harbury, Neville, and Asquith?”
“Don’t know. Godmama called you and Cassie down to tell you what amends had been arranged between Asquith and the duke, but—”
“But Cassie pretended to be me.”
“Luckily, she believed Cassie. Never needs salts herself, but Mama used them whenever—”
“I know,” Eliza interrupted. “I remember.” Her mother frequently required salts when her husband was in residence.
“Godmama accepted without question that Cassie shares the same constitution, and she refused to reveal the plan without both of you present. Asquith protested. He wanted the thing tidied up before heading back to the Albany.”
“If Godmama wouldn’t tell Cassie what happened, how do you know so much?”
“Waylaid Asquith on his way out, naturally. Told me everything but what had been agreed. That, he said, Cassie deserved to hear from Godmama.”
They reached the servants’ entrance into the room Eliza shared with Cassandra.
“Thank you, Millie.” Eliza embraced her sister tightly.
Millie turned her head into Eliza’s hair. “You smell funny! Like”—she sniffed—“man.”
“The groom’s cloak, remember?” she replied hastily. The lies were just tripping off her tongue, now! “How are Lenora and Annette?”
“Remarkably well, considering. Lenora couldn’t care less about Almack’s.”
Eliza exhaled. “She’s only ever had eyes for Asquith.”
Millie nodded. “She says if she cannot turn his head, she means to become a spinster. Nettie was distressed, but mostly on Cassie’s behalf. Eventually, she fell asleep in belly-full-of-pastry bliss.”
“Again, thank you.”
“You had better be thankful. I imagine, as you neither look very happy, nor have you mentioned success, that your grand plan to solve our problems went awry?”
“I don’t appreciate your tone, Miss Millie. Mrs. Dove-Lyon is going to arrange an introduction to a man she thinks would suit me.”
“A man who’d suit you? Unlikely.”
“Oh, stop. At least we now have a second plan to fall back on. I’m not putting our future solely in Asquith’s hands. Now, I must get some rest. Godmama is bound to want to see me earlier than that old mongrel rooster got to crowing back ho—” She decided against the word. “Back at Willowhurst.”
Millie squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “’Night.”
“Good night,” Eliza rejoined.
Millie disappeared up the stairs to the nursery. Poor Millicent. Nineteen and still relegated to the nursery with her two younger sisters. Something had to be done.
Correction—something would be done.