Chapter 13
“He went out of town the night of your wedding,” Drake shrugged. “I do not know why, and no, I have not seen him from then.”
“Probably went to his estate,” Dorian said, his eyes flickering to the door. With every passing minute Harcourt did not appear, his hope dimmed. Still, he and Drake talked about their businesses.
By the time the clock chimed eleven, with Harcourt still not in sight, Dorian gave up on waiting.
Rubbing his forehead, he sagged into his seat and fiddled with the serviette. “The one time I have decided to seek him out, he is nowhere to be found.”
“I don’t think it for naught,” Drake shrugged. “Leave a message with the floorman in case he comes in tomorrow or next week. He’ll get it.”
Dorian barely held back a liberal eye roll. “If he has not responded to the two dozen letters I’ve sent to his home, I doubt he will respond to this one.”
“Oh, so this was an ambush,” Drake laughed while picking up his drink. “You might want to take some notes from the Romans about how ambushes go, Beaumont. You set a trap in the front and also cut off their way of retreat.”
Balling up his cloth napkin, Dorian tossed it at his friend as he stood. “I’ll be taking a quick drop in at The Labyrinth before I return to my wife. Do you care to join?”
“Certainly,” Drake shrugged.
While Drake vanished into the card room, Dorian made for his office to get a copy of that night’s records. It was standard procedure for Weston to make two copies on the nights he was away, so he did not think it would take him too long to compile the separate folios.
However, when he reached his office, a wide white box was on his desk, looking oddly like the packaging the modiste’s clothing for Evelina had arrived in.
Lifting the card resting on the box, he read, “For my dear friend Ellie, to wear on your wedding night. Love, Victoria Rothwell.”
For a moment, he was tempted to chuck into the fireplace anything connected to the Rothwells—it was either a trick or a lure to be tricked—but he paused. This was Evelina’s friend.
Maybe I should put my grievances with Benedict aside and give her the benefit of the doubt…
“Right,” he called out. “When did this arrive?”
Stepping into the room, Weston fixed his spectacles. “This afternoon, Your Grace. It was hand-delivered by Lady Victoria herself. Her reasoning is that she tried to give it to your wife’s relatives first, but as they did not have an address for you, she brought it here.”
Lifting the cover to see the white satin bed inside, Dorian murmured, “A lady of the ton walking into a gaming hell on her own takes courage…” he dropped the cover. “Maybe I should trust Evelina with her judgment of the girl…”
“The copies of the ledgers, sir.” Weston rested the book near the box. “Is there anything you need otherwise?”
“No,” Dorian said. Tucking the book under his arm, he hefted the box in both arms and headed down to the carriage. “As usual, please alert me if any of my compatriots arrive. Except for Lord Portsmouth, he may stay unbothered.”
Then, he stepped into the moonless light and headed to the waiting carriage.
Bored out of her mind and in search of distraction, Evelina found herself in the library after nine in the night, lighting a lamp and drifting down the rows.
In under ten minutes, Ellie had an opinion of Dorian’s literary tastes.
“He is not one for the superfluous…” she murmured as her eyes landed on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. “Is he?”
The room was colorless and void of life, the carpet bland and grey.
There was no artwork on the walls and certainly no cozy seating to lie down and read.
The fireplace was shuttered, and the mantle dusty, but his collection of books occupying shelves spanning from the floor to the high ceiling could give her a lifetime of exploring the literary hedgerows.
“I assume he is not a leisure reader as I am…” She came to a desk where a few law books were scattered on the surface. “…But only takes what he needs for the moment.”
There were parts of the wall that, from the brighter hue of the wallpaper, hinted that portraits once rested there, yet for some reason had been removed.
I’ll ask him about those. If he decides to return tonight.
“Your Grace,” Agnes knocked at the doorway. “I am about to retire. Is there anything you would need from me before I do so?”
“Yes, two things,” Ellie nodded, even while her eyes remained fixed on the wall. “Were there portraits once hanging here, and can you send up a tea tray with those delightful tarts Cook had made?”
Stepping closer, Agnes answered, “Yes, Your Grace, you have a keen eye. There were portraits hanging here long ago, one for His Grace’s uncle, I believe, who at one point was a trustee of the Wolfthorne Dukedom.”
The uncle Dorian wants to find…
“I see,” she murmured. “You may send up the tea tray and the buns, thank you. If you do happen to see His Grace, please tell him where I will be. Or you can ask the footmen to inform him.”
Bobbing her head, Agnes gave her word and then left the room. In her maid’s absence, she checked the shelves again and found a copy of Orpheus and Eurydice. Pulling it from the shelf, she gasped when the cover nearly fell off. The book was worn to the bone.
Who had read this book so much it was falling apart? Certainly not Dorian— he did not believe in love. Carefully, she took the book to the lone chair and rested the lamp on the small end-table.
She opened the cover and saw finger marks pressed into the pages. Someone truly adored this specific novel.
Agnes soon returned with a tray in hand; the steaming teapot was behind platters of blackberry tarts, but there were small cakes iced with marzipan, jellied fruits, and fresh cream.
“Thank you,” Ellie replied as the tray was set on the table as well. “Have a good night.”
“You too, Your Grace,” Agnes curtsied.
Left alone, she made her cup, tucked her toes into the massive armchair, sipped, and read. On the third page, her mind drifted to the very day she’d met Ash at ten years old.
Peeking her head out of one of the few backdoors of her aunt and uncle’s substantial home in St. John’s Wood, young Evelina Frampton took her chance, lifted her skirts, and dashed across the lawn and into the woods.
It was her only chance to escape her horrid dance master, his scalding glare, and his nasal repetition of, ‘one, two, two, one, left foot, right foot, right foot, left.’
“If I only get an hour or two to myself,” she huffed.
Dashing in further, ducking into the forest, ignoring the rough twigs, roots, and rocks under her thin kid soles, she approached the tall oak she had climbed many times.
Hiking up her prim muslin day dress, she hoisted herself up to a limb and clambered up, the rough tree bark scratched her palms as she climbed far enough that she could see the rooftops of the nearby houses.
Nestling back into a nook, she perched on a limb with her skirts pinned beneath her, her bared legs swinging idly.
“All these lessons, eating, dancing, walking, riding side-saddle, elocution lesson, French lessons, Spanish lessons, violin lessons, pianoforte lessons….” She gazed into the distance. “How difficult is it to eat properly?”
“I have to sit right, eat in tiny portions, enunciate my syllables, roll my r’s in French, practice my minuet and waltz from the moment I wake to the minute I go to bed.” She blew an errant auburn curl from her eyes. “Why can I not be ten years old and simply play?”
A stiff wind whistled through the trees, and she let her head rest on the rough bark and winced as the pins bit into her scalp. Plucking them out, she idly tugged at her tresses and carded her fingers through them—when the crunch of twigs under the tree startled her.
Glancing down, she did not see anything or anyone—especially Signor Agostini and his scowl.
It was probably a critter.
Sitting back, her lips formed a moue. “Harriet and all the other young girls are playing with dolls and reading fairy tales. Why cannot I do the sa—”
A snap of twigs that seemed directly under her had her startling as her head snapped to the left, hard enough that she unseated herself and her words ended in a shriek as she lost her balance, tumbling, her arms flailing.
In split seconds, she braced herself to crack her head on the hard ground when the contact… did not come.
Instead, she found herself cradled in two arms. Heart pounding, she peeled an eye open and saw a young boy, with a shock of ash blond hair, peering down at her with honey-grey eyes.
Her lips parted in shock. “I-I—I...” she swallowed. “Thank you.”
He didn’t say a word and only let her slip from his arms to the ground. Promptly, Ellie sat on the ground as her legs had the consistency of rubber. Not caring much that her skirts and petticoat would be stained and dirtied, she wrapped her arms about her legs.
Gazing up at the tree above her, her vision split in two as the dizzying height of the branches she’d been on hovered over her.
Turning back to the mysterious boy, she realized he was tall and older, possibly four or five years her senior.
His partially untucked shirt flapped in the breeze, the lower fastenings on his faded breeches unbuckled under his knees.
He must have a soft foot, as if it were not for the twigs crunching, she would not have heard him.
His tousled hair caught shards of light and shimmered with a titanium sheen while he gazed at her with a curious look; it made her feel like he was looking at a strange creature, as if she had suddenly turned into a bird with two heads.
Squirming a little, she said, “I am Evelina Frampton. What’s your name?”
He didn’t speak, only stared.
“Do you live around here?” She tried again.
Again, not a word slipped from his lips.
Was he… was he mute?
“How old are you?” Ellie asked again, cocking her head. “Are you six-and-ten, or five-and-ten?”