Chapter 16
“Simple curiosity,” Carrington said cavalierly. “Doesn’t a man have the right to know how he was bested by an old friend?”
Even two floors up, she heard the strains of the music and the chatter from the ballroom. “Do we have to say you were bested?” Ellie asked as she fiddled with a pin in her hair.
“Is stolen a better word?” Carrington asked.
“That’s it,” Dorian said, rising. “I am bored with this marionette show. Throw down the gauntlet already or slap me with it. If you want to meet me at dawn to assuage your honor, I can do that. Just tell me what it is, and we can arrange it.”
“Gentlemen, please,” Ellie implored them both, her eyes shooting between Carrington’s hard black ones and Dorian’s face. “Can’t we find another way to settle this, without bloodshed?”
“Carrington has always been fond of bloodshed,” Dorian muttered, reposing in his chair. “But I’d prefer if you leave, sweetheart, while he and I have a few choice words. A few heated words. Words not fit for a woman, much less a lady.”
Once again, she hesitated. “But I’d—”
“Evelina,” he emphasized, while still facing Carrington. “I love your forthrightness, dear, but let me handle this.” He gave her the hint of a smile. “Go and fix that hairpin of yours, sweetheart. You wouldn’t want to lose your mother’s heirloom, would you?”
She let out a long sigh. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”
This is my cue.
“I think it's best if I let you gentlemen talk this over and find some closure,” Ellie exhaled while rising to her feet. “Please, excuse me.”
She slipped out of the room. Alone in the maze of corridors, Ellie made her way down past the billiards room, and, at the other hallway, took a left to the end where Carrington’s study was located.
Before she reached there, she purposefully opened three more doors and even dropped her hairpin in one so her excuse—if she got caught—would work.
If anything, I can say I got turned around looking for the privy.
The brass handle of the door was just as Dorian had told her to look for, and she quietly pressed it open. Peeking behind her, she ignored the baroque grandeur of Carrington’s private sanctuary and headed directly to his desk.
She pulled the drawers out, but did not rummage through the contents. If Dorian was right—and she felt he was—Carrington would not hold such sensitive material out in the open.
No, rather, she looked for a false bottom in the drawer, and under the kneehole, then under the desk— but nothing.
Look for the unexpected.
“Dash it,” she huffed while brushing her skirts. “Where would he keep such a thing?”
Her eyes landed on the large gilt-framed portrait of Carrington, a hound by his feet. He was seated upon a massive, red, throne-like chair that was behind his desk. In the background was a smaller portrait of a cabin.
Carrington is a self-absorbed bounder. The only things he likes more than himself are things that directly associate with himself.
She lifted the edge of the portrait—only to find it was not nailed down. “This is certainly unexpected. I can bet the files are inside here somewhere…”
Footsteps, and Ellie dashed to the shelves of oddities—a dried skull with a mask, a jade elephant, and a faceless African sculpture.
The door opened behind her.
“What are you doing in here?”
She turned to see Carrington in the doorway, staring at her with cold eyes.
Her heart gave a panicked lurch as he shut the door behind him and trudged toward her. She kept her expression light.
“I got turned around coming back from the privy and after trying a few doors—forgive me, I might’ve had too much wine this evening to be this forgetful, I ended up here. Your… oddities are rather fascinating. How long have you been collecting?”
“Since I was three-and-twenty,” Carrington muttered. “I told the captain of my ships to bring back whatever he deemed as ornate, intriguing, and unique for a collection. My ships have been all over the world, from the jungles of India to the mystic temples of New Spain.”
“Have you been on those shores?” she asked.
“No,” Carrington replied. “I am sea-sick, you see. All I can do is admire the tokens others have sourced for me. You’d best go and join your husband, Your Grace. He must be—”
“Right behind you,” Dorian chimed with a beam.
“—Sick with worry that I might have stolen you away,” Carrington finished slowly.
“Well, I suppose we’ll rejoin the ball,” Ellie said, turning. “You still owe me two more waltzes.”
As she stepped into the corridor, Dorian frowned. “Evelina, where is your mother’s pin?”
Her hand flew to her hair, eyes widened in horror. “Oh, good god. It’s gone. I—” She spun around, “I was in two or three rooms, and I fear it might have fallen. I—”
“Fear not,” Carrington put in. “I’ll have my men search the rooms. It’s bound to come up somewhere. You should go and enjoy the night.”
Still, Ellie looked worried, but Dorian gently steered her away down the corridor. “Waltzes.”
“Yes, two,” she tried for a smile.
She bit her tongue until they were down the grand stairs and back into the ballroom. “Did you two work things out?”
“He still hates me, but he still needs me,” Dorian replied as he swung her onto the floor for their second waltz. “I am his worst enemy, so he must keep me closer than his friends.”
“Does he have friends?” Ellie asked as they twirled.
“Friends is a selective term when it comes to Carrington,” he said, “Assets is a better word. We are assets to him, and if he loses these assets, he has nothing.”
Ellie made to answer when she glanced over his shoulder, and her brows rose. “Is that not one of your friends you had invited to our wedding?”
“Ah. Salem,” Dorian said. “He prides himself on being fashionably late to every gathering.”
“Do you care to introduce me?” she asked. “Properly, this time?”
“Of course,” he replied. “But after that, I think we should leave. I am already fatigued by Carrington’s false kindness. Besides—” They turned, his astute eyes looking over her shoulder to what, or who, she imagined was standing there. Carrington. “—We got what we came here for.”
Evelina bit her lip again. In her innermost being, she heard him say these walls have ears and eyes. Nothing is sacred here. “Yes, we did. The peace between you and Carrington, as we wanted.”
“That is tenuous at best,” Dorian said as the music began to fade. “Now, shall we meet Wellington?”
As they left the dance floor, he led her to the man chatting to two other lords. Wellington was a beacon on the floor, his white jacket and bronze cravat inappropriate for proper dinner wear, but he did not seem to care.
“Wellington—”
The lord bowed and took her hand, kissed the back of it, and spun her in a circle. “Ooh!” Ellie gasped and then giggled.
“I am ever so pleased to meet you,” Nathan grinned wickedly. “What a sublime beauty you are. If Beaumont had not seen you first, I would have claimed you as mine. My oh my, are you sure you are not Titana, the faerie queen, cavorting with mortals for the eve?”
Leaning into her side and resting her hand right over her heart, Ellie smiled and drummed her fingers over her chest. “Your friend is a charmer.”
“Yes, he is—” Dorian’s hand dropped to her back. “—Which is why I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
Reaching into his pocket, Nathan took out two envelopes. “I was very tardy in sourcing these, but better late than never, I suppose. You are free to use them whenever you like. A late honeymoon, your first anniversary. The captain of The Magdalene is on standby for whenever you do go.”
“That’s kind of you,” Ellie replied.
“It’s not a trouble,” Wellington said. “Also, I do anticipate you two will be at my Grand Regatta.”
“Boating?” Ellie was quizzical.
“It’ll be a rowing race for watermen and a sailing match for gentlemen’s pleasure, sailing boats,” Dorian answered her. “It’s on the Thames, the last day of this coming month, and will finish with a grand gala at Vauxhall.”
“The pleasure gardens,” she replied. “How scandalous of you, my lord.”
“Scandal is my middle name,” Wellington grinned. “Or it would have been if my parents did not have such high hopes of me following in Julius Caesar’s footsteps and named me Gaius.”
“And yet, you turned into a scoundrel,” Dorian half-joked. “How funny things work out, eh?”
Snagging a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, Nathan added, “I have a boat the size of the Prince Regent’s summer home, I have a cellar full of wine, a steward that has everything in control so I can live a carefree life of sin and debauchery—” he gave them a wicked grin, “—what else can a man ask for?”
The hairs on the back of Ellie’s head stood up, and she forced back an icy shiver. Carrington was staring at them again.
“When you do consider yourself the second Beau Brommel, nothing else comes to mind,” Dorian snorted. “We were on our way out, Wellington. Enjoy the rest of the evening, and please, do not put yourself in a position to be jumping out of a twenty-foot window again.”
Ellie blinked, “Pardon?”
“It’s a long tale,” Dorian steered her to the stairs. “I’ll tell you on the way home.”
They headed to the door and donned their coats as the chilly night air swept through the foyer. The dark carriage trundled to the gate, and as a footman opened the gate, a hand landed on Ellie’s shoulder.
She almost jumped a foot in the air.
“My apologies,” Carrington said calmly. On his extended palm rested her hairpin. “We found this in the billiards room.”
Trying to brace her racing heart, Ellie accepted the pin. “Thank you. I’d hoped you’d find it.”
Carrington levelled a look to Dorian that sent shivers down her spine. “Safe journey, Your Graces.”
He stepped away, and Dorian helped her into the vehicle before he nodded curtly to Carrington and joined her inside. She slid the pin into her coiffure and whispered, “There is a safe under a portrait of himself with a hound. The portrait isn’t nailed down, and that is suspicious enough for me.”