Prologue #2
élise lifted her hood, shadowing her features.
“My face has been seen before. Not often, perhaps, but enough, and unfortunately by the wrong people.” The Duke of Lionston for one…
She glanced toward the stair and the shadowed storeroom beyond.
“You keep materials here, do you not? Ink, powders, and hairpieces. I have seen the way you alter bindings. I can use some of that to make some changes to my appearance.”
He nodded with reluctant understanding. “If they are watching Whitley, they will watch the women near him.”
“I am counting on it,” élise replied.
Because if Basil was the bait meant to lure her. The trap would be set around his life—his club, his house, his invitations, and his acquaintances. If she wished to find the person behind it all then she had to step close enough to feel its cord before it tightened.
She moved toward the partition, and Dorrington followed, muttering under his breath about madness and women with too much courage.
The storeroom behind was narrow and smelled of leather, glue, and lavender.
Under a cloth, he kept a small collection of theatrical tools—because books were not the only things that required altering in London.
He produced a small tin of powder, a darker hairpiece, spectacles with plain rims, and a pot of something waxy.
élise studied them without fear. She had been trained in disguise, though her hands had always been steadier when she did it for work rather than…for him.
“Here,” Dorrington said and handed her a box of items.
élise sat at the small mirror propped against a stack of ledgers. Her reflection stared back at her. She was pale from travel, with eyes that were too bright, and hair damp with mist. At the moment, she was too much like herself. But that would quickly change.
She worked with brisk efficiency. élise pinned her hair in a different arrangement until it was pinned tightly against her scalp, then she picked up an artfully arranged golden blonde wig and secured it over her head.
She dusted powder along her cheekbones to soften their sharpness, lightened the line of her brows, and added just enough wax near her mouth to subtly change the set of her lips.
The spectacles were last and once she put them on it all shifted into place.
She appeared different enough she did not even recognize herself.
Mrs. Ellis looked back at her now. Mrs. Ellis, who had no past in England worth tracing and who could watched without being noticed. élise stood and turned her head slowly, evaluating the effect.
Dorrington stared at her as if he did not like the success of it. “You need to be careful,” he said.
élise curved her mouth upward, but it did not reach her eyes. “Haven’t I always been careful?”
“Yes,” he said. “But the last time you were here you left with a broken heart,” he said in a blunt tone.
She could not deny the truth in that. She had left with her heart in tatters.
It had been necessary or so she had believed.
At the time she thought it was her patriotic duty to help ruin the Duke of Lionston.
She had been such a fool. She had lost the one man she had ever loved for nothing.
élise’s fingers tightened around her gloves.
“Yes.” She would not be that foolish woman again.
Basil needed her and she would protect him.
Dorrington stepped closer. “If Whitley recognizes you…”
“He will not,” élise said, though she did not know if she lied to him or to herself.
There was a good chance he would recognize her.
Because Basil knew her voice. He knew her manner.
He knew the shape of her in ways no other man did.
That was why she could not simply hide behind powder and spectacles.
She would have to change more than her appearance.
She needed a different cadence, different expressions, and she needed to make different choices.
In short, she needed to be a different woman...
She drew her hood up again and tucked the folded message into her inner pocket. The paper pressed close to her skin like a warning. “Where is he?” she asked.
Dorrington hesitated. “He is likely at his club. You should reconsider…”
“Enough,” élise said in a firm tone. She did not need another lecture.
“I will start at his club, and if he is there…I will sneak into his home and look through his study. I must discover what I can while he is out.” The longer she waited to actually be in his company, the better.
She feared the moment he laid eyes upon her he would see the truth.
Dorrington’s face was grim. “I wish you luck. You will need it. It isn’t only him that you need to fool. They want you more than him.”
élise met his gaze. “Better me than him.” If she had to make a choice she would gladly give her life to save his.
The rain had not lessened when she stepped back into the lane.
Fog curled around the streetlamps, turning them into floating orbs.
Her hem became damp again and her fingers went cold inside her gloves.
But her resolve was hotter than any fire.
Once, she had vanished because she believed leaving Basil was the only way to keep him safe.
Because she had told herself he would heal quicker without the truth tearing through his life.
She had been wrong. Now she would not vanish.
Not from fear or from guilt. She would especially not turn away from love.
It was that emotion now that gave her the strength she needed for what would happen next.
If Basil stood in the path of ruin, then she would stand between him and the blade, whether he wanted her there or not. If the man who wrote that message believed he could use him to capture her…
élise drew in a deep, fortifying breath. They were about to learn what happened when a woman who had nothing left to lose decided to fight. She stepped into the fog and began to walk toward the heart of London. Toward the man she had betrayed once, and the man she would risk everything to save.