Chapter 20
Twenty
Harry finally had the direction of Oscar’s rooms in London. Parker, of all people, had discovered the neighborhood where the steward resided when in the city.
The address of the rooms had been listed in the Skelton ledger this entire time, right under his nose. Lord Skelton rented them in a respectable lodging house for his brief stays in London. He must have lent them to Oscar when he wasn’t in residence.
Harry walked to the rooms in Chester Square. The days of spending time in Agnes’s company might be over, but he still needed to help her. He had made her, and the late Lord Skelton, a promise. That hadn’t changed just because she no longer wanted to be friends, or kiss.
The door to the ground floor was ajar, and Harry entered to find the landlady half asleep.
When he announced he was looking for Oscar, she informed him that the man in question had left two weeks ago and hadn’t returned.
Harry let out an exasperated sigh. All morning he had thought he was on the verge of a breakthrough.
“Caused trouble, that one. He left, running away before the trouble caught up to him. Said his rooms had been broken into, but I told him that was impossible. We run a safe building here. It was probably the men he has coming and going at all hours of the day and night. You know the type. Men with . . . peculiar interests.”
That description was not befitting of the old steward that Harry had become acquainted with in his years of service to the Skelton estate. What kind of troublesome, peculiar interest did Oscar have? He had always seemed like the reserved type, not unlike the late baron or Agnes.
“Do you know where he is now?” Harry asked.
“Aye, yes. Give me a minute.” The landlady retreated behind a door. He could hear her fumbling through drawers and shifting papers before she returned, holding a slip of parchment. She moved the parchment closer and farther from her face. “Somewhere in Skelton? That’s in Yorkshire, isn’t it?”
Oscar must have returned to the steward’s cabin at Skelton Manor after his rooms were broken into, a week after Harry had written to the staff inquiring if he was in residence there. He had just missed him. The robbery must have made Oscar feel unsafe. Or he was hiding something.
“Thank you, ma’am. If he returns, would you please pass along my card?”
“Sure, sure. Hand it over.” Harry left her his calling card and headed back to Piccadilly. With his head down to check his pocket watch, Harry bumped into a tall, raven-haired woman in the doorway of his office. Nora let out a squeak.
“Goodness, Mr. Evans! What a surprise. I mean, it’s never a surprise to find one at his office, but it’s definitely a surprise to have collided into your chest.” She gave him a friendly pat and pushed herself away. “I beg your pardon.”
Even when she wasn’t trying to sell chocolates, Nora’s sunny disposition put Harry at ease.
For a moment he forgot the frustration of his unsuccessful search for Oscar.
“Mrs. Martin, please, if you’re here to see me, let’s go in my office.
Parker will bring us sandwiches. I apologize for nearly bowling you over. ”
“Nonsense. It was my fault.” She smiled graciously as he led her into his office, but then her expression changed. Harry studied her features. She didn’t actually look angry, but she was attempting her best performance. “I am cross with you.”
“Oh . . . I’m sorry?” Harry wondered what he had done to offend the woman. She hadn’t seemed upset over their collision.
“It’s Agnes. What have you done to her?”
“Agnes?” Fear coursed through his body. “Is she in trouble?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Physically, she is unharmed, although I have not laid eyes on her myself to see.
” She paused and conducted a thorough inspection of Harry.
“But Ward has assured me she is well. What I mean is that she won’t come out of her house.
Kitty told me she spends all day in her room and hasn’t even gone up to her apothecary in over a week. What did you do?”
Harry was stunned. Should he tell Mrs. Martin about the kiss? Was he responsible for Agnes’s melancholy? He had wanted to do a whole lot more than kiss her. Instead, he had controlled himself, trying be respectful of her wishes.
But he hadn’t done anything to hurt her. Hadn’t done anything more than what she asked him to. She was the one who had rejected him.
“I am afraid I do not know why she is upset. The last time I left her, it was on . . . agreeable terms,” he said with a blush accompanying his confession.
Even though the sting of her refusing to see him was still sharp, the kiss had been one of his most pleasurable moments. She obviously had not thought the same.
Mrs. Martin read the truth his face told, even if his words were vague. “So you did seduce her! I told Louisa!”
“Who is Louisa?” This conversation had taken confusing, guilt-ridden turns, and Harry was having difficulty keeping up. The knock on the door shocked him further.
“Hi. I’m Louisa,” murmured a woman still half hidden by the door frame. “I’m also friends with Agnes.”
“By all means, come and sit too, since you happen to already be part of this conversation. Is there something you would like to accuse me of as well?” Irritation was starting to creep into Harry’s tone.
Reliving his heartbreak under the harassment of two of Agnes’s friends like he was some rake who took liberties was not how he wanted to spend his morning.
“Calm down now, Mr. Evans.” Mrs. Martin turned and whispered something into Louisa’s ear, causing the woman to roll her eyes.
“I didn’t seduce her,” Harry said, trying to do as he was told and calm himself. They were Agnes’s friends, after all.
“Oh . . .” Mrs. Martin studied his features and turned to Louisa. “Maybe she’s upset that he didn’t seduce her.”
In response, Louisa performed her own perusal of his face and tilted her head in curiosity. In all the years of his life, he had never been stared down by as many women as he had in the past week.
“Could be . . .” Louisa speculated.
“So is there anything you need to tell us, Mr. Evans?” Nora raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips as she waited.
Harry couldn’t tell them about the kiss. That was still sacred between him and Agnes, even if nothing more would come of it. Instead, he recounted their last meeting with Skelton to her two friends. Mrs. Martin shot up out of her seat like a banshee at the mention of the marriage proposition.
Louisa gently tugged her back down as Harry continued, “We might have expressed a mutual interest in each other. I went back to talk to her two days later, but she wouldn’t allow my visit.
I thought she had changed her mind and was too embarrassed to tell me.
” He tried to maintain a straight face, but his voice trembled.
“Oh, you poor thing. Here, have some chocolates.” Mrs. Martin extended an open box that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.