Chapter Eighteen
Genevieve snuck back to her chamber, wrapped herself around Horatio, and sniffled into his fur.
“I’m sorry I left you behind, my friend,” she told him.
“I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going because I finally got up the courage to knock on the door of my old house and ask if a man named Christopher had sent a message to a woman named Genevieve. ”
Horatio licked a tear from her cheek.
“Of course, I had to write a note. You know, the one I worked on earlier today when you wanted to play? Once I got there, I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. Actually, my entire body was quivering. But the butler who answered the door was quite kind.”
She lowered her voice in an attempt to imitate the butler. “‘Good evening, sir. The Arnolds are not home.’” Heavens, that was a poor impression, not that Horatio would care, so she continued her pathetic male monotone. “‘They are attending a production at Drury Lane this evening.’”
This news did not deter Genevieve from her inquiry, because servants were quite knowledgeable about comings, goings, and gossip.
After she handed the butler the note, it took her a few gestures, and finally a raspy, whispered, “Please read it,” to communicate that she wanted him to answer her question immediately.
“I was so apprehensive that I was afraid I’d pass out on the front stoop,” she told Horatio. “But when push came to shove, I spoke, asking him to read it, and for that, I am exceedingly proud. I think pugilism is making me more courageous.”
Horatio nuzzled her cheek as if he was proud of her, too.
“Ah, thank you, boy. Anyway, it took the butler forever to read and process one simple question. Then, he said, ‘No, sir. A young man named Christopher has not been here. But Lord Kilsby has called a few times, demanding information and insisting I tell him the truth. I have explained that Doctor Arnold and his wife did not know the previous family.’”
Horatio was such an attentive listener that she babbled on.
“After he handed the note back to me, he said, ‘Sir, if you need Doctor Arnold’s assistance, please see him at his office. He is a good man, and I am certain he will help you, or this Genevieve, if you find yourselves in difficulty.’ The way he exaggerated sir, you, and Genevieve, he must have realized that I wasn’t a boy.
I suspect he knows that I am the woman Kilsby is searching for. ”
“Ruff,” Horatio, woofed in what she believed was disbelief.
“I know.” Genevieve ran her index finger down the pup’s nose.
“I suppose I should be terrified, but he told me he doesn’t plan to tell Lord Kilsby that someone was there asking about the Bailey family, and I believe him.
I get the feeling he dislikes Kilsby immensely and, in his way, he is trying to protect me even though he has no proof of who I actually am or what he is protecting me from. ”
Besides, she could both pommel and outrun Kilsby and no longer feared him. Her father, the man who shared her flesh and blood, was the individual still plaguing her nightmares.
Horatio exhaled a sigh of contentment and closed his eyes. She should stop nattering and let the poor pup sleep. He’d probably frantically paced the entire time she was gone. She focused her thoughts inward as she stroked his forehead.
Fretting about Christopher and Sophia was not the only reason for her current despondency. She was also nursing her aching heart. Telling Jonathan that she favored him was a spoony, misguided notion.
Deep down inside, she’d wanted him to come after her, take her in his arms, and tell her that he did not care about her past, or how odd she was, because he adored her.
Woefully, he hadn’t. In fact, he’d been exceedingly quiet throughout dinner.
Later, in the drawing room, he’d appeared lost in his thoughts.
Yet, according to the staff, the jovial viscount was rarely upset.
“Now that I think about it, Lord Davenport has seemed different these past few weeks,” Diana had told her yesterday.
“Seems like something is on his mind,” Mrs. Love had said with a shrug and a sigh.
“Heavens,” Genevieve whispered so as not to disturb Horatio.
She must be causing the viscount stress with all her eyelash fluttering and fawning over him.
And then, she’d divulged too much information.
She never should have told him that her mother had died.
And she most definitely shouldn’t have confessed that she favored him.
This is why she couldn’t talk, because when she did, she said stupid things.
Soon she’d be telling the viscount she wanted to rub her naked body against his.
And then—egad!—she would accidentally let it slip that her father had murdered her mother.
She needed to be more cautious because now that she’d found someone with whom she was desperate to communicate, she was even writing dunderheaded rubbish.
Silence!
At all costs.
No writing long-winded sentimental notes either. And if she couldn’t keep her thoughts and feelings to herself, she had to leave Greenpark House and go elsewhere.
But you have nowhere to go.
True. If she were living on the streets again, she couldn’t earn the money to send for her siblings. And she loved The Silk Knuckles Saloon, boxing, and Lady Davenport.
And Jonathan.
Damn it.
She needed to face the truth—she was falling head over heels for a self-proclaimed rake who did not do commitments.
On top of that, he didn’t think she was of his class, and for the time being, she could not let him know that she actually was.
Although the peculiar daughter of a despicable second son of an earl was hardly the charismatic viscount’s equal. She sighed against Horatio’s cheek.
And then there was her sweet, loyal pup.
Giving Horatio a taste of an aristocratic life and then forcing him back onto the streets, where he had to eat uncooked rats, sleep on cold, hard pavement instead of soft cushions in rays of warm sunshine, and share discarded, rotting food with her, was abusive and cruel.
She couldn’t leave, but she shouldn’t stay.
Perhaps, after a night’s rest and taking out her frustration on a sandbag, she would know what to do. Until such a time, she would have to avoid being alone with Jonathan.
Closing her eyes, she tossed and turned until her brain quieted, her body became weightless, and she finally, at long last, floated off to dreamland.