Chapter 2 #3
The complete selfishness of his logic was so shocking that Euphemia could only stare at him. “You are a deeply selfish man,” she whispered, feeling insulted but knowing he was completely right. If she walked out now, they would both be caught in the same disaster.
She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath.
The hot anger in her chest began to fade, replaced by a cold, hard dose of reality.
He was right. If even a single maid saw her stepping out of the Duke’s private hallway at this hour, the gossip would spread like wildfire.
The ton would instantly brand her a ruined woman, and she simply could not survive another scandal.
Her family could not take another public humiliation after what happened with Lord Finch.
She needed to get back to the West Wing, and she needed to do it immediately, before Emily woke up and sent someone to look for her for breakfast.
Euphemia swallowed her pride and looked up at him, her voice much softer now. “Very well. Instead of standing here throwing insults at me, what do you suggest we do? We need a proper plan.”
He let go of her arm, though he stayed close. “A plan requires cooperation, Miss Vane. Can you manage that without quoting any more dead authors?”
“If you can manage to stop acting like a tyrant, yes,” she shot back.
“Here is what we will do. You will step out into the hallway first. Walk down to the corner, check the grand staircase, and make sure the coast is entirely clear. If there are no maids and no guests, you give me a signal, and I will run straight back to the West Wing. No one will ever know I was here.”
Nathaniel looked at her, his eyes calculating. “What if my valet comes up the back stairs while I am checking the front?”
“Then tell him you dropped something! Make up an excuse,” she whispered impatiently. “Do you always overthink simple logistics?”
“Only when a strange woman invades my bedroom,” he remarked dryly. He smoothed down his shirt and took a step toward the door handle. “Stay here. Do not move. Do not breathe loudly. If the coast is clear, I will return, if I see someone coming this way, I will... also return.”
“Great plan,” she said.
He gave her one last strict look, turned the brass handle quietly, and stepped out into the long, carpeted corridor.
Euphemia waited behind the cracked door, her heart hammering against her ribs. She held her slippers tightly against her chest, her bare toes curling against the floorboards. She watched through the small gap as he walked a few paces down the hall, looking left and then right toward the staircase.
Suddenly, she heard the rapid, muffled thud of his boots on the carpet as he marched straight back to the room.
Euphemia peeked through the opening as he arrived.
“It is clear,” he murmured, his voice low and clipped. “Go now. Move quickly straight down the corridor, and do not look back.”
“Thank goodness,” she breathed.
Desperate to escape, she practically threw herself out of the room, stepping so close to him that her shoulder brushed the crisp linen of his shirt.
But she didn’t even make it two steps past his shoulder.
Right as she drew level with him, a door halfway down the very same corridor clicked and swung wide open. It wasn’t the staircase they had been watching, it was a guest chamber they hadn’t accounted for.
Out stepped Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper — two of the most formidable, sharp-tongued matrons of the ton — flanked by two housemaids carrying fresh towels.
The entire group stopped dead in their tracks.
Euphemia gasped, her blood turning to pure ice.
Lady Jersey’s gaze dropped instantly to Euphemia’s bare toes, traveled up her wrinkled dress, to her blonde, tangled hair, and then snapped directly to the man, who was standing a mere inch away from her.
He was only half-dressed... no cravat, no coat, just a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
The silence in the hallway was loud enough to shatter glass.
Euphemia slowly turned her head toward him, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and furious disbelief. “Did you not check the hallway?” she hissed under her breath.
“I checked the staircase,” he muttered back through teeth that didn’t move. “I did not anticipate guests occupying the storage suites.”
“And you asked if I was intoxicated?” she whispered frantically, her voice trembling. “Clearly, you are the one who is drunk! You cannot even clear a straight line.”
The two grand matrons didn’t say a word. They didn’t need to. Lady Cowper merely raised a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow, while Lady Jersey’s lips curved into a slow, terrifying smile. The maids were already whispering.
Euphemia felt the walls of the corridor closing in on her.
The slippers in her hands felt heavier than lead, and her chest heaved as she stared at the witnesses to her doom.
There was no explanation for this. There was no excuse in the world that could erase a ruined woman standing barefoot outside a man’s bedroom at dawn.
The world around her began to crumble, the last shreds of her family’s reputation dissolving right before her eyes. There was absolutely no coming back from this.
“Oh no,” she whispered to the empty air.