Always a Maiden (The Belles of Beak Street #5)(29)

The hall was empty.

She swung the door open and swirled through, only to lose her grip and have the door bang into the wall behind it. Catching the edge on the recoil she shut it gently. She didn’t dare take the time to lock it again and only hoped that if one of the servants noticed they would think another one had unlocked it.

“Have a care,” called someone from the butler’s pantry behind the dining room. “Don’t wake the family.”

Susanah skittered across the entry hall to the edge of the open dining room door. She peeked through the crack. A maid was on her knees in front of the hearth removing yesterday’s ashes.

Wiping her damp palm on her skirt, Susanah measured the distance to the main stairs. It was only fifteen feet. The servants didn’t use the main stairs. They had their own enclosed stairwell.

The girl didn’t look up as Susanah rushed past the opening. Or at least Susanah hoped she hadn’t. She turned onto the stairs and ran up a few steps. The servants’ stair door opened. Her breath snagging, Susanah pressed against the wall of the curved landing. Through the balusters, she saw another maid. Her listing gait suggested that the coal bucket she carried was full.

When she was out of sight, Susanah inched up another few stairs. She grew light-headed and realized she was still holding her breath. This wouldn’t do. She stopped, held the railing, and gulped in air. Only then did she allow herself to think on Evan’s face as she’d told him that accompanying her to her house wasn’t necessary. His expression had been inscrutable. At that moment, she hadn’t registered that he was willing to lay claim to compromising her. She’d been far too worried about getting back to her bedchamber unnoticed to think about what it meant.

Evan’s offer to escort her inside meant he’d take his share of responsibility. In most cases that would mean marriage. A man who ruined an innocent girl was expected to marry her if he was at all acceptable. Evan’s birth was respectable, his family name as good as anyone’s accepted in society. He wasn’t the son-in-law her parents wanted. But surely he didn’t intend to marry her. Or only most reluctantly so. If he wanted to marry her, he could have suggested Gretna Green. Or at least asked her if she wanted to marry him.

Then again he might only want to marry her if he was assured of her dowry and inheritance. He couldn’t be certain of those gains if their marriage was clandestine. She sagged as she rounded the first-floor landing to the floor with her bedchamber.

She was nearly home and dry. Only a few more steps. On tiptoes she went up quietly, wincing as a floorboard near the stairhead creaked. No matter. She just had to make it into her room, and no one would ever know.

As she took a deep breath, she became aware of the wild sensations racing through her body. Her lips still tingled from Evan’s kisses. Her whole body felt alive, on fire. Oh heavens, his kisses. She’d marry him in a heartbeat if he’d take her away from her parents. But he wouldn’t. If he married her, he’d expect to live with them until such time the estates were hers. He was a younger son. His uncle’s generosity kept him afloat. He would want to live off her expectations if they married.

She dug out the long case clock key and inserted it in her bedroom door, but she couldn’t get it to turn. It always took a bit of wiggling. She shifted to use her other hand to hold the knob as she jiggled the key, but one of the bonnet string slipped. An orange fell out. It escaped, bouncing, then rolling toward the stairs, slowly stopping in front of a black skirt.

Susanah went cold as her gaze rose up to the housekeeper’s stern face. A maid she might have been able to bribe to silence, but Mrs. Green was a different story. Her knees knocked together as Mrs. Green bent and picked up the offending orange.



*

After ten days with no word, Evan wondered if he should hire a runner to confirm Susanah was alive and well. Since he’d announced he was leaving town, he wasn’t receiving invitations. He couldn’t check on her by attending the fashionable parties.

But scouring the newspapers had yielded no news of a murder in Mayfair. The crazy thing was he couldn’t ask after her directly—not without starting the very rumors they needed to avoid.

He half expected that she would find a way to get him a note, but how could she if she were still imprisoned in her room? So it was with reluctance he donned evening breeches and coat and headed for Almack’s on Wednesday night. After receiving his vouchers at the beginning of the season, he’d paid the exorbitant subscription, but he rarely attended the marriage mart.

For one thing, the place could be dreadfully dull. Beyond the self-important people who felt that they had to be seen, it was full of young ladies vying for husbands and men who were on the hunt for wives. Still, it was the place he was most likely to find Susanah. If she wasn’t jailed around the clock.

Even if they didn’t speak, he needed to see that she was all right. That she was being fed. He’d bought her a small box of candied almonds but had no way of getting it to her.

He stood near the wall scanning the dance floor for her dark blond hair, her lithe figure, but he didn’t spot her in the lines of dancers.

Lord Hull sidled up next to him. “Looking for your nun?”

“No,” answered Evan as congenially as he could. “I know where she is. Why are you here? Thinking of settling down?”

“One day,” answered Hull.