The Wicked Heir (Spare Heirs #3)(136)

That is, until he noticed her occasionally sweeping her gaze over the guests, clearly searching for someone. The gentleman who had rescued her, perhaps? Or was it that someone at the party posed a threat to her as Portia suspected?

It was possible, though without noticing anything revealing, or even curious, in Lily’s interactions with the gentlemen present, there was nothing that made one of them stand out over the others.

Dell decided to come at the issue from another direction.

Through a narrow crack in the drawn curtains of the carriage, he finally observed the Chadwick sisters departing Beresford House with the Dowager Countess of Chelmsworth. Just the sight of the youngest Chadwick woman tightened his muscles with tension.

It had been a bold and foolish move on her part to force their interaction earlier. It irked him how easily she saw through his false personas.

One thing was certain: if she expected him to be able to do his job, she had to keep her distance.

If he expected to be able to do his job, he would need to get his reactions to the chit under control.

Damn her inexplicable allure. If she hadn’t looked so bloody enticing in her ice-blue gown with green trimming, he would never have been caught staring at her, which had drawn her attention in the first place. He hadn’t made such an amateur move since he had created Nightshade and all his guises.

Though he enjoyed placing blame squarely on Portia Chadwick’s lovely bare shoulders, he knew it was his own lack of self-possession that allowed the slip. He needed to get himself together. Sexual attraction—even that as compelling as he was experiencing for the dark-haired young woman—had no place in an investigation. No place in his life, to tell the truth.

Such things only complicated matters.

A much more casual approach in his sexual relations with the female gender had served him well for quite a while. There was no way he was going to indulge in the unexpected fire of need this particular woman caused. The sooner he convinced his body of that, the better.

He watched as the Chadwicks piled into their carriage and drove off. Glancing back to the house, he noticed he had not been the only one waiting for their departure.

As Lady Chelmsworth’s carriage rolled away, another figure stepped through the Beresfords’ front door: the same elegant gentleman who had visited Pendragon in the early morning hours after the auction, cutting French’s interview with the madam short.

An interesting coincidence.

Dell had intended to follow the Chadwicks’ carriage to ensure the ladies made it home without undue incident. But as the mysterious lord approached his own vehicle, Dell decided he might be just as well served to follow him.

He was not disappointed.

They did not go far before the gentleman’s carriage turned onto the narrow lane that ran behind the town house that was currently the residence of the dowager countess and her three great-nieces. Dell knocked on the roof of his own vehicle, signaling Morley to stop more than a block away.

He would need a closer look.

Instructing Morley to wait, he drew his greatcoat closer about his frame and tucked his chin in the shadows of the large collar. The street was relatively quiet at this time of night, but the standing gas lamps had been lit, casting everything in a steady glow.

Dell strolled down the street in the opposite direction from where the gentleman’s carriage had turned into the lane. Keeping to a sedate yet intentional pace, he continued around the corner and entered the mews from the opposite end. He clung to the shadows, creeping on silent feet as he made his way along the back wall of the Chelmsworth garden. The lord’s carriage was up ahead, partially concealed beneath the fall of a large willow. Finding an agreeable spot behind some thick shrubbery, Dell leaned into the deep shadows and positioned himself for a long wait.

More than an hour passed before he heard someone coming from the garden inside the privacy wall.

A few moments later, a gate near the middle of the wall swung open, and a solitary figure stepped out. The figure was small in stature and was draped in the folds of a dark cloak with its hood pulled up. Only a narrow flounce of white skirts could be seen beneath the hem.

The garden gate closed quietly behind her, yet the woman did not continue forward. She stood against the wall, staring down the lane toward the partially concealed carriage. When she still did not move after several minutes, the carriage door opened, and the dark-haired gentleman stepped out.

Dell studied the hooded female carefully. He had been hired to determine whether or not Lily Chadwick was in danger. Clearly, she had ventured outside her great-aunt’s home intentionally, but there could have been some means of coercion causing her to do so.

He noted how the woman turned to face the gentleman directly. There was no reluctance in her movements. In fact, the man’s appearance outside the carriage seemed to bolster the woman’s courage as she started toward him with swift and light strides.

She stopped again before actually reaching the gentleman’s side, but when he lifted his hand to her, she continued forward without further hesitation and placed her hand in his. As she did so, the movement of her arm swept her cloak aside just enough for Dell to note that her gown matched that worn by Lily Chadwick earlier in the evening. As she stepped up into the carriage, the woman briefly glanced back down the alley toward Dell’s position in the shadows, and he managed to catch a glimpse of her face.

It was, indeed, Lily Chadwick.

A few moments later, Dell lowered his chin to better conceal his face as the carriage rolled past him. Dell pushed off from the wall, intending to go back to his own carriage so he could follow the couple to their next destination.