A Dash of Scandal(95)

The driver jumped down and opened the door for her. She gave him her address and as she climbed inside said, “Don’t stop for Lord Dunraven. I must get away.”

As the coach pulled away she looked out the window. Chandler was running down the street after them, his shirt in one hand and a shoe in the other.





Twenty




“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,” and so it is with great relief London says farewell to the wily Mad Ton Thief. What a disagreeable ending to such a delightful piece of gossip. It would have been far better for the thief to have been Lord Pinkwater’s ghost than one of our own.

—Lord Truefitt, Society’s Daily Column

As soon as Millicent stepped down from the carriage, the front door of her aunt’s town house jerked open. Millicent took a deep breath and headed for the open doorway, where her aunt’s maid stood waiting for her. She’d refused to allow herself to think about Chandler on the way home. Instead she concentrated on how she would tell her aunt about the sad turn of events involving Lady Heathecoute.

“Where have you been, miss?” Emery said. “Her ladyship has sent Phillips out looking for you. You’ve had us all worried sick.”

Millicent lifted her shoulders and her chin, trying to act as if nothing was wrong as she neared the doorway. “I’m not so late, am I, Emery?”

“Much too late according to my lady,” the maid said with a disapproving glare on her face. “And what happened to you? I see now you’ve a cut on your forehead and there’s blood on your dress. Are you all right?”

“I’m quite all right. I’ll explain everything to Aunt Beatrice,” Millicent said, walking into the house past Emery. “But I could use a cup of tea, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I’ll be up with it right away.”

“Thank you.” Millicent went straight to the upper floor. Hamlet barked, and she stopped on the landing and leaned against the rail. There would be so many things about London that she would miss when she went back home.

“Is that you, Millicent?” Aunt Beatrice called from her bedchamber.

“Yes, Aunt, it’s me.”

“Good heavens! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Come in right away.”

Millicent paused outside the door and took a deep breath. The dream of being in Chandler’s arms was over. As she’d traveled the streets to her aunt’s house, dawn had arrived and now so had reality.

She walked into the bedchamber talking. “I’m sorry I’m so late, Aunt Beatrice, but you’ll understand once I explain everything.”

“Well I should hope so.” Her eyes rounded in shock as Millicent neared her bed. “My goodness, dear girl, what happened to you? You’re hurt and your dress is a rumpled mess. Heaven’s gate! Did someone accost you? Oh, your mother will never let me hear the end of it. Don’t just stand there, Millicent. Say something.”

Her aunt’s frantic voice startled Hamlet and he barked several times before Aunt Beatrice was able to quiet him.

“Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” Millicent said as she walked closer to the bed. “I wasn’t attacked. Well… not exactly.”

“What does not exactly mean? Something happened? Did you fall? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, no. Really, I’m perfect except for the cut, which doesn’t pain me at all, but it has been such an eventful evening my head is spinning at the moment.” She sat down in the chair by her aunt’s bed.

Millicent touched her forehead and realized it was tender. She had completely forgotten about the cut when she was with Chandler. There was a dull ache inside her, but it didn’t come from her wound.

She looked at her aunt, sitting up in the bed, waiting for her to speak. “I find I don’t really know where to begin.”

“Nonsense! At the beginning, of course,” Aunt Beatrice huffed.

“Yes, well you see, I’ve been trying to help Lord—” she stopped. No, she didn’t want to tell her aunt she’d been trying to help Lord Dunraven find the Mad Ton Thief. That would take too much explaining, and it wasn’t something her aunt really needed to know.

“That is, I was standing with Lord Dunraven tonight when he—when I noticed he kept looking at Lady Heathecoute with a quizzical expression on his face. So I made a point of unobtrusively glancing at her, too. I noticed that the front of her skirt looked very odd.”