Cinderella Six Feet Under(117)

She turned back to the note.

We did not enjoy even one minute alone upon your arrival today. Could I beg you to join me at half past eight this evening—dinner will be served at nine o’clock—in the ballroom? There is so much in my heart I must convey, ma chérie—may I call you that?—and a pressing question I must ask.

Your most humble and obedient admirer,

Griffe

Oh, mercy.

Ophelia glanced at the clock on the mantel. Almost half past eight already. She stuffed the note in a dressing table drawer and sat down to wallow in guilt until nine o’clock. She’d rather stick her hand in a beehive than be alone with Griffe. She could tell him she’d fallen asleep.

At two minutes till nine o’clock, Ophelia slid Griffe’s ruby ring on, over her satin elbow glove. The ring was heavy, and too tight. Probably served her right. She trudged downstairs for dinner.

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned left and found herself in a long, dim gallery with a checkerboard marble floor and tall windows. Snow piled up in the corners of rattling windowpanes. Gleaming suits of armor lined the gallery, along with a couple of cannons and glass cases displaying swords, bows, and arrows.

Ophelia hugged her elbows and picked up her pace. Griffe’s voice boomed from beyond the far doorway. Drat. She didn’t relish the notion of meeting Griffe in here. Too dark.

His voice again. Closer.

Ophelia dodged behind a suit of armor, one of four standing close together. She was hidden in shadow.

Griffe speaking. She caught the words perhaps and dinner . . . wait. Ophelia held her breath. Her eyes slid sideways.

Someone else was hiding behind the suits of armor, not three feet away. A tall, shadowy male form—

The man cleared his throat.

Hold it. She’d know that ahem anywhere. Yet how could it—? Why—? What was he doing here?

“Professor?” Ophelia whispered. “Professor Penrose?”

“Ah, it is you, Miss Flax,” Penrose murmured. “How good to see you.”

“What are you doing, hiding back here?” Ophelia’s eyes had adjusted to the faint light. Penrose held a wineglass and wore evening clothes. She saw the glow of his spectacles, his square shoulders, the line of his clean-shaven jaw. Her heart skittered. “I thought I’d never—”

“I merely wished to inspect the mechanism at the back of this helmet.” Penrose tapped one of the knight’s helmets. It clanged softly. “Fascinating sort of hinge.”

“In the dark? Stop fibbing. Who are you hiding from?”

“Who are you hiding from?”

“Griffe said nothing of you being here.” If Griffe had said something, Ophelia would never have come. Penrose had told her I love you three weeks ago, right after she’d impulsively promised her hand to Griffe. She fancied she’d broken the professor’s heart. She’d broken her own heart, too, and since broken hearts must be let alone to mend, she’d banished Penrose from her thoughts.

Another disaster.

“It was a last-minute invitation,” Penrose whispered.

“Professor, if you happen to notice . . . anything odd. I mean to say, well, I still haven’t gotten the chance to tell Griffe that I—”

“That you aren’t Miss Stonewall, the Cleveland soap heiress?”

Ophelia swallowed. “Well, yes. And Henrietta is here, too—”

“Henrietta Bright? On the husband hunt, I suppose? Not to worry. Your secrets are safe with me.”

Griffe said loudly, “He cannot be far, my dear.” He was inside the gallery now. “Shall we seek for him in the gaming room? It is just through the armor gallery here.”

“I suppose so,” a woman’s voice said in a crisp British accent. “I can’t think why he would simply disappear like this just before dinner.”

“Penrose is a scholar, Mademoiselle Banks,” Griffe said. “Scholars become engrossed in their studies, I understand, to the point of sheer distraction and forgetfulness. Perhaps he has gone, not to the gaming room, but to the library? Come along. We will find your mislaid fiancé.”

Fiancé?

Oh.

Griffe and Miss Banks passed by in a breeze of eau de cologne and silken rustles. Penrose didn’t move a muscle.

“Dreadfully rude of him.” The woman’s voice was sulky. “Once we are married, I’ll insist that he remedy his ways.”