personal agent. Nothing has changed, except perhaps for a lowering of his esteem for your honesty.
Emilia turned away at last and mounted the steps to the carriage again, taking her place beside her softly snoring father.
She patted Papa’s hand, pushing aside her feelings of sadness.
Maximilian Emery might not care overly for her, beyond what assistance she could offer him, but she would find a husband nonetheless. That morning she had received her first and likely last promising invitation of the season; to Lady Charlotte’s ball at Ceastre House, in fact. How pleasing it would be, she insisted to herself, if she found a fiancé among the guests there.
***
'Your mail, sir,' Samuel said, offering a single envelope on the tray he held to Max’s eye level. The latter sat at a writing desk, composing a message to his solicitor.
Frowning—who would write to Henry Milton?—Max took the note and opened it directly. A firm but feminine hand whisked across the page. Max met Roberts’ eyes, his own alight with excitement.
'Miss Whitmore. She’s agreed, old chap!' he exclaimed. 'She will wait for me at the south gate of the Portman Square garden later this afternoon.'
The joy that filled him made it quite impossible to remain seated to finish writing his letter. Instead, he stood. Jollyboy, catching his mood, bounded up from where he had been lying at Roberts’ feet.
Max grinned at the dog and danced around him, avoiding Jollyboy’s concerted efforts to leap up and lick Max’s face.
The relief he felt at knowing that Miss Whitmore would help him seemed almost out of scale to the importance of the news. It was essential to have an agent he could send into Ceastre Manor, of course, and Miss Whitmore would fit his needs precisely. That was the reason for his agitation. The only reason, surely.
'I say!' Roberts cried as Jollyboy jumped again and landed on his foot.
'Oh, bad luck, old chap,' Max said by way of apology. He reached out and calmed the dog, stroking his head and scratching him behind the ears. 'I would do well to train you to be better behaved,' he told Jollyboy.
If only he could do the same with his own heart. Despite his efforts to subdue the dog, his heart still beat as though he had run a mile. His eyes felt pulled to the window. Why? Did he hope to see something below? A lady standing near the gate to the garden at the centre of the square, perhaps?
I’m only pleased she agreed to help, he asserted to himself again, but he had the uneasy sensation that he didn’t believe himself. How was that even possible?
Miss Whitmore has secrets, he reminded himself. Out alone on Piccadilly, no escort or chaperone. And the downcast expression on her face...the slump of her shoulders...whatever her business was, it cannot have been good.
It was uncomfortable to ponder what he had seen, but as he had recruited her because of her apparent talent for intrigue, ‘twas unavoidable to do so.
Fancying someone like Miss Whitmore would never have been a good idea in any case, Max told himself, but knowing what I know...
...as soon as our business is concluded, I must distance myself from her.
That thought was like a glass of cold water tossed in his face. His heart tightened and stopped its ridiculous racing at the thought.
Max did not feel better, however.
If anything, he felt worse.
***
'Did the surgeon say anything new last night?' Alice asked as they rode in the landau to Portman Square.
They had just finished taking Papa home and putting him back to bed, and then they turned around and drove out again.
'No,' Emilia replied, biting back a bitter comment about paying for a doctor's visit that had actually made no substantial difference to her father’s well-being.
Doctor Sinclair was a kind gentleman and without him, Emilia shuddered to think of how very ill Papa might now be. However, between Doctor Sinclair and the apothecary, Mr. Hadden, there had been no great improvement in Papa’s health. Quite the contrary.
'What did the doctor say?' Alice pressed.
Emilia sighed. 'He only mentioned the sanatoria again. I told him I was making preparations to take Papa to Italy.'
Alice frowned but said nothing. Emilia knew that her friend was well aware that had been a lie, and of the financial ruin the Whitmores faced if Emilia was unsuccessful at finding a husband, and Alice made no mention of it out of kindness. Emilia was grateful, and not just for that. For years Alice had remained her