hour locked in a bedchamber with Sophia.
D’Angelo rapped on the front door and called, “Matilda, my love! Open the door lest I die of a broken heart on the doorstep. Matilda!” He broke into drunken song and banged the iron knocker.
The curtains in the upper window twitched.
An elderly gentleman sporting a jaunty mustard nightcap raised the sash and thrust his head through the gap. “Who goes there?”
D’Angelo stumbled back and met the irate man’s gaze. “Matilda, my love. Let me in so I might make amends.” He clutched his chest as if the shards of his broken heart might tumble onto the doorstep. “Matilda!”
“There is no one here by that name. Move on before I call the constable.”
“Ah, you’re still angry with me, my love,” D’Angelo drawled.
Sophia squeezed Finlay’s arm and whispered, “I imagine most women would unlatch the door just to watch him grovel.”
“One day, I hope he meets a woman who pelts him with the pot and curses him to hell.”
Sophia chuckled. “I suspect the woman who refuses him could well be the one who steals his heart.”
“She would have to be a thief in the night,” Sloane said, joining their conversation. “She would have to catch him unawares. In short, she would have to be a damn sight more inconspicuous than Miss Hart.”
Miss Hart?
Finlay couldn’t help but notice the vexation in Sloane’s usually smooth voice. “Who the devil is Miss Hart?” He glanced at Sophia, who looked equally bewildered.
Sloane grumbled something incoherent. “A lady usually found clinging to the ballroom wall. She spends so much time watching from the periphery, one might mistake her for a potted fern.”
“She’s that unremarkable?”
“Or she wears green fronds in her hair,” Sophia added.
“She’s a nuisance, a veritable pest.”
“A pest and a wallflower?” Finlay mused. “How unconventional.”
“Matilda!” D’Angelo’s cry stole their attention. “Let down your golden hair so I may climb up and kiss those precious lips.” Their friend clutched his stomach and pretended to retch.
“You drunken fool. Try two doors down.” And with that, the man slammed the sash with such force he might have cracked a pane.
D’Angelo threw them a devilish grin and then moved toward Number 4. He’d taken but a few steps when the front door opened and a woman exited.
A few things struck Finlay as odd.
Yes, there was a nip in the air, though she was dressed as if she were part of an arctic expedition. The white muff was the size of a sheepdog. The red ermine-trimmed cloak would be better suited to a crisp winter’s day. And rarely did a woman of quality venture out alone at midnight.
D’Angelo approached her. The man was no fool. “Matilda!” He clasped his hands together, pleading for forgiveness. “Don’t leave, love. Give me one more chance.”
The woman shooed him away and quickened her pace. She hurried towards the mews, glanced over her shoulder to check if the drunken devil sauntered behind. At no point was she aware of the three people lingering in the darkness—not until she barged into them, the sudden impact stealing her breath.
Her terrified shriek rent the air.
“Hush. There’s nothing to fear.” Sophia’s voice was reassuringly low.
The woman flinched and stumbled, unwittingly grabbed hold of Sophia’s arm for support while gathering her wits. The blood drained from her face the moment they locked gazes.
“Maud?” Sophia gasped in disbelief.
So, Maud was the doctor’s companion in the coffeehouse. Things were all fitting nicely into place. Finlay doubted he would remember the maid were it not for her uncanny likeness to Jessica. The question plaguing him now was, what business did she have with Dr Goodwin?
Maud stood, stiff as a corpse, the mist from her breathless pants being the only sign of life.
Finlay coughed into his fist, drawing the maid’s attention. “It seems you’re a little far from home, Maud. Did the hot climate not suit? Perhaps you’re ill and journeyed for months just to visit the good doctor.”
Maud surprised them all by throwing herself at Sophia and crying, “My lady, thank goodness it’s you. I’ve been terrified out of my wits. Oh, praise be.”
While Maud spoke with some eloquence now, her accent held traces of a provincial dialect, and her manner appeared rather coarse.
Sophia shrugged out of the maid’s embrace and stepped back. “What are you doing here, Maud?” Hostility tainted the words. After all, Maud was the reason Jessica had spent the last seven years in a drug-induced state. “Where is your husband? Where is Mr Archer?”
Maud blinked back tears. “Bartholomew? I wish I knew, my lady.