but you must advise me. Is St. Clare as unreasonable as Fred, do you think?”
“I haven’t the slightest notion. We’ve never been introduced. Though I have seen him twice at the theater. He was sitting in a box with his grandfather. I must say, he didn’t look like a particularly amiable gentleman. On the other hand, I can’t conceive of anyone being as disagreeable as Fred.”
Maggie considered this. “Well, I suppose the worst thing that can happen is he’ll laugh in my face. Or refuse to admit me altogether. It’s very likely a fool’s errand, but if there’s a chance he might call off this stupid duel, I must make the effort to see him.”
“The worst thing that can happen…?” Jane was incredulous. “Margaret, no one knows the viscount well enough to judge his character. He’s been on the continent for ages. For all you know, he’s a rake and a libertine. A vile seducer. To go to his house alone—and at night, too—you’re practically offering yourself to him on a silver platter!”
“I shan’t go alone,” Maggie said. “I shall take Bessie with me.”
Maggie stood outside the monstrous structure in Grosvenor Square that the hackney-carriage driver had assured her was the town residence of the Earl of Allendale. It was cold and the mist had come up, blanketing the street in a gray fog barely penetrable by the glow of the gas lamps that lined it. She wrapped the folds of her fur-trimmed cloak tighter around her as Bessie paid the hackney driver.
Bessie hadn’t been as reluctant to accompany Maggie on her errand as Maggie had expected she’d be. Indeed, her former nurse had taken the view that any behavior resembling that engaged in by Maggie in her wild and headstrong youth ought to be encouraged.
“You were never a frail, wilting sort of female, Miss Margaret,” Bessie had said. “Not until you took sick. Who knows but that an adventure or two like you used to have might not put the color back in your cheeks?”
Maggie was oddly touched by her maid’s loyalty. Especially considering Fred’s all-too-frequent lectures to Bessie on the duty she owed her mistress, and his constant threat that, were anything to happen to Maggie, Bessie would be sent off without a reference. As if such a thing were in his power! He wasn’t Maggie’s husband. Not yet, at least.
“The driver has promised he’ll wait here to take us back to Green Street after we’ve seen the viscount,” Bessie said, approaching Maggie through the fog. Her own cloak, made of a nondescript drab, billowed around her large frame. “Though if you ask me, his lordship’s as like to be in bed asleep as anything.”
Maggie followed Bessie’s gaze to the darkened windows of the house. “It’s only one o’clock. I daresay there’s more of a chance he won’t be home at all. Most gentlemen hereabouts keep town hours.”
Bessie pursed her lips in disapproval as she accompanied Maggie to the front door. “Wrap yourself up tight, Miss Margaret. No need for you to be getting a chill on Master Fred’s account.”
Maggie nodded, and while Bessie rapped at the door, she tugged the fur of her cloak up around her chin. It had been a gift from her father, given to her over six years ago when she returned home from her first season in London. A fine, deep blue velvet trimmed in sable. “The same blue as the wildflowers at Beasley,” Papa had told her.
“Town hours, indeed,” Bessie muttered, rapping at the door again. “Where are the servants, then, I ask you?”
Maggie briefly closed her eyes. Her cheeks were warm despite the cold, and within her chest was the familiar feeling of heaviness she experienced whenever she’d overtaxed herself. The journey had worn her down. She hated for Fred to be right.
She was just beginning to consider whether or not she should tell Bessie that it was all a mistake—that they should get back into the hackney and return to Lord and Lady Trumble’s—when the front door opened and they were confronted by a stooped, white-haired butler with a candle held in his upraised hand.
He looked at Bessie first before dismissing her and turning his rheumy gaze on Maggie. His eyes swept her from the top of the sable-trimmed hood of her cloak to the toes of her kid half-boots. Seeming to have satisfied himself that at least one of the party was a lady, he lowered his candle. “Madam?”
Maggie stepped forward. “I’m come to see Lord St. Clare,”