his youth to wound him. He was the man he’d become, and that man was dangerous.
“He’ll want to see me,” she said with false certainty, sliding down off the wagon before Rolande could help her.
“Just in case, mademoiselle, I’ll wait here for you.”
“There’s no need…”
“Just in case.”
“You’re a very kind man, Rolande,” she said. “I will tell his lordship to double what he’s paying you.”
“His lordship pays very generously. And I’m doing this for you, not him.” He cast a look of dislike up at the huge house. “You go on ahead now, mademoiselle. You look very cold.”
Rohan would have to have a broad expanse of steps leading up to his mansion, she thought dourly, starting the climb. She expected lights, gaiety, debauchery spilling out into the nighttime, but the house seemed secure and quiet.
She reached for the huge brass knocker, but before she could use it the door opened and an extremely proper-looking servant stared at her as if she was complete filth. He had to be French.
His first words confirmed it. “The servants’ entrance is to the side,” he said, and started to close the door in her face.
She threw her body against it, to halt him. “I’m here to see his lordship. Just tell him Miss Harriman is here.”
The man’s gaze flicked out at the wagon waiting for her, then back at her, and if anything, his look was even more disdainful. “I have heard no mention of that name,” he said haughtily, pushing on the door.
“Just ask him…” The door slammed shut in her face, leaving her standing there, cold and furious. “All right,” she said beneath her breath. “You asked for it.”
She stomped back down the snow-covered stairs, mentally thanking Mrs. Clarke for her pilfered boots, and climbed up into the wagon. “The servants’ entrance it is, Rolande.”
She’d lived such a strange life, so many extremes, and yet she’d never ventured into the servants’ quarters of a great house. From her father’s country house, to the elegant Paris apartments where her mother and her lover had lived with passionate abandon—so much so that it had been up to Elinor and Nanny Maude to bring up Lydia—she’d still remained sequestered from the servants’ quarters. The apartments and houses grew shabbier, but somehow she’d yet to venture into the demiworld of working people.
It was warm and clean in the back hallway. In the distance she could hear the sounds of the servants talking as they worked on what must be dinner, and Elinor wondered what it would be like to have the safety and warmth of honest labor. Perhaps she could become a servant. There was no task she particularly excelled at—she was too clumsy to be a chambermaid, too bad a seamstress to be a lady’s maid and a truly terrible cook. Perhaps a kitchen maid might be possible, under the watchful eye of some stern master chef, and she could…
“Mademoiselle?” Rolande interrupted her brief fantasy. “If you go straight down that hallway you’ll find stairs to the main living quarters. You keep an eye out for Cavalle—he runs this place with an iron fist.”
“Bless you, Rolande,” she said. “I wish I had money…”
“There is no need. I take pleasure from serving you, mademoiselle,” he said, starting to bow.
She leaned forward and kissed his leathered cheek, and he gave her a dazzling smile. And then she turned and headed off in search of her nemesis.
The steps were narrow, with rough wood, clearly a servants’ staircase, and she moved quietly. There was a closed door at the top, of course, and she hesitated for a moment. Once she entered the main part of the house what would she do? Start searching the rooms until she found him, obviously, but exactly how she’d start the conversation was a problem, considering that she had to sneak into his house.
That was his fault as well, for hiring a majordomo who was such a…a…polite words evaded her, and even in the privacy of her own mind she couldn’t use the street words she’d unconsciously absorbed during the last few years. Batarde would have to do. She pushed open the door, very carefully, and stepped into the lion’s den.
The space was warm, with the golden glow that came from only the best beeswax candles. The ones he had sent to her house, along with the blessed firewood and the food that she’d stormed off and missed. For a moment she felt faint with hunger. She’d eaten nothing since the toast strips in