the morning and the scone less than an hour ago, and it wasn’t enough to keep her sturdy frame alive. She wasn’t delicate, like Lydia. She was taller, stronger, and she felt as if she’d been running some terrible, endless race. She would have given anything to lie down on one of the new beds they’d brought in and sleep for days. Anything but her sister’s honor. And her own, what was left of it.
She closed the door behind her and set off, resolute. The door led into a series of formal rooms, gilded woodwork, highly polished floors, mirrors all around. She’d heard stories of Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. Surely this rivaled those places. Despite what little she knew of Lord Rohan, she was uncomfortably aware that his fortune was enormous.
As were the marble stairs she eventually confronted. She moved up slowly, keeping to the edge in case an overzealous servant should appear, but it was evening and most of them would be discreetly absent unless summoned. She remembered that much from her family’s more affluent times.
She wandered the hallways of the first floor, peering into rooms. She found a library, redolent of leather and pipe tobacco, a pretty little salon clearly designed for the woman of the house, clearly never used, a music room with a pianoforte and harp. At the end of one hall was the ballroom, dark and silent, at the opposite end a locked door.
She pressed her ear against the door, but all was silent. Whatever that room was used for, and she shuddered to think, it was empty now.
She had no choice but to climb another flight of stairs, this one smaller but no less magnificent. What if Rolande was mistaken, what if she was wandering around the Viscount Rohan’s town house with no one there? And then she heard the voices as she reached the top of the stairs. His, deep and melodious, and she held her breath, expecting a woman’s reply.
Instead, a man’s voice, the words too indistinct for her to decipher. She moved out of the shadows, heading in the direction of that room, when her rival from the front door suddenly reappeared, carrying a tray with a carafe and glasses.
“You!” the butler said in tones of extreme loathing, too much the professional to drop the tray. He set it down carefully on a table, but she was already off, racing in the direction of those voices.
A door was open, light spilling out into the hallway, with her goal just beyond it. She’d almost reached it, her booted feet no longer silent on the parquet floor, when the majordomo caught up her with her, catching her hair and yanking her back painfully.
She bit him, hard. And kicked him in the shins with Lady Carlton’s boots, and she heard her dress tear as she lunged forward, skittering through the open door to greet the room’s inhabitants, who stared at her in shocked silence.
9
At least the scarred man, Reading, appeared suitably shocked, Elinor thought. Lord Rohan, as always, was a different matter. He appeared to be expecting her, the wretch.
He was sitting in splendid state, in the middle of a huge bed hung with gloriously gilded curtains, his hair loose around his shoulders, and he was completely naked, at least as far as she could tell. He had covers pulled to his waist, but it still left far too much flesh exposed, and she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that when her nemesis came skidding around the corner after her.
Lord Rohan made no effort to cover himself. He merely smiled at her. “You shouldn’t look so surprised, Charles. It’s my darling poppet from last night. Clearly she couldn’t bear to be parted from me. Did I tell you we slept together? Twice? And extremely pleasant it was.”
Reading made a choking sound. “Pleasant?”
“His lordship is misleading you, as always,” Elinor said. “I fell asleep in his presence. Not everyone finds him as entertaining as you seem to.”
“Do you see why she enchants me, Reading?” Rohan said. And then his gaze and voice hardened to steel. “You didn’t offer Miss Harriman any insult did you, Cavalle? I should be most displeased if she were not treated with the utmost care and respect.”
She glanced behind her. The majordomo was the color of parchment, and she could swear she could hear his knees knocking. There was no question that he was terrified.
“Of course he treated me with care and respect,” she said in a crabby