herself as a man with a big beard—or something of the sort?
Damn Hastings and his incessant warnings of disaster. She ought to be exhilarated at the prospect of seeing Andrew again so soon, not fretting about everything that could go wrong.
Enough with the troubling thoughts. She’d worked hard for this morsel of stolen time. She would clear her mind and relish her triumph.
Or at least, she would do her utmost.
Hastings did not expect to see Andrew Martin at the club. After Fitz had spoken to him earlier in the Season, Martin had avoided locales where he might run into any of the Fitzhugh siblings. But with Fitz away, Martin probably thought the club a safe venue for whiling away a few hours.
Except he wasn’t exactly whiling away the hours. He seemed distracted and jumpy, getting up from his chair every few minutes to pace about the periphery of the room. At some point during each circle, he’d pull out a piece of paper from the pocket of his day coat, read it, stuff it back into his pocket, sit down, chew his lips for some time, and then repeat the procedure all over again.
As his restlessness grew, so did Hastings’s. Why the hell was Martin so agitated? And why did he keep looking at that piece of paper?
The next time Martin crossed the room, Hastings rose and bumped into him.
He steadied Martin. “Sorry, there, old fellow.”
“My fault,” said Martin meekly.
Many children talked of running away with the Gypsies; Hastings had actually done so—more than once. His pickpocketing skills were rusty, but Martin was a spectacularly easy target.
Standing before a bookcase, his back to the room, Hastings looked down at the loot in his hand. It was a telegram. Next Monday. The Savoy Hotel. Four o’clock in the afternoon. Ask for the Quaids’ room.
He looked at the date on the telegram. Today was the Monday that had been specified—and soon it would strike four on the clock. Had Helena Fitzhugh sent the cable despite all his warnings to the contrary?
Martin sucked in a loud breath. Hastings turned around to the sight of him frantically feeling his pockets. The telegram tucked inside his sleeve, Hastings meandered to Martin’s chair and dropped the telegram on the floor.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
Martin turned around and exhaled in relief at the sight of the telegram next to Hastings’s shoes. “Nothing. I dropped a cable—that’s all.”
Hastings picked it up and held it out facedown toward Martin. “This one?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
Martin pocketed the telegram. But this time, instead of returning to his seat, he bade Hastings good day and walked out of the room.
The bastard was going to the Savoy Hotel.
There was no inherent malice to Martin. But he was born without a spine of his own and always yielded to whichever person exerted the greatest influence on him. On the matter of his marriage, he’d deferred to his mother. Earlier in the Season, he’d obeyed Fitz. And now he’d let himself be once again persuaded by the forceful Helena Fitzhugh.
Hastings didn’t know whom he wanted to punch more, Martin or himself. Why did he still care? Why did he persist in manning his temple in the Sahara, praying for rain, when all about him the evidence of his failure stretched as far as the eyes could see?
On their own, his feet carried him toward the door. If he was going to drown his sorrows in whiskey, he preferred to do it at home, in the privacy of his own chambers, where his heartache would be visible to no one but himself.
Someone pulled him aside.
“You could be right after all, Hastings,” Monteth whispered. “I ran into Martin outside just now and tried to bring him in here, but he gave me all sorts of shifty reasons why he couldn’t have a drink with me.”
“A man not wanting to have a drink with you, Monteth, is not exactly reason for suspicion.”
“You don’t understand.” Monteth looked about the largely empty room and lowered his voice even more. “This morning I saw a letter the missus was writing. It said, ‘I will catch him in the act very soon.’ And guess to whom it was addressed? ‘My dear Alexandra’!”
Alexandra was Mrs. Martin’s Christian name.
“My goodness,” Hastings heard himself respond, sounding calm, almost detached. Or perhaps he was merely in shock, although a sharp cold was beginning to spread between his shoulder blades.
“Precisely. I tried to bring Martin back in here, where he can’t get into much trouble. But as