from her cramped little bedchamber to her employer’s expansive suite of rooms. Her feet kept speeding up and she forced them into a sedate pace. After collecting herself outside the door to her mistress’s bedroom, she knocked.
“Enter,” Lady Catherton said.
Jess did so.
Lady Catherton had installed herself in a chair by the fire as her maid scurried around the room. She glanced toward her dressing table. “My correspondence, if you please. Go through it and tell me what you find.”
“Yes, my lady.” After a week of openly stating her mind, speaking so humbly stuck in Jess’s throat. She swallowed around her aching pride and picked up the large stack of letters.
For several minutes, she read aloud the names of the correspondents. To each name, Lady Catherton would reply either “Skip” or “Read.”
Finally, Jess read, “‘The Earl and Countess of Ashford.’” Why did that name sound familiar?
“Read.”
Jess broke the wafer and unfolded the single sheet of paper. “‘Your presence is requested on the evening of the twelfth of June for a ball—’” She frowned. “That’s tonight.”
Lady Catherton said to her maid, “Make certain that you air out my yellow silk, and press it. I’ll also want—”
“Apologies, my lady, do you mean to attend?”
Lady Catherton frowned as if confused by Jess’s bewilderment. “I do. And I know you’ll wear your finest dress, though if it has been damaged, it might require some repair.” She turned to her maid. “I’ll want the pearl-and-diamond earbobs, and—”
“I’m coming with you?”
Her mistress held up her walking stick, looking at her injury with frustration. “This blasted ankle ensures that I cannot move quickly or indeed much at all. I’ll need you beside me to fetch refreshments and bring guests to me.”
“I see.” Jess had accompanied Lady Catherton to smaller assemblies in the country, but nothing on the scale of an actual ball given by an actual earl and countess.
She stiffened as realization struck her. Please, no.
The Earl and Countess of Ashford were the hosts of the same ball Noel would attend.
Jess pressed a hand to her throat, and made several strangled sounds.
“Something ailing you?” Lady Catherton asked.
“As it happens,” Jess said in a raspy voice, “I have a touch of the grippe. It would be best if I stayed home tonight.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot spare you. The earl and countess rarely entertain, and I fully intend to be there. Afterward, you can go straight to bed with some broth.”
Panic clutched at Jess, truly squeezing her throat tight. “I can arrange for someone else to accompany you.”
“Miss McGale.” Lady Catherton fixed her with a level stare. “I consider myself a relatively tolerant person, but I must point out that I pay you to be my companion, and so I have to insist that you accompany me tonight. Now I will rest, and when I wake, I will take supper. After that, I will dress for the Ashfords’ ball. We will depart here at nine o’clock.”
There was no choice in the matter. Jess had to accompany her employer to the earl and countess’s home—where Noel would also be.
Under other circumstances, she would have looked forward to finally attending a London ball. Even better would be seeing Noel dressed in his evening finery. Surely he would be a magnificent sight.
At the thought of trying to keep him from Lady Catherton, and the possibility that he might learn the truth about her identity, all she felt was dark, smothering dread.
Chapter 24
Noel launched himself from his desk chair. He’d tried to review the mountain of documents and letters that had amassed in such a short amount of time. There were plans for a mill he intended to refurbish on his Lincolnshire estate, and several letters relating to the bill he intended to discuss with Ashford that night.
While his gaze moved over the words, he took none of them in. Everything might as well be written in Aramaic.
He scooped a sheaf of papers into his arms and stalked to the fireplace. The hell with it. He’d burn the lot.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” his butler said from the doorway. “Mr. Holloway is here. Are you at home to visitors?”
Had it been anyone other than a member of the Union of the Rakes, Noel would have sent them away without a second thought. But he was one of the Union, and that gave him automatic entry into Noel’s home. Besides, Noel needed distraction, and cerebral Holloway’s wisdom was welcome.
“Send him in.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Noel stomped back to his desk and dumped the papers onto its surface. He then