“I have to go.” He took three steps toward the door, then came to a halt. “You’re welcome to my cellar, Holloway, or my library or anything you damn well please.”
His friend tilted his head to one side as he contemplated the bookshelves. “Most of your books are merely decorative, so I’ll gratefully decline.”
“Get stuffed,” Noel said amenably before charging down the hallway.
He summoned his carriage, and within minutes, he drove toward Hill Street. The entire way there, he clenched and unclenched his hands. Once he reached her doorstep, once he saw her again, he’d get down on one knee . . .
Oh, but he wanted to kneel for her. He’d gladly be on his knees for her forever.
A lifetime with Jess, giving her endless pleasure, gratifying her every wish. It sounded just like heaven.
If she accepted him, he’d count himself one fortunate bastard, and spend every minute of every day of every year ensuring that she knew what a gift she’d given him.
If she refused him . . . he’d have to find some way of moving on with his life without his heart.
He didn’t wait for the carriage to come to a stop before bounding out the door. Nervousness tensed his muscles—when was the last time he’d been nervous about anything—but he leapt up the front steps. He rapped sharply on the door.
No one answered.
He knocked again, and yet again, no one came to the door. He strained to hear a servant’s tread or any movement at all within, but there was nothing. Not a sound, just utter stillness.
“There’s no one there.”
Noel turned at the sound of a woman’s voice. A girl in a maid’s tidy apron, a basket on her arm, stood on the pavement. When Noel stared at her, she made a quick curtsy.
“Come again?” he pressed.
“Begging your pardon, my lord,” she said. “But nobody lives there.”
He frowned. “She left for the Continent today?”
The maid shook her head. “There’s been no one in that house for a month.”
“But this is—” He checked the address. “Number eighteen.”
“It is, my lord. The last tenant owned a heap of woolen mills, and he brought his wife and daughter for the Season. They hied off back to Leeds when the daughter ran away with a pianoforte tuner.” At Noel’s continued silence, she shifted uncomfortably. “I’m due home. Good day to you, my lord.”
She hurried down the street before ducking into the mews.
Dazed, Noel walked slowly back to his carriage. None of this made sense. Jess had been here—he’d dropped her off only hours earlier. Did he see her go inside? She’d been distracted and on edge, so perhaps she had accidentally given him the wrong address.
Yet all of his conjecture meant nothing. Jess was gone.
“You’re quiet as a churchyard, Miss McGale,” Lady Catherton said as they rode to the Ashfords’.
“My apologies,” Jess murmured. “Is there something you’d like to discuss, my lady?”
“Not particularly,” her employer said. “But some conversation will help pass the time until we arrive.”
Though her throat squeezed with anxiety, Jess forced herself to say, “I don’t know much about the earl and countess except what I’ve read in the papers. In her newspaper, specifically. She owns and publishes the Hawk’s Eye. She was born a commoner and is now a countess. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“Remarkable—and scandalous.”
It almost made one believe that happiness could be within any woman’s reach. Almost. Jess knew better than to imagine the world could bend and change its shape for her.
She continued to talk with Lady Catherton, pure nonsense flowing from her—the latest fashions she’d observed during her time in London, gossip she’d read in scandal sheets like the Hawk’s Eye—all the way to the Ashfords’ grand Mayfair home. She operated a puppet, projecting her voice into the inanimate thing as it performed.
The carriage joined the queue of other elegant vehicles lined up outside the earl and countess’s home. Finally, Lady Catherton’s carriage came to a stop and a footman opened the door.
As the servant helped her mistress out, Jess had the wild impulse to grip onto the carriage’s cushioned seat and refuse to let go. She’d have to be pulled out like someone taking an angry cat from a basket.
“Help me up the stairs, Miss McGale.”
Swallowing her terror, Jess climbed down and took her place beside her employer. Lady Catherton put her hand on Jess’s shoulder and held tightly.
Right. No bolting, then.
They merged with the guests ascending into the Ashfords’ home. Once inside,