“Lady Eloise Surrey, I presume.” Bill’s calm voice drew her attention.
She turned and gave a quick dip, as if she were curtsying to a noble. “Mr. Campion. I have heard much about you. It was not, however, my intention to meet you in such a fashion.”
Robert glared at her. “How dare you act as if this were just another Society ball?”
She scowled. “I do not see why I should not. Manners are appropriate for any occasion, even the most unusual ones.”
Bill snorted.
“My god, you could have been—”
“No one knew. Madame Adrienne outfitted me, and she knows what she’s doing. This is a disguise she uses herself on occasion.”
Bill’s chin dropped. “Adrienne? Adrienne Chenevert, the modiste?”
Lady Eloise’s eyes widened. “Yes. You know her?”
Bill nodded. “Oh, yes. She frequents many of my establishments. I thought that suit looked familiar.”
Robert felt a tinge of satisfaction that Lady Eloise looked slightly nonplussed by this statement. “I don’t—” she started.
“I need to get you home.” Robert reached for her arm.
She backed away from him. “No. There’s information to be had here.”
He dropped his arm. “Like what? I’ve talked to our people. They knew nothing.”
“I talked to Lucy too. She said that he did not stay with... with...”
“On the women’s side.”
“Yes.”
“We knew that already, and if you had waited—”
“And one of the men at the table didn’t like it that I kept winning. He bragged that I looked like a boy that had been in the club Saturday night, that I could be ‘taken care of’ just as he had been.”
Silence blanketed the room.
“Which man?” Bill asked, his voice like a low thunder.
Lady Eloise faltered a moment, looking from Robert to Bill. “The—the one next to the one you called Barnet. Reddish hair, ugly scar next to his left eye.”
“Morgan.” Robert looked at Bill, who nodded.
“I’ll go.” Bill started for the door, then paused and dipped his head at Lady Eloise. “My lady, it’s a pleasure to finally meet someone who can discomfit this man. It’s about damn time.”
Lady Eloise watched him leave, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. “I don’t—”
“Ignore him.” Robert stepped closer to her, surprised to discover that despite having been in a room filled with an entire array of smokes, lurid perfumes, and fried foods, the lady still smelled of nasturtiums. Her freckles seemed darker in the dim light of the office, and the glower in her amber eyes had lessened as they studied his face. The fury he had felt at realizing the boy in the flat cap was her had drained away, leaving only the remnants of fear and a distinct urge to protect. “Do you have any idea,” he asked quietly, stepping even closer, “how terrified I was at seeing you down there?”
Lady Eloise did not retreat. She tilted her chin up. “Why would you be afraid for me?”
Robert reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of two fingers, a slow glide from her temple to her lips. “Because there are so many ways you could have been hurt. I cannot let that happen.”
Her lips quivered. “You—you cannot protect me from everything. You—you are not—”
Robert kissed her. He was not sure why at first, just that he wanted to stop her lips from trembling, lips that he suddenly wanted to taste, to press against his own.
