The woman adjusted the spectacles perched above her snub nose. “Lovely to meet you.”
“We were discussing the inferior quality of the sponge cake,” Rosemary said.
Mrs. Hampshire straightened her shoulders. “The strawberries were not even in season. Everyone knows it is best to pick spring fruit when it is in season and preserve it in jams or jellies.”
“I quite agree,” Rosemary said, her eyes sparkling.
Saffron smiled, despite her anxiety and the slight upon her menu choices. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her aunt so happy. She took one more glance around the room before sitting beside Mrs. Hampshire. “I quite enjoyed the soup myself.”
At that, Mrs. Hampshirehmphedand began a lecture on the proper way to harvest and preserve asparagus. While the woman spoke, Saffron cast sidelong glances at her aunt, bouncing herknee up and down beneath the small table, a nervous habit of Angelica’s.
Finally, Rosemary caught on. She set her cup down on the table, then touched her head with her hands. “Saffron, my dear, I fear I have a megrim coming on. Mrs. Hampshire, it was lovely talking to you, but I think my niece should accompany me to my room for a rest.”
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Hampshire said. “I will ask a maid to send you up some tea. Nothing like tea for a megrim.”
*
After sending herfretting aunt to Angelica’s room to see if Angelica would return there, Saffron gathered Mrs. Banting as a chaperone and then checked the retiring room, the stables, and the ballroom.
With each minute, the tension in Saffron’s shoulders increased, until Mrs. Banting touched her arm. “The maids will search her out. None of my girls will tell a soul about what they see, my lady.”
The unspoken warning that Angelica might be found in a less-than-respectable state made Saffron grind her teeth in frustration.
She had told Mr. Mayweather that she would speak to her sister. Had he taken that as permission to abscond with Angelica?
I should have been watching her.
What if Mr. Mayweather ruined Angelica, then refused to marry her? Saffron knew how easy it was to give in to passion.
The floor beneath her tipped and swayed as if she were standing on the deck of a boat.
“Dear me!” Mrs. Banting grasped her arms and pushed her back to fall into a chair.
I must find Leo. He’ll know what to do.
He was the only man present whom she trusted not to laugh at her fears or spread rumors about Angelica behaving inappropriately. The problem was that the men had not yet joined the women in the drawing room and as a woman, she was all but forbidden to enter the male domain, the smoking room. The last thing she needed was to earn more black marks against her family.
So as Mrs. Banting arranged for a maid to bring a drink for her, Saffron summoned a nearby footman and whispered a word. When her lemonade arrived, she accepted it with thanks, then begged off with assurances that she would wait in her room for news. Then she set off for Leo’s office, taking the servants’ halls to avoid being seen.
She slipped inside the room, shivering at the chill. Unfortunately, she could not light a fire without risking someone finding out what she was doing. She would have to hope the footman would deliver the message she had imparted.
To take her mind off the cold, she walked a square route around the bulky furniture until her shins ached.
“Saffron!”
The doors thumped open, and Leo rushed inside, his hair mussed. He charged forward, grabbed her in his arms, and crushed her against his chest.
In those few seconds before she could reassemble her scrambled wits enough to react, she was overwhelmed by the hard planes of his chest beneath his waistcoat, the tang of cigar smoke that clung to his hair, the even thud of his heart beneath her cheek. Then he pushed her away.
“For God’s sake, don’t scare me like that!”
She staggered back, one hand falling on the desk, the other hovering at her breast. “How have I scared you?”
Leo ran a hand through his golden hair. “The footman told me a woman was in trouble. I thought it was you.”
“Oh,” she said, still shaken by the ferocity of his embrace. “He must have misunderstood. I told him I needed to talk to you, that is all. My sister has gone missing.”
“You checked the retiring room?” Leo asked.
