She was still talking, but Leo didn’t hear a word. All he could think was he was out of time.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saffron held herfist up, preparing to knock on the door to Lady Allen’s room, while resisting the urge to run. In the hours since the auction had ended, she had changed her mind a dozen times about approaching the woman.
Angelica has settled to her fate. Now it is my turn.
Rosemary was right about putting away her fantasies. If Lady Allen’s offer of employment was still open, she would accept it. She would become whatever Lady Allen required, even if it meant being the subject of gossip and derision.
As she debated, a jumble of nerves, a gray blob bounded across the hall, dragging a white string.
Cinder!
Eager to have any excuse to delay her decision, she darted after the waddling shape, but the kitten moved with surprising swiftness, using her claws to propel her along the carpet runner. Then she veered right through a half-open door and vanished.
Saffron hesitated at the threshold. She did not want to barrel into an occupied room or be spotted and questioned as to why she was wandering the halls at night alone. A quick recall of the floor plan confirmed she was outside the viscountess’s rooms.
Where Leo’s future wife will sleep.
She grasped the door handle and hesitated. She couldn’t enter. Visions of the room would haunt her dreams.
She averted her eyes and pulled the door slightly so that Cinder would not get trapped inside, then spun on her heel and marched back the way she’d come. She was halfway back to Lady Allen’s door when a hissing came from behind her, then a yowl and a muffled curse.
A shiver of unease rippled down her back. She tiptoed back to the entrance to the room and clung to the wall, listening intently.
Claws clicking against wood. Shuffling. Another, louder, curse. Then Cinder galloped out of the room, her fur on end.
Saffron pressed herself against the wall as the door creaked open and a man in a black suit exited, carrying a white-shrouded canvas in his arms. She held her breath, but the painting blocked his view of her.
It might be nothing, she thought. Several of the guests were leaving early, and they might have arranged for their paintings to be brought to their carriages.
But it might also be the thief.
She couldn’t see the painting the man carried beneath the shroud, so she didn’t know if it was the Ravenmore or one of the other paintings from the auction.
The man walked quietly away from her, and she followed, staying far enough behind that if the man noticed her, she had time to run.
He crept through the house, down the stairs and into the servants’ hallways, where it was harder to keep up. After three twisting turns, she lost sight of him and recklessly increased her pace until she rounded a corner at a fast speed and ran face-first into a muscular chest.
“Whoa, there,” Leo said, clasping his hands around her upper arms.
She craned her neck. “Did you see him?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Who?”
“The thief!”
He released his grip on her arms. “There’s no one the way I came. What, precisely, did you see?”
As she filled him in, his lips thinned.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll summon Sinclair to search.”
He strode purposefully away from her, and she followed. A few chaotic moments later, a storm of sleepy-eyed servants were up and scouring the estate. Then he took her arm and insisted on accompanying her back to her room, which she accepted.
“What were you doing?” he asked softly as they ascended the main staircase. “It’s not safe for you to be walking around so late, unchaperoned.”
She sniffed. “I was going to tell Lady Allen that I accept her offer.”
