Chloe had practiced everyBelle Assembléehairstyle so many times, she could play lady’s maid to Queen Charlotte.
But before she left her room, she always straightened every perfect curl and scraped the whole back into a simple, uninspiring twist.
Even without a “favor” to collect, she was the best-suited Wynchester for this mission.
Chloe was the one who had borne witness to much of Faircliffe’s political life. She could recite several of his views and had even quoted him in a few of her pamphlets encouraging reform.
If anyone could conduct suitably absorbing conversation to distract him from their true purpose, it was Chloe.
She wished the idea of delivering herself to him weren’t so unsettling.
It wasn’t just Faircliffe’s wide lips and piercing blue gaze. It was the fear of being eye-catching and bold. She longed for it even as the thought terrified her. Today she would be walking into temptation.
She summoned the least conspicuous carriage from the mews. It was the perfect conveyance to take an unassuming miss over to the Duke of Faircliffe’s grand terrace house. The Wynchesters’ tiger Isaiah could accompany her without his usual livery.
Once she was no longer amongst the ton, she’d disappear from its collective memory, and life would go on as it always had. Today’s “Chloe Wynchester” disguise was as disposable as any other.
But her fingers shook when she clanged the brass knocker.
The duke’s butler swung open the door. Arthur Hastings, aged four and fifty, married, no children, sweet tooth, tender hip on the left side, lover of striped mufflers, irrational fear of small dogs. Chloe pretended Graham had told her none of that.
She held out a calling card. “Is His Grace receiving?”
Mr. Hastings squinted at the card. His eyes widened, but he did not toss her out on her ear. Butlers this rarefied preferred to eviscerate with a single look.
“I’ll inquire.” He motioned her out of the brisk spring afternoon and into a lavish entryway. “Wait here.”
I would be delighted.
The moment Mr. Hastings took his leave, Chloe extracted a notebook from her omnipresent basket of tricks and began measuring the perimeter in paces. The decorative tiles covering the floor would amplify sound, so soft soles would be necessary for any maneuver requiring stealth. Her pencil flew faster. Locations and sizes of entrances and exits, including the windows. No squeak to the door, no loose clasps at the sill.
By the time Mr. Hastings returned, she was back in her original position beside the front door, her basket dangling innocently from her elbow.
“If you’ll come with me, miss.”
She followed Mr. Hastings to an elegant parlor nine and a half paces down the corridor. Perhaps this was a room where they brought guests they hoped would not stay long and who had no reason to set foot any deeper in Faircliffe territory.
“His Grace will be here shortly,” Mr. Hastings informed her, and departed.
Chloe’s fingers itched for her pencil. Did she have time to pace the parlor?
“Worth the risk,” she muttered, and pulled the notebook from her basket.
She was completing a bird’s-eye sketch of the room when a floorboard squeaked in the corridor. It had not squeaked for her and the butler, which might mean this footstep had come from the opposite direction. She shoved the notebook back into her basket just as the Duke of Faircliffe strode into the parlor.
His dark brown hair tumbled over his forehead, drawing one’s gaze directly to the icy intensity in his blue eyes. His wide, full mouth was pressed into a tight line, as though displeased to find that Chloe had breached the butler-guarded perimeter and was now inside his ducal parlor. She fought the urge to pirouette, just because it would rankle him.
His jaw was tight and clean-shaven—touchably smooth despite the hard angles. The folds of his cravat were sharp enough to lacerate, spilling from his throat in a profusion of white linen blades.
This was how he looked in Parliament. Regal and ruthless, armed for battle. He was not afraid there, and he was not afraid of her. His mistake. Just because her spikes were not visible did not make her any less dangerous. Not all ammunition was meant to wound. Her weapons were her wits—and a feline coconspirator.
This fun was only beginning.
“It’s Miss Wynchester, Your Grace,” Chloe said helpfully. She dipped a curtsey, then lifted the lid of her basket in case the duke needed help remembering.
Up popped two pointy ears, one gold and one black, then bright inquisitive eyes, then a tiny pink nose with soft white whiskers protruding from either side.
Faircliffe’s eyes lit up and he stepped forward before remembering himself and clearing his throat disapprovingly. “Is that the calico cat-demon that caused so much chaos at the Yorks’ residence?”
