"Thank you." Estella straightened. She had a name, an address, and a thread to pull. It wasn't much, but it was more than she'd had an hour ago.
She gathered Thea, who left the ledger with visible reluctance, and they made their way to the door. Outside, the night was cold and the street was dark, and Sebastian was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
He didn't speak as they climbed into his carriage. He didn't speak as they dropped Thea at her home. In fact, he didn't speak for the entire ride to the duchess's house, either.
When the carriage stopped, she reached for the door handle.
"Estella."
She paused. His voice was quiet, strained.
"Don't go back there," he said. "Please."
She looked at him over her shoulder. His look gave nothing away.
Her throat grew so tight, she could hardly speak. But finally, she managed, "Good night, Lord Blackwood."
17
Estella had barely finished her morning tea when the duchess summoned her.
The maid who appeared in the breakfast room doorway was perfectly polite, and the message was delivered with all the graciousness one would expect from the Duchess of Ashworth's household. But there was a certain practiced blankness in the maid’s expression that had Estella setting down her tea and following quickly.
She found the duchess in the drawing room, seated in her usual chair with an expression of such studied calm that Estella's stomach immediately dropped.
Thea was there too, which was…unexpected. Thea was perched on the settee, looking as though she'd been invited for morning calls and had wandered into a tribunal by accident.
"Sit down, Miss Hale," the duchess said.
Estella sat.
"Miss Evermore has been telling me about your evening." The duchess looked to Thea pointedly before returning her gaze to Estella.
Thea’s smile was sheepish. "She asked where we'd been last night… I'm a terrible liar."
"You are an adequate liar," the duchess corrected. "But you were at a disadvantage as I already knew where my ward had been. And with whom. I was merely confirming the fact."
A silence fell. Estella’s mouth grew too dry to speak.
It had been utterly foolish to go. She’d known that from the start, but curiosity and a good deal of spite had overridden good sense.
But who had told the duchess? Had it been Sebastian? Or one of the footmen? Perhaps a maid?
The duchess took a sip of her tea as Estella’s mind raced.
"A gaming hell," the duchess said sharply. "Without a chaperone."
"I had Thea." The response came quickly, just as it had the night before.
And just like Mr. Gage the night before, the duchess turned to give Thea a quick look. Thea straightened under the scrutiny.
"Miss Evermore, you are…how old?"
"One and twenty, Your Grace."
"One and twenty, and unmarried. And apparently accustomed to roaming London unaccompanied by any guardian or chaperone?" the duchess said.
"I don't really have—" Thea started, then seemed to think better of it. "That is, my circumstances are somewhat?—"
