Elias braced his hands on a nearby desk. “Lady May tried her best to convince me to place my trust in Spencer. I thought it did not make sense, but she had me reassured so completely… Only for them to embrace. What do you say to that? Can you be sure it was not planned? How can you find no fault in him?”
“He is right. There is fault within me.”
Elias did not notice Spencer enter the room. Once more, he’d taken his place at Hannah’s side with most natural entitlement and spoke without sparing the duke as much as a glance. “I should have realized who she was sooner. Had I done so, this whole situation could have been avoided. The last thing I wish is to part you from your brother.”
“How were you to know? It was I who was meant to meet you in the darkness, and Cousin May came in wearing the perfume that I loaned her.”
“She’s no cousin of ours. Just a socialite who makes the affairs of others her business,” Elias interrupted absentmindedly, his mind snagging onto the only conclusion that mattered. If Spencer was speaking truthfully, then May had not summoned Elias to the room to make a fool of him. That fact toppled his chain of rational conclusions like dominoes. Elias’s throat tightened. He was wrong to judge her. And she… what was she doing in that room? What had she tried to tell him when he so viciously crucified her?
“I came here for you... to tell you...”
“While she is no cousin of yours, she most certainly is no socialite. She confessed to being a maid,” said Lord Spencer.
Nonsense.His friend’s recommendation was well-vetted.
“A maid? Surely not.” His sister’s words neatly reflected Elias’s denial.
“Why would she entrust you with such a revelation?”
Lord Spencer scratched his brow. “I gathered it was because she thought I was you.”
“Was there anything else, dearest?” Hannah sought her husband’s steadying hand.
He shook his head. “You’d have to ask her for more.”
Something in Elias gave in, his hopes soaring despite himself. Yes, he’d straighten this out, once and for all.
“I am afraid he can’t,” said Hannah, “as Lady May has already gone from this house.”
Elias found May’s rooms precisely as they were on the day he’d welcomed her. All the clothes were stacked neatly in the wardrobes, the bed made and unslept in, all belongings organized and in their place, except for their mistress. They were all the things he’d bought her, Elias realized with a start. She’d left them all behind, from the precious jewels to the nightgowns that were meant to mark her standing in this house.
Those were gifts, damn it, yet she abandoned them without qualms! If she wished to frustrate him, she was succeeding immensely. Of course, Elias had accused her of greed, insulted her sense of propriety and honor, only to find out she’d been blameless, but still—
A servant was passing the room, and Elias summoned her with a wave of his hand. “Know you anything of your mistress’s departure?”
The girl in front of him lowered her eyes, clearly intimidated by Elias’s brusque tone. He did not have time to be patient, not when the blasted woman hehadto see had run off, leaving him not even a surname to pursue.
“No, milord, only that she’d left on foot in the night.”
On foot! In the night! The words slashed him like a saber. She couldn’t get away fast enough. Elias’s mind whirled with the possibilities, each one worse than the last.
“Wearing what?” By heaven, she would make him lose what was left of his sanity. “All of her clothes are still here.”
“She…”
“Speak, damn it.”
“She asked for a spare maid outfit, milord.”
Indeed, May was blameless, in all but one lie.
A maid. How was this possible? How could he not have known?
What a damn fool he was, a thousand times over.
Elias dismissed the shaking maid and spun around the room, looking for any trace, however small, left by the very woman he couldn’t evict from his heart. There was nothing to mark her departure but a bundle of the very clothes she’d worn to their meeting yesterday, resting on a chest of drawers. A stitch frayed on the side seam, perhaps betraying the haste in which she’d torn down the clothing to take her leave. Elias lifted the clothes up to his face, inhaling the aroma. It was as his sister said: the loaned lavender perfume emanated from the dress, but deeper beneath it rested the smell of orange blossom and vanilla that he’d come to adore so much. His fingers tangled in the muslin, and the dress unfurled. With it, a single torn piece of paper drifted to the carpet.
Elias retrieved it, bringing it to the window for examination. It seemed to be a note of some sort, the kind that shopkeepers used. Only the bottom quarter survived. He pushed back the glasses, struggling to make out the cursive sprawling across a hand-drawn table.
