Chapter Ten
Slowly—very slowly—Eliza openedthe back gate of Asquith House.
After a night of breathless, heart-pounding excitement, moving steadily enough to keep the hinges from announcing her presence to every sleeping groom in the stable took concentration.
She opened the door far enough to slip inside, and then she motioned to Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s coachman to carry on. The glossy black carriage pulled away as she slipped safely within.
She’d cleared her first hurdle.
Next, she shrugged out of the cloak she’d borrowed from a stable hand as she crept alongside of the mews house. After ducking in through the harness room door that had never latched properly, she returned the cloak to the same peg she’d taken it from.
Hurdle number two surmounted.
Emerging back into the garden, she tuned her ear to the sounds of the late night/early morning, seeking signs of life. She heard only crickets. Well, crickets and a single bird singing—to Eliza’s mind—loud enough to wake the entire household.
Foul fowl. Not dawn yet!
Then again, she’d no need to fret. She was home.
Well, not home. Willowhurst Manor had been home. Home to the Wainwright family since Norman times. Now, a stranger owned the old manor. Her step faltered as wave of grief rose unexpectedly. She steadied herself by casting her eyes upward and placing a calming hand over her stomach.
Silhouetted against a blue-gray sky, the dark, slanted eaves of Asquith House frowned down, as if chastising her for ingratitude. But even though her grandfather had been Lord Asquith, the present earl was but a distant relation. The Wainwright girls were there on the charity of his mother, Eliza and Cassie’s godmama.
Asquith House could never be home.
Taking one step at a time, she descended into the darkened door well that led to the kitchen. When the latch clicked closed behind her, she finally allowed herself to slump against the door jam.
Her weary body wanted nothing more than silence and a comfortable bed, and yet her mind raced like a coach purloined and driven by a member of the four-horse club, rattling perilously from thought to thought. To make things worse, every explanation of her adventures madly circling her consciousness held two contradictory truths.
She’d made a terrible mistake, yet she’d had the most thrilling night of her life. She was still chaste, yet she was also wanton. She was ruined, yet she had never felt so free. Redver had been as arrogant as expected, yet Redver had been attractive, intriguing, and even occasionally witty. She still hated the marquess, yet she longed to spar and challenge and, yes, lie with him again.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Nothing made any sense!
“Sssst!”
Eliza’s sister Millicent emerged from the darkness.
“Look who finally decided to return.”
“Heavens, Millie.” She curled a hand against her chest. “You scared the life out of me.”
“Not half as much as you’ve scared me! Just how long does it take to meet with the proprietress of a gaming hell? You’ve been gone for hours.”
“Hush, you! I had to cross London by foot.” As for everything else? Well, count that a lie of omission. “If I had known you would wait up for me, I would never have told you where I was going!”
“Oh, please. If I’d insisted on undertaking the same fool’s errand, you would have waited up for me.”
True. Her heart softened. In a world that had never been—and never would be—fair, her sisters had been her rock.
“Now come on before you get caught.” Millie grabbed her hand in the darkness. Together, they felt their way to the servants’ staircase.
Not the first time they’d snuck together through a place they shouldn’t have been. Mille, in fact, was a clandestine escape scholar. And, though Cassie was Eliza’s twin, she and Millie had always been the most daring of the group.
“Did anyone notice I was gone?” Eliza asked.
“Would have done. The whole house has been upside down all night. Grandmama barking contradictory orders at poor Mrs. Blanc, Mrs. Blanc directing the staff this way and that, passing on her own upset. Asquith flitting in and out, face as dark as a bat.”
Gah. She could picture the scene.
