“Just after he stormed the parlor for the third time, Godmama summoned both you and Cassie—”
Eliza jerked to a stop. “Pardon?”
“Oh, settle down. No one discovered you were absent. Cassie pretended to be you.”
Eliza winced. “How? She was prostrate when I left.”
“Necessity is a miracle worker, apparently. She dried her eyes and pinched her cheeks and went downstairs haughty as you please. She told Godmama, pretending to be you, that ‘Cassie’ couldn’t possibly come down, and that ‘you’ needed to be with ‘her’ alone and would not tolerate her being disturbed.”
“I’m astonished Cassie dared.”
“Be glad she did! One scandal a night is more than enough. Imagine what would have happened if they’d discovered you’d run out into the London night on your own.”
“I was trying to fix the situation!”
Millie shrugged. “Well, so was Asquith.”
“Did he talk to the Patronesses?”
“No, he’s leaving the Patronesses to his mama.”
“Then where did he go?”
“If you’d let me finish—” Millie yanked Eliza’s arm—“I will tell you. First, he retrieved Lord Neville from whatever dull amusement he’d been indulging in.”
Good God. She’d seen Neville in the gaming room last night, meaning Asquith had been to the Lyon’s Den. What if she’d run into him there?
“Then,” she continued, “together, they went in search of Harbury. Rather clever of Asquith to involve Harbury’s pompously dull cousin, don’t you think? I never have understood Lenora’s infatuation with Asquith, but, tonight, he showed pluck I’d never suspected.”
“Do you mean to say Asquith challenged Harbury?”
“Not publicly. My understanding is that he merely threatened the duke. Harbury would never have agreed to meet at dawn with the shame of having his own cousin playing Asquith’s second hanging over his head.”
Eliza shivered, forgetting that she, too, had intended to challenge Harbury.
She’d narrowly missed discovery three times this evening. Not only had her godmother summoned her presence, but Asquith had also been to the Lyon’s Den.
And what if Harbury had taken up Asquith’s challenge?
No doubt he’d have chosen Redver for a second. Harbury might have sought Redver at the Lyon’s Den and caught them together in bed.
Eliza bit her bottom lip.
Right now, Asquith could have been charging his way to Putney Heath for insult to both Wainwright twins.
Curse her temper! How foolish she’d been.
“By the way,” Millie continued, “you owe the pin money jar.”
“What for?”
“Dipped in on your behalf. Had to pay off the stable hand whose cloak you stole. Nettie and I just happened to be in the kitchen when he stomped in from the stables about to raise a stop-thief alarm. Put out, he was, even after I explained his coat had merely been borrowed. Howled on and on about girl-smell until I exchanged the shilling I’d just given him for a crown.”
“Why were you and Nettie in the kitchen?”
Mille snorted. “Stealing the last of cook’s apple tarts, of course.”
Her youngest sister Annette had a penchant for sweets—especially in times of conflict and uncertainty. The last two years had been nothing but uncertainty.
