Page 33 of Desperately Seeking Seduction

Winston smiled, remembering how exasperating the man could really be. Clearly, despite his flaws, Stratford was universally adored. Winston just hoped she’d not gone and ruined that for him.

She ate her fill and then excused herself from the cook.

“We take care of our own, below stairs. Whatever nonsense is going on upstairs should not affect you again,” Mrs. Derry promised, and then cocked her head, clearly listening. “You run along now, it’s about to get busy again.”

Winston heard the rush of feet and turned for the hall. Footmen and maids flooded into the hallway from all directions ahead of her. They were rushing for the front of the house, which meant someone else was arriving at the palace. Winston was swept along with them into a servants-only passageway but managed to step into a man-sized niche in the wall just before she reached the front hall, where the activity was at its most frenetic.

From this vantage point, she could see the library was located directly opposite her position. A traveling carriage could be seen through the open doorway and palace footmen were filing out to receive the guests. The maids peeked through the front hall windows and then headed back the way they’d come. “No ladies in the carriage. Only men again this time,” Nan remarked, clearly disappointed, as they passed Winston by headed back to the servants’ hall. “Did you hear who it was?”

“I heard the butler say it was no one the duke could have invited,” Milly told her. “That list was complete days ago.”

Winston became curious about the uninvited guests and held her spot a moment before deciding she would have a better view from within the library. She could always dust something if questioned about why she was there.

The front hall was momentarily empty, and Winston moved swiftly, slipping across the parquetry floor, and ducking inside the library undetected. There was no one there at the moment, so she pushed the door shut in the hope it might stay that way. From the library front window, she glimpsed a fine black traveling carriage and a large young man emerging to be greeted by the palace butler, Seymour. The uninvited guest seemed young and obviously well-off, judging by the quality of his greatcoat and the shine on his boots. Given the way he looked down his nose at the butler, he was clearly part of higher society.

Winston drew back, deciding there was nothing more out there to interest her and turned to take in the room. The duke’s library was massive, the largest she’d ever dreamed could exist. Books were stacked to the roof upon shelves and piled high on other surfaces, too.

If Winston were younger, and not a servant, she’d want nothing more than to stay in this room forever, reading every single volume. Learning from pages instead of out there in the world was a damn sight easier.

She scouted the room, looking for anything that might give a clue as to where books on the peerage might be found. She found one such volume resting upon a walnut lectern, open as if it had just been perused. Taking special care to note the exact page, she flicked back to the front to look up her own ancestors. Her father had not been titled but they were distantly connected to a duke, and she had once been called upon to recite those ancestors names by heart.

Her father had been so proud his own name had been listed in such an important book, along with his wife’s and his son.

Winston ran her finger down the entries until she found her father, Mr. Edwin Joseph Aston. Married to Josephine Taylor. Their son, Edwin Neil Aston, born eight years after they married. But there was no mention of any deaths.

Winston flicked to the front of the volume to look at the year of printing, assuming it must be an old edition not to have the deaths recorded.

“This year’s edition,” she whispered to herself. “That should have been enough time.”

Mama had drowned in the carriage accident that had separated Winston from her father. Clearly, the news of the younger Edwin Aston’s demise had also failed to reach the publishers for this edition, too. But it had been ten years since the accident. The day she’d run away from everything she’d ever known, hoping Father would assume she had perished in the river along with Mama. Father must not have sent the notices.

There was no telling why he hadn’t done so. He should have been glad to be rid of her and mama, too.

She put the volume back exactly as she had found it, open to the right place, and headed for the library doors. But once there, she heard voices in the entrance hall and froze with her hand on the knob. Carefully, she put her eye to the crack and, seeing nothing on the other side, slowly eased the door open a tiny bit to see who was there.

The first thing she saw was the expanse of a gentleman’s expensive black great coat. The man she had seen standing beside the carriage out front, talking with Seymour.

“I shall want an audience as soon as he returns,” an old man said, his voice rasping over her entire body and giving her an unexpected shock.

Winston knew that voice.

Had known it as well as her own once.

She drew back, gulped, and then quickly put her eye back to the gap again, hoping she was mistaken.

The large form of the younger new arrival blocked her view of the hall entirely.

“Of course, sir. It shall be an honor to arrange an interview,” Seymour promised him.

“See that you do. Come along, son.”

Winston snapped to attention and had to firm her grip on the door handle to hold herself in place. She had instinctively wanted to obey that old man’s voice.

Her father’s voice.

The fellow blocking her view suddenly stepped away—and Winston was looking directly into the face of her own personal nightmare. She froze, standing there watching a man she’d hoped never to see again through the small opening in the door. He was much older, but she’d know that face anywhere.

Her father was right there in front of her.