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Why would he keep something like this? Does he know who I am? No, no, it’s just a coincidence. It must be.
“We should go, Milady,” Fenella’s words interrupted her thoughts. “If you wish to, of course. This isn’t a room I’m usually allowed in…”
“Oh, I don’t want you getting in any trouble. We should…leave.” The two of them staggered over to the exit, and Eloise drew a sigh of relief as the candlelight from the corridor crossed her skin.
“Are you feeling ill? Your face…it’s quite pale,” Fenella said in concern.
Eloise bit her lip to stop it from quivering. She was feeling many things. Her mind was playing tricks on her, forcing her back to a time where she was most vulnerable; that ball, that man, the snickering, all those eyes tormenting her…
“I’m not,” she lied. “It was just so…cold in there, was it not?” She wrapped her arms around her body to sell the illusion a little better.
The young maid shrugged and then locked the door behind her as Eloise looked back with a hesitant smile, her eyes welling up. Fenella continued down the hallway at snail’s pace, Eloise following closely behind.
In leery silence, she followed the maid in and out of a few, largely forgettable rooms, all marred by the experience of what had just occurred, until they reached the end of a hallway.
It had been four years since her debut. Four years and it was still imprinted in her memory with no way of escaping it. She couldn’t find a suitor, which never truly bothered her, but one day a man appeared to be interested in her. He was handsome, perhaps one of the handsomest Lords of London, and although his rank wasn’t high—she never cared about rank—he was wealthy and charming. Sir George Maxwell. She shuddered.
“Milady, this is His Grace’s study,” Fenella said, “He isn’t present at this moment, and I was instructed to attend to a small matter. I can escort you to the drawing-room if you so wish.”
Eloise dipped her head, pushing the memories aside once more. And with one hand clenched behind her back, holding that column like a forbidden treasure, she stumbled inside the study. The cozy fizzle of a crackling fireplace reached her ears as an empty chair lay behind an oak desk, awaiting its owner. Canyons of large bookcases encircled the room, leaving behind them patches of dark maroon walls in spaces that weren’t being covered. As she advanced over a Persian carpet, she could not help but think back to Kate’s earlier comments; perhaps this rake really was an intellectual.
But that train of thought disappeared as quickly as it emerged, as Fenella took out a feather duster and moved toward the towering bookcases.
“I simply need to dust off some cobwebs, I won’t be too long.”
Eloise nodded reflexively as she strolled around the room, taking in the sights. With a universe’s knowledge at his disposal, how was he not so easily lured in to engage with all this literature? She ran her fingers against the spines of books ordered by color and size, before reaching the desk at the back end of the room, and remembering why she was so keen to see his study in the first place.
“His Grace seems awfully picky with how he arranges his rooms,” she said, as her eyes searched for out-of-place papers that could possibly be the list of attendees she so desperately desired to get her hands on ever since last night.
“I wouldn’t say picky, decisive would be the more fitting term,” a rich voice spoke from behind her. It was Simon.
