Page 41 of The Devil's Accidental Duchess
“No, but now you’re just torturing yourself,” Zachary said. “You’re doing his work for him, even after he is dead and buried.”
Philip was about to say that his friend knew nothing about it and should keep his opinions to himself when another sound drew his attention to the door. A shadow disappeared behind the frosted windows.
The waiter? No, he would have entered and lingered awkwardly on the threshold. Or he would have waited outside.
Kicking back his chair, Philip went to investigate.
He opened the door and looked out, squinting up and down the hallway. There was nothing but the laughter and chatter of other gentlemen in the other rooms. No creak of a door to signal where someone might have gone to, no residual movement of shadows.
Yet, he was almost certain that someone had been out here, eavesdropping.
“What are you doing?” Zachary asked.
“There was someone here.”
Shaking his head, Zachary got up. “You are not at war anymore, old boy.” He gathered his coat and hat. “There are no enemies hiding in the hallways of a gentlemen’s club.”
“You doubt me?” Philip bristled.
AmI seeing things? Hearing things?
He would not have been the first soldier to suffer such visions and hallucinations after returning from war. Truthfully, he had thought himself impervious, but perhaps the strain of this wedding business was causing some cracks to show.
“I think you are still adjusting to ordinary life,” Zachary replied, patting his shoulder. “I’ll take my leave now.”
He walked by Philip and did not offer another word.
Apparently, Philip was getting rather good at chasing people away.
“Isn’t that better?” Lizzy reclined on the settee, her arm draped over her stomach.
On the low table between the settees in the drawing room lay the remnants of an evening feast: sweetmeats, cakes, anything and everything with an inordinate amount of sugar and butter. Plenty of tea—and a sneaky glass of port each—to wash it all down.
“It cannot be good for a person to indulge like that,” Melody groaned. “How is it that even though I have eaten a heartydinner, I still have room in my stomach for sweet things? I shall have to study that phenomenon.”
Selina, too, was struggling. “I never want to see another cake again.”
“The house is so much more peaceful when my brother isn’t in it,” Lizzy said. “Fun is permitted again. This manor has never been pleasant when there are men in it.”
A fleeting hardness in her voice drew Selina’s curiosity. Lizzy could and would talk at length about everything and nothing, yet when it came to life before her brother returned home, she was unusually tight-lipped. She neverspoke about her father, the man whom Selina’s father despised so much.
“You must have spent most of your time with your grandmother?” Selina prodded a little.
“At the dower house.” Lizzy sighed. “It was nicer there.”
“We should have invited your grandmother to join us.” Selina hadn’t seen anything of the lively, grey-haired woman today.
She had assumed that Lizzy’s grandmother lived in the manor—it was certainly large enough—but she supposed it made sense that the old woman would have a home of her own. A home that one day Selina herself might end up in.
Lizzy turned her head and flashed a smile. “That would have been lovely, but she wouldn’t have accepted. She retires to bed at seven o’clock.”
Twisting to look at the carriage clock on the wall, Selina gasped at the time. How could it possibly be almost midnight? It seemed they had only been at the lake two minutes ago.
Will Philip be gone until tomorrow?
She did not know how she felt about being in the manor without the Duke present. Maybe therewassomething to be said about a protective demeanor in a mate, especially out here in the countryside.
Clearly, she had read too many books about highwaymen and brigands and robbers. Rugged devils with handkerchiefs tied around their lower faces, hiding their identities, demanding a kiss from the young lady traveling alone in the carriage.
