Page 47 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Wonderful, growing so fast,” she said, when she looked at him for one more moment.

“We should call,” Hugo said. “While you’re in London. Are you at Rathbourne House?”

“Yes,” he said, and he suddenly found his eyes searching for Birchall. “Or better yet, perhaps we may pay a call on you… to see the children.”

“That would be lovely! I shall invite my aunt, too.” Lily said it simply, in the way of someone who meant things. “It is good to see you, Frederick.”

“And you,” he said, and meant it.

He shook Hugo’s hand again and moved back toward his position along the wall, and thought about what it was like to know people well enough to have that kind of exchange and not need the length of it.

CHAPTER 18

Frederick noticed it at the far end of the second hour.

He had been watching for Birchall. Not continuously, not in any way that would suggest he was watching. He kept track of things in a room that required tracking. He knew where Birchall was the way a person knows where a window is without turning to look at it.

And then Birchall was not there.

Frederick looked at the terrace doors, which were both closed. He looked toward the main entrance, which he could see from his position. Neither yielded anything. Then, he moved to the side of the room and found a footman whom he sensed had been doing this a very long time and had good peripheral vision.

“The man I was watching,” Frederick said quietly as he handed him a few coins. “Near the terrace an hour ago. Tall. Dark evening coat. He has left?”

The footman, who had the discretion of his profession, said, “Approximately fifteen minutes past, Your Grace. He called for his carriage on the south side.”

Frederick said, “Thank you,” and felt something settle in his chest that was not calm.

Fifteen minutes.

He stood for a moment and thought about it. He was perhaps being unreasonable. Birchall left a ball. Men left balls. Men left early for any number of reasons, for cards, for a supper engagement elsewhere, for tiredness or indifference, for a brothel. It was not anything of consequence.

Except… Birchall stared at me twice. AtRacheltwice.

He had looked at both of them with the focused attention of a man who was not simply being sociable.

Rathbourne House is three streets away, and Anna is there.

He was moving before he had finished the thought. He came along the edge of the room and found Thomas in conversation with a redheaded woman near the refreshment table, which took only thirty seconds to locate because Thomas was usually near something either interesting or drinkable.

“Frederick.” Thomas registered his face, and the woman ceased to exist, at least temporarily. He turned to her with a briefapology she received with the grace of someone who knew exactly what she was looking at, and then he was beside Frederick. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Birchall left fifteen minutes ago. His carriage went south.” Frederick kept his voice level. “I need someone to take Rachel home.”

Thomas’s face did not change in any dramatic way. It went still and calm, in the manner of a man who had received information and reorganized accordingly. “Go. I’ll bring her home,” he said.

“She is not to know immediately that I have gone.” He was already looking across the room. “I don’t want her alarmed. She can be told I had a headache.”

“Rachel will believe your headache when she is shown the medical certificate,” Thomas said, which was accurate. “But I will manage it. I’ll find Lady Oldbarrow, she’s in the card room. Go.”

He was down the stairs and through the entrance hall and out the front door before the footman had fully registered his intention. He did not wait for the carriage. It was three streets and the night was cold, and he moved through it in the way of a man with somewhere specific to be.

The lights of Rathbourne House were visible before he had turned the last corner. He walked faster.

Please be all right, Anna.

Anna liked that Rathbourne House was quieter than others she had visited in London, a tribute to the Duke’s efficiencies. It was even quieter than Derbyshire, or perhaps in a different way.

At Rathbourne Hall, there was the quiet of open country and more space, land and sky absorbing sound. Here the quiet was intentional, thick walls and good carpets holding the city at bay, so that the noise of the street arrived muffled. She had come to find it peaceful.