Tiptoeing down the massive staircase, she was battling guilt over the thought of rousing Buttons to take her home—she’d learned her lesson about roaming London alone—when the servant emerged from the shadows to meet her at the bottom of the stairs.
“He’ll not like you sneaking off,” Buttons told her with a frown.
“Sneaking!” she whispered back, ignoring the prickle of her conscience. “I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m returning to my townhouse—where I belong.”
Buttons crossed his arms over his chest, looking remarkably intimidating for all his youth. “He’d want you to stay.”
“But it’s nearly morning.”
“Makes no matter.”
Irritable because Buttons was only enticing her toward what she already wanted—and knew she shouldn’t—Thea walked around him.
“Have it your way, Miss Thea.” He sounded aggrieved but turned to follow.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she grumped at him, ashamed of herself when she heard the complaint emerge. “And where’s my pelisse, do you know?”
“John will get it from Petie and bring it over later.”
That stalled her determined exodus. “Who?”
“Mrs. Peterson, the housekeeper,” he explained. “She hemmed the sleeves last night and I don’t dare barge in asking for it at this hour.”
Hemmed the sleeves? That marvelous man!
They were at the door. Buttons was big enough he could stop her if he chose.
“Please?” Thea said starkly, her gaze unwillingly drawn overhead to the ornate chandelier that graced the ceiling.
That fancy, expensive alliance of metal and glass only illustrated the difference in their stations. Her former ceiling, and the room she’d rented for months, had been water stained, smoke stained, and stained with the taint of the wretched hopelessness that had surrounded her on a daily basis.
She looked back at Buttons. “It’s not my place to be here when the household arises. Take me home before everyone in Lord Tremayne’s employ knows what I’ve done. Please?”
After a moment’s consideration, he nodded once. “Before we go, I need to tell John that we’re off. He had the first watch—that’s when I slept. I spelled him a while ago, figurin’ you’d try to sneak—er, leave early this morning.”
He turned to go but immediately swung back. “And you’re wrong, if I can say so without gettin’ my lugs boxed. Ever’one here likes you jus’ fine. Better than fine, I be thinkin’—because his lordship really likes you.
“There’s fewer servants here than what you’d figure for a house this size, but we’ve been with him for years, those of us there are. Long before he got the title. An’ we’re all fiercely loyal to him. Not jus’ because he pays us but because we choose to be. We care ’bout him.”
At this point during his startling and informative revelation, Buttons gave a light shrug. “He cared about most of us first. Petie? She worked the tavern near the Tremayne Estate, serving and cleaning and motherin’ all the local lads in Aylsham. Got turned out when she couldn’t hear no more, an’ after decades of hard work. When his lordship found out, he rode up to Norfolk and brought her here. I speak for ever’one when I say that you haven’t got any censure to fear, not from us.”
“No censure to fear…” Thea numbly repeated. It was easier to latch on to that particular phrase than the entire sentiment so eloquently and earnestly just expressed.
“Been workin’ on elongating an’ expanding my vocabulary,” Buttons said with a wink. “It impresses Sally Ann.”
During the wee hours of the night, the quiet, still times between energetic lovings when Thea had slept cradled in his arms, Daniel had remained awake, thoughts brimming, plans forming, words being chosen. Decisions made.
He’d lived for years with his father’s harsh disapproval. Some of his choices had been made to flaunt his defiance of the man’s authority; more had been made to hide his difficulty.
Well, no longer. He was a man in love with his mistress, and he was man enough to do something about it. But before he tracked down his missing woman, and gave her a lecture on absconding with nary a word—with her person and his heart—he had first a relative and then a shopkeeper to see.
Dawn found him approaching Ellie and Wylde’s townhouse from the mews, carefully picking his way through the rain-dampened ground. And not disappointed.
“Good,” he greeted his sister who was hunkered down in the garden picking through a patch of something. “You’re up.”
Elizabeth flew to her feet with a startled cry, hand going to her neck. “Daniel! Since when do you rise with the chickens?”
Since he awoke without Thea.
He felt his lips curve at the picture his sister made, wearing old, mud-smeared clothes, intent on bringing life up from the cold and dormant soil. “Always reminds me of Mama, seeing you thus.”
The fright left her gaze to be replaced with a flattered flush. “I love hearing you say so. I wish I could remember her.”
Laden with her gardening tools, Ellie took a slow step forward and blinked at him in the gloom. “I cannot fathom what brought you here—and so early!”
“Can we t-talk?”
His odd request had her stripping off gloves and setting down the trowel. “Certainly. Come in. I doubt breakfast is ready but I’ll have some tea brought— No? Why are you shaking your head?”
“I’ve ad-di-ditional errands,” he told her, taking her arm to steer them toward a bench he’d noticed beneath a leafy tree. “D-don’t want to run into Wylde. Just you this morning.”
“You’re here to take me to task for the opera, aren’t you?”
“Nothing of the sort.” Daniel had the sense they were being watched and craned his neck around.
“Trust me. He’s never up at this hour. I didn’t think you ever were either. Come, tell me what brings you here.”
They settled on the stone bench, Daniel’s gaze going to where he’d originally spotted his sister.
The smell of damp earth was strong. The growing cacophony of chirpy, whistling birds uplifting. As though they too wanted to sing in celebration of what he’d decided. Either that or they celebrated the cessation of rain.
“Daniel.” Chastisement was in her tone. “That’s the
