Servants hurried to clean the rooms before dawn painted magenta lines across the horizon. Mrs. Darling prostrated herself on the drawing room settee. Mr. Darling sipped port and wandered the house while Miss Karel lugged an unconscious Fitz up the staircase.
Cadwallader Park seemed dead without its horde of partiers. A dense quiet settled within the manor, conclusive like stage curtains drawn together after a performance. The Darlings praised their staff, then bid good night to their residential guests.
Elias waited until everyone retired to their chambers, and then he sneaked up the servants’ stairwell. Josephine met him in the east wing corridor. They squeezed into a niche to avoid being seen.
“You won’t change your mind?” Josephine lolled against the moulded wall, her figure a dark silhouette. She grabbed Elias’s lapel and pulled him close.
“Not a chance.” Elias leaned forward and kissed her slowly as though to memorize her lips. He closed his eyes, a shiver washing through him as her fingers traced the back of his neck.
“I’m not easy to live with,” she whispered. “I can be rather messy and scatter-brained. Sometimes I leave chocolate smears on furniture. Mum hates it. Really, I try to clean up after myself but . . . I’m not sure how it happens. The chocolate seems to come from nowhere.”
“We’ll hire a good maid,” Elias said with a laugh.
Josephine perched on her toes and kissed him again. “I love you,” she breathed. “I didn’t say it earlier, but I do. You’re ridiculous—”
“A common misperception.”
“Shush.” Her smile widened. “Can’t you see I’m trying to be sincere?”
“Oh, I thought you were stalling so I wouldn’t kiss you again.” Elias snickered. He liked their banter, more so who he became in her company.
“Believe me. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I kissed you.” Josephine rested her cheek against his chest. Her words seemed unreal, too good to be true. But they were true. She loved him. One day she’d marry him. Elias wouldn’t throw rice at the wedding—he would run through it. He would hold their firstborn, live alongside Josephine.
And he would handle it all perfectly well.
“I’ll speak with Sebastian.” Elias pecked her cheek and stepped out of the niche. He glanced up and down the hallway to ensure their solitude. Regardless of the late hour, someone might emerge from a bedroom and see them.
“Now? It’s four in the morning,” Josephine said with a groan. She reached for Elias’s arm, perhaps to draw him back into the nook.
“The ball put Sebastian in high spirits. He may respond well if I talk to him now,” Elias said. “I want to go about this in an honourable fashion. The sooner I settle matters with my family, the sooner we can announce our engagement.”
Josephine nodded and tiptoed from the shadows. “Elias . . .” Her voice cracked. “Kiss me in the morning so I’ll know this wasn’t a dream.”
He smiled, his eyes prickling with tears. “Every morning. For all my mornings.”
The east wing corridor seemed peculiar to Elias, elongated like one of the footpaths that snaked across the moors. He crept toward Sebastian’s bedchamber, careful to muffle his footsteps on the carpet runner. Any sound might alert his aunt, who suffered bouts of insomnia.
Moonlight trickled into the passage from a window, crisscrossing the floorboards with lattice shadows. Beyond the pane, snow fell in giant flakes. At least the storm had withheld its fury until after the ball. Due to the ice and drifts, no one would be able to leave Cadwallader Park for days unless they departed on horseback. Even that seemed a risk.
Elias lifted his chin and sucked in a breath, his eyelids dipping from exhaustion. He reviewed his spiel—the monologue he prayed would persuade Sebastian to release Josephine from their betrothal. Surely Sebastian would jump at the chance to escape his parents’ wishes. He could return to London, marry an impish lady who enjoyed his misbehaviour. Despite what he’d said in the mirror maze, he didn’t care about Josephine.
No man in love ignored the girl he loved.
A wave of nausea swept through Elias when he reached the room. Once he made his intentions known, he would have to live with the outcome no matter the cost.
Voices drifted from the chamber. Elias froze, his body paralyzed by the sound. Who had Sebastian welcomed into his bedroom so late at night?
Elias nudged the door ajar.
Sebastian stood near the wardrobe, still clad in his evening wear. A woman lingered close to him, whispering, her gracile arms draped around his neck. She fingered his auburn curls and glanced over his shoulder, her gaze settling on the cracked door.
Elias staggered backward. He shook his head. No, no, there had to be an explanation. What he saw didn’t make sense.
Widow De Clare looked at Elias as though she’d seen a ghost. She resembled Josephine in the face, but her eyes bore a wicked gleam. Indeed, she was beautiful in a dangerous sort of convention, one that could be hidden beneath grey-and-black clothes.
A breath grated in the back of Elias’s throat. He hadn’t paid attention to Widow De Clare at the ball. If he had, he would’ve noticed that instead of mourning clothes, she wore a sage-green ball gown adorned with lace and embroidered flowers. The garment must have cost at least six pounds, an expense too great for a destitute widow.
Josephine wore her red dress to all gatherings, for she couldn’t afford a new frock.
“Tell me it’s not true,” Elias wheezed. He stared through the doorway, a frame around the portrait of a woman and her daughter’s fiancé.
Sebastian rushed to block the door. “Do not breathe a word of this,” he growled. His eyes flashed a threat before he shut the panel and snapped its deadbolt into place.
Elias panted as darkness grew thick around him. He tugged his cravat. He sagged against a wall and slid to the floor. All
