“I have to get back to Mrs. Crescent!” Her necklace chose that moment to stage its fall into her bosom and Sebastian promptly fished it out, letting his fingers delve into her cleavage. Then he flung it toward the grotto opening. The rain pummeled down sideways.
This was all her fault, the drug was too much for him. “Sebastian! Let’s go!” She raised her voice, but he locked her against the wall of the grotto with his arms and stifled her with a kiss, which, under normal circumstances, might have been exciting. But by nineteenth-century standards, such behavior was beyond shocking. So she did what any lady would do in her situation: she hiked up her gown, raised up her knee with superhuman force, and decked him. But good.
“Owww!” He doubled over in pain.
Chloe dashed toward the grotto opening—looking back at him—and wham—she collided right into Henry, who happened to be barreling through the entrance at that very moment. This time she was thrilled to see him.
“Excuse me, Miss Parker,” a soaked Henry said as he bent down to pick up her necklace and hold it up, the emerald dangling.
She reached out for it. “Thank you. I’m so glad to see you. I’m afraid I may have overmedicated your brother. He’s breaking all the rules!”
Henry shot a glance at Sebastian, then glared at her. “How much did you give him?”
“Two drops—that was it, Henry.”
Henry’s brows furrowed. “I never should’ve given you that laudanum. Come on, Sebastian. Get into the carriage. It’s pouring.”
Henry held his greatcoat over Chloe as she stepped into the rain and into gooey mud.
Drenched, she bent to step into the carriage, where Mrs. Crescent was already sitting, and slapping her closed fan in the palm of her hand like she was holding a constable’s nightstick. Sebastian lumbered in and promptly fell asleep. A raindrop slid down his nose and hung, poised on the tip of it.
Well, it was sure to be a date he’d never forget. Or had he already forgotten? Why did she give him that laudanum? It was a drug, after all. She had brought out his dark side, and now what? She couldn’t deal? Considering the fact that she managed to drug, and then deck, the bachelor heir, she’d surely be on the next plane out of here.
These questions taunted her that night as she thrashed around in her bed. Her flimsy mattress made crunching noises every time she moved. Instead of getting her beauty rest, she was agonizing over what to do next, until finally she determined to solve that damn riddle of a poem and search Grace’s room for items that she’d smuggled in. She needed proof if she was going to outwit Grace and win the money. Or was it to win over Sebastian? And maybe Henry’s good opinion?
The money. The man. The men! Would she consider stealing something from someone else’s room for money alone? She really didn’t want to fall for Sebastian or Henry, or worst of all, for both of them. That would complicate everything, her entire win-the-money-and-run plan.
Her last lingering thought before she fell asleep was to remember to have her chambermaid add more straw to the mattress. It felt like she was sleeping on a board, which, essentially, was exactly what she was doing.
The next morning, after Chloe once again inquired about any letters, hoping for news from Abigail, and after all the women had won five Accomplishment Points for painting a footstool, Grace was out horseback riding with Julia. So after taking her usual romp around the grounds trying to solve the impossible riddle Sebastian had given her, Chloe snuck into Grace’s very red, walnut-paneled, and humongous room, and rifled through the table in her dressing room. She wanted to find condoms and nail Grace with the evidence.
The room, with its wooden-beam ceiling and lead-paned casement windows, seemed more Gothic than Regency in style. A small fire glowed in the fireplace, and even though it was the beginning of July, the room was cold. But she had to find proof of Grace’s cheating, because this morning, as she put extra butter on her roll, the butler announced that there would be an Invitation Ceremony that very night at Dartworth after the women displayed their musical talents.
Her hands shook as she rummaged through Grace’s drawers, because she never did this kind of thing. Really.
When she used the bathroom in other people’s houses, she never even peeked in their medicine cabinets. She would feel guilty just opening the sink cabinet to look for toilet paper if it ran out.
She tugged at the lion’s-head pull to open the top drawer and it made a scraping noise. Her heart throbbed and she checked the door—still closed. Grace’s dressing table, capped in Italian marble and nearly twice the size of Chloe’s, had not only a bottle of rose water on it, but lavender water and orange water, too, plus a vase of fresh cabbage roses.
As her hands felt their way around in the drawer, she found all the expected things: hair ribbons, hair combs, and a—curling iron? She pulled it out. It wasn’t a curling iron. She pressed the “on” button. It started vibrating. It was a vibrator!
“Yuck!” She dropped it to the ground. It fell with a loud clunk, but kept vibrating right near the dressing-table leg carved into the shape of a lion’s paw. Chloe froze. Only her eyes jumped to the beaded silver doorknob. Nothing—yet.
Looking down at the flesh-colored plastic thing pulsing on the hardwood floor, she got the willies. How gross to know that she had turned on Grace’s vibrator!
Thank God she had her walking gloves on. She swooped down to pick the thing up and shut it off. How did Grace smuggle that in here? Chloe didn’t want to know.
With her gloved hand gripped around the vibrator, she looked in the ornate gilded mirror, about the size of a plasma TV, tilted on top of Grace’s dressing table. Henry’s spectacles, which she wore now whenever Sebastian wasn’t around, made her look like a spinster on steroids. And maybe she was. She didn’t own a vibrator. She didn’t even know how to hold it, exactly. It looked totally out of place in her hands—period clothing or not.
Her hazel eyes looked browner than ever, and under the thick glass of Henry’s spectacles, they appeared wider apart. Somehow, in the mirror in her room, as small and oval as her face, the glasses seemed okay. The poke bonnet with a straw crown and ruffled white trim completed the old-maid look. She frowned. Grace had already gotten a good laugh out of the glasses, and now Chloe could see why. She pulled the bonnet from her head, held it upside down, peeled back the ruffled cotton liner, and tucked the vibrator in. The poke bonnet had an extended crown, almost like a stovepipe, and quite a bit could fit into it. She opened the other two side drawers and found half a pack of cigarettes, teeth-whitening strips . . . eureka! The condoms! She tossed it all into the bonnet and eyed the doorknob.
Of course, the dressing table was way too obvious. Was there more? She peeked behind the tilted mirror, and something silver caught her eye. Reaching behind the mirror with her arm, she pulled out a foil packet of pills. Xanax? Weren’t those antianxiety pills? What could a beautiful, titled lady possibly have had anxiety attacks about? Please. She put them back, not wanting to see Grace off her meds. Sheesh!
She looked under Grace’s palatial canopy bed. Nothing. Chloe turned to the washstand, snooping around the linens. Grace had five walnut-sized soaps on her washstand. Five! Chloe pilfered one and stuck that in her bonnet, too. In the mahogany wardrobe that happened to be three times as big as Chloe’s, she found enough gowns to make a princess swoon and it was no wonder Grace never wore the same thing twice. She closed the wardrobe door and turned the ornate bronze key in the lock.
She opened each little drawer in the hutch above the writing desk and found a pink MP3 player! She popped that into her bonnet, too, then carefully squished the bonnet on her head, tied the ribbons under her chin, and glanced in the mirror. Amazingly, it didn’t look any clunkier on her than it had before she stuffed all those things in it. She scanned the room one last time before she turned to the door to go, but she heard Grace talking in the hallway.