“Mrs. Bailey.”
Anne spun around.
Not five feet from her stood a tall, brown-haired man, his clothing fine but verging on threadbare. His brilliant blue eyes shone with intelligence, and though he never took his gaze from her, he seemed acutely aware of his surroundings, as if sensing enemies all around. At his side was a young woman of exotic origin, her skin dusky, her eyes as black as her hair. Like the man, the exotic girl had an air of wariness about her. They had the guarded manner of fugitives.
Though Anne did not recognize the girl, she knew the man by reputation alone.
Her voice came out little more than a croak. “Lord Whitney.”
Chapter 6
The street had been empty, yet Lord Whitney and his companion had just noiselessly appeared. “My ... my husband is not at home.”
“It’s you we want to speak with,” said the young woman. Large golden hoops hung from her ears, necklaces draped around her neck, and rings adorned her fingers. Anne had never been this close to a Gypsy in her life, though she had seen them at Bartholomew Fair doing trick riding and telling fortunes.
“Time is in short supply.” Lord Whitney stepped closer, and Anne took an instinctive step back.
“Time for what?”
“To warn you.”
Unease crawled up Anne’s neck. “Truly, perhaps you should return when Leo is home.”
“Leo is the one you should be afraid of.”
Anne did not like the alert tension in Lord Whitney’s stance, nor the way the Gypsy woman kept glancing around the street. Perhaps the Gypsy was ill, for her body gave off a tremendous amount of heat. Perhaps both the woman and Lord Whitney were both ill, for they had a kind of fever in their eyes.
“He has been nothing but kind to me,” Anne said.
Lord Whitney and the Gypsy exchanged speaking glances. “She doesn’t know,” said the Gypsy.
“Know what?” Anne’s anxiety gave edge to her temper. “These riddles you speak are tiresome.”
“Leo has—” Lord Whitney broke off when the front door opened.
Anne turned to see Meg standing at the top of the stairs, an Indian shawl in hand. “Madam?”
Glancing back at Lord Whitney and his companion, Anne jolted in surprise when she found no sign of them.
“Did you see them?” Anne asked when Meg came down the steps.
“I heard you speaking with someone, but when I came out, you were alone.” The maid’s forehead wrinkled in concern as she draped the shawl around Anne’s shoulders. “Are you well, madam?”
Anne pressed a hand to her forehead. Had she just imagined that entire bizarre conversation? Manufacturing Lord Whitney—a man she barely knew—and a Gypsy woman—whom she knew not at all? If she had invented that scenario, she could not understand where the details came from, nor why she would construct the person of a Gypsy out of her own imagination.
Perhaps I’m the one with fever.
“I do not know.” She pulled the shawl close around her shoulders.
Carriage wheels rattling broke the street’s silence. The footman ran beside a hackney coach, and he smiled with ruddy-faced pride at his work when both he and the vehicle stopped in front of the house.
“The missus isn’t going to need that.” Meg deflated the footman’s satisfaction. “She’s ill, and must have rest.” Realizing her presumption, the maid turned to Anne. “That’s right, isn’t it, madam?”
Anne did not feel sick in the slightest, yet she must be, to believe she had conversed with people who were not truly there. And she had had that peculiar incident earlier in the drawing room, that sense of being watched. This morning had been a collection of eldritch moments. “Yes. I think I will lie down.”
The footman looked crestfallen as Meg led Anne up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, before going inside, Anne glanced back out to the street. Movement near the mews caught her eye, yet when she peered closer, all she saw were shadows caused by shifting clouds. Shaking her head at the strange convolutions of her mind, she went inside.
Meg lit candles against the onset of darkness. Yet as soon as the maid left Anne’s chamber, the same thing happened. One by one, the candles went out. Not wanting to summon Meg for something she could easily accomplish on her own, Anne tried to relight the candles, but they continued to extinguish themselves. She checked the windows. They remained secure. The door to her chamber stayed closed. There were no drafts, no gusts. Again, she had the oddest sensation that something, someone blew the candles out. Yet she was completely alone.
On the third try, the candles stayed lit, as though whoever had blown them out either left or grew weary of their labors. She gazed around the room, uneasy.
Full dark fell by the time Anne heard Leo’s footsteps on the stairs. She set her book aside as he entered the bedchamber, looking slightly windblown yet striking nonetheless.
Seeing her reclining in bed, he took long strides until he stood beside her.
“What ails you?” He sat down and, frowning with concern, took her hand between his.
“Nothing. A momentary complaint.” Indeed, after spending the remainder of the day in bed, with the walls of the chamber—of the house itself—close about her, restlessness danced through her. She barely remembered the incident outside the house, and now began to wonder if all of it had been some strange, momentary folly brought about by too little sleep and too much idleness.
Yet Leo was solicitous. “I’ll fetch a physician.”
“It isn’t necessary. Truly, Leo, if there was a crisis, it has passed.” He looked skeptical, but she could be as obstinate as he, when required. She tried for a diversionary tactic. “I hope your day of trade and commerce proved fruitful.”
If she had not been studying the angles and contours of his face, she might have missed the slight movement of his gaze—the barest flick to the side. But her husband was at all times a subject of fascination, and so she did see this tiny movement, and could only wonder what it meant.
“A hectic day.” He smiled, and pressed her hands closer within his.
It was not precisely an answer, but she decided not to push for specifics, since she did not want an accounting of her own actions today. They would maintain a mutual blindness.
As they gazed at each other, realization crept over them both. The last time they had been in each other’s company, he had kissed her. The kiss resonated now like unheard music, the beat of a drum steady and compelling beneath the silence. Her gaze drifted to his mouth, just as his did to hers. Both of them wondering, each asking themselves, Did that truly happen? Could it happen again?
Beneath his hands, the pulse in her wrists quickened.
He released his clasp of her hands. As if to distract himself from the potential of his wife in bed, he glanced over to the small table beside the bed. Extending his long body so that he stretched over her, he took hold of some of the squares of thick paper piled there. His body spread warmth through hers as his torso brushed hers.
He straightened, his cheek darkening beneath golden stubble. Riffling through the cards, he read aloud. “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bingham. Sir Frederic and Lady Wells. The Lord and Lady Overbury humbly request the honor of your presence.” He looked up at her, baffled. “What are these?”
“Calling cards. Invitations. Sending them is rather a mania for Society. The cards arrive every morning, especially after a wedding. Have you never received them?”
“Some requests to dine from business associates but not this. Never anything so ... reputable.” He seemed unused to speaking such a word.
She laughed. “My nefarious respectability. I am afraid you may have caught it from me, like fever.”