How to Marry an Earl (A Cinderella Society 1)

Chapter Four

Persephone bore the rest of the evening as long as she could after Priya, Tamsin and Meg returned to the duke’s house. Which, to be fair to her grandmother’s irritated glare burning the back of her neck, wasn’t very long at all.

But standing on the edge of conversations was depressing. She’d quietly listened when blatant historical inaccuracies were bandied about (which was as difficult as suddenly learning to fly). Shoulders were turned her way again and again. She’d made this particular bed and she would lie in it for the rest of her life, despite what her grandmother thought. And she wasn’t particularly sorry. Her infamy had granted her the only thing she’d truly wanted: independence to pursue her studies. She would take the snubs and the cold dismissive glances, but she wouldn’t dine on them. Not when there were so many more important things to do, like find a way to absolve Henry. Why hadn’t he arrived home yet? Where was he?

She couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. Not by discourtesy, and certainly not by sudden kisses in the dark. They threatened to erase everything else in her brain. She eased out of the drawing room and then into a dash to put as much distance between her and the others as she could before someone caught her.

Unfortunately, someone else had the very same idea. A young woman hurried down the hall from the back terrace doors, glancing behind her.

They crashed spectacularly.

It was a fumble of lace and ribbons. Persephone skidded on her leather-soled dancing slippers. They toppled, arms flailing. The other woman somehow got her feet under her and steadied them both. “I beg your pardon,” she said with a nervous smile.

“It’s my fault, I’m sure,” Persephone caught her breath. She was manifestly dreadful at this spying business. She who was usually so unnoticeable. The irony of it was annoying. “I was galloping like a camel.”

“Not at all.”

“Ivy!” A red-faced man bellowed from the drawing room doorway.

The lady, Ivy, flinched. “I must go.”

Persephone took the stairs two at a time, pausing on the landing to glance down. She caught a glimpse of another gown, trimmed with violets coming from around the same corner. Lady Culpepper would not be pleased. She did not hold with unchaperoned ladies and her halls were on the way to becoming a proper thoroughfare.

Persephone darted across the landing and up the rest of the steps. Instead of turning toward the guest rooms, she went to the family quarters. The guests would be busy for a couple more hours at the very least. There were card games to be played, brandy to be drunk, inappropriate flirting to be had. Especially with Conall.

She ducked into Henry’s bedroom where the mint green coverlet and silver tassels bordering the canopy were so familiar, tears burned in her throat. They’d read contraband books under that blanket, since Lady Culpepper didn’t approve of novels in general and gothic novels in particular. They’d shared pots of chocolate and secrets and dared each other to do foolish things like climb too high in the apple trees or chase down snakes in the cowshed. She bought him that ridiculous bear figurine when they were eleven and he’d been determined to sail to Canada to fight bears. Or ride them into battle.

Persephone froze at the creak of floorboards outside the door.

Instinct had her rolling under the bed, beads popping off her hem. The frame dipped in the back; they’d hidden there when playing hide-and-seek. She didn’t fit as well as she used to, and she had to pinch her nose against a sneeze when dust wafted up around her.

She was probably overreacting. It was no doubt someone seeking a private place for an assignation. And yet she stayed where she was, peering through the tassels at the moonlight falling over the floor. Heels tapped loudly, cracking glass beads against the floorboards. Black gentleman’s trousers blocked the moonlight. Persephone held her breath.

The man crouched, the tassels swinging as he reached under the bed. For what exactly, Persephone didn’t know. She couldn’t see his face. His evening wear could have belonged to any of the men at the party and he wore no distinguishing rings. He brushed the edge of her hem, and she shrank back further against the wall.

She wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, but she didn’t want to be questioned in a gentleman’s bedroom. Even if it was just Henry’s.

And was the man framing Henry for treason? She wanted to see his face.

She tried to contort her neck in order to catch a glimpse but there were only shadows and polished shoes such as any of the guests might wear. There was the sound of desk drawers opening, of a wardrobe being inspected.

Something was definitely afoot. It was too much a stretch of the imagination to think Henry’s missing letters, Henry’s missing person in fact, and someone investigating his room were not connected. She’d promised Henry she wouldn’t launch her own investigation or search party. She’d lied, of course.

Still, it seemed a bad idea to give herself away.

She inched close to the edge of the bed frame. There was an impatient huff and then footsteps stalking out of the door and into the hall. Persephone shimmied free as fast as she could, which was not as easy as it might have seemed. By the time she had sprinted to the door, the bedroom was empty and so was the hallway. The flame of an oil lamp flickered but it was the only indication someone might have passed this way. She brushed herself clean, annoyed, and worried in equal measures. If she was going to save Henry, she was going to have to start doing a better job of it.

She did not see the shadow watching her from the darkness of the servant stairs.

It was nosurprise that Persephone couldn’t sleep. Scenarios chased through her head, each more dire than the last. Her grandmother was always pointing out Persephone’s morbid turn of imagination. But she felt justified in this case. Treason was punishable by hanging, followed by being drawn and quartered. Up until last year before the laws had changed, he would have been drawn and quartered while still alive. And his body parts would have been boiled in salt and cumin to keep the birds from eating them when they were displayed on the street.

Her penchant for researching and gathering details was not always helpful.

Either way, she wouldn’t see Henry hanged, not for any reason, but especially not as a falsely accused scapegoat.

As the house settled into quiet and darkness, Persephone decided she may as well get up. She knew which steps creaked, where the footmen were likely to linger, and where the kitchen cat tended to curl up when he escaped. She made her way to the library out of long habit. A small fire still burned in the grate, glinting off gilt lettering painted onto leather book spines and off silver candlesticks. She picked up an arrow from a display niche, testing the rusted tip with her finger. A notecard with faded ink claimed it was shot at the house during the Civil war.

“I’m not sure I believe that,” Conall remarked.