Page 54 of A Torn Allegiance
She studied him and then shook her head. “We don’t have anything like that around here. All I got is this bit of floor.” She turned from him toward the front door. “And that space only until daylight.”
“I understand. Thank you.” Hayes stood still in indecision.
The woman returned to her seat near the door. Did she wait for strangers to knock? Or was she on watch to keep those inside the house safe? Hayes would not forget her kindness or that of Ruthers, but he was also determined to leave this place. He couldn’t spend the night away, lest Bartholomew and his brothers become alarmed, but as he moved out of the room, toward the front door, the woman shook her head again. “Once you’re in, you stay. I’ll let you out again in the morning.”
Hayes stood taller. “Am I a prisoner?”
She didn’t answer.
A quick glance over her told him he could easily overpower her and leave, but what didn’t he know? Was she armed? Who else was in this house?
“Wilhelm,” Ruthers called from inside the room. “Come back in here. Get some sleep. Ye’re better here than on the street.”
Hayes returned to the room. “What is this place?”
“It’s a place of refuge, if ye’ve the right friends.”
“And these friends are good people?”
Ruthers didn’t answer. Hayes didn’t know why he asked; he had no idea what sort of person Ruthers was, but he seemed a decent enough fellow to show him a place to stay for the night. Unless he and the woman planned to rob him. But if they had such a plan, wouldn’t they have done so already?
He lowered himself to the floor. “In the morning?”
“When it’s light, ye’ll find hacks up and down the main street, and ye can make yer way back to the swells.” His voice took on a bitter tone, and Hayes was keenly aware that though Ruthers had a safe place this evening, he had been planning on a cold evening out on the street, under a heap of garbage.
“Do you have a more permanent place to stay?”
The man grunted and rolled over.
“Ruthers. Do you have a place to stay somewhere?”
He turned back and opened one eye. “Does it look like I’ve a place to stay?”
Fair enough. Hayes watched him roll back over and ignore his presence until the man’s breathing slowed, and Hayes assumed he slept.
What kind of a bind was he in now? Hopefully a short-lived kind.
Once the room was quiet and he had accepted his overnight stay, thoughts of the conversation he’d overheard rushed in. He must send the English to his country immediately. If the admiral hadn’t set things in motion yet, he must, now, or Hayes feared he wouldn’t have a country to return to.
Chapter Nineteen
Elsie watched out the frontwindow of a room in the servants’ attic of their town house late into the night. The moon rose and fell, her head nodding and her eyes closing for longer durations of time before she finally gave up seeing Prince Hayes return. Bartholomew’s town house sat as quiet and undisturbed from her view as it ever did. As her breath fogged the windowpane, her heart dropped as hope waned.
Over and over again her hopes had risen and were dashed in regard to him. Here again, she’d seen him cavorting with traitors to her country. And he hadn’t yet returned.
She sighed, fogging the window further, and decided to return to her room and crawl into bed. Her body ached from the stiffness of her long-held position. Her head and neck were sore. She didn’t think she could wake for morning callers. Perhaps she’d alert her maid to offer her regrets at the door. The weight of her concern dragged her feet.
And she refused to tell her father. She would discover Prince Hayes’s culpability on her own first. She didn’t look too deeply inside herself, because she didn’t want to acknowledge that a part of her wanted to cover up his indiscretions, wanted him to be as perfect as he had been when she’d heard him talk so passionately of his homeland.
The blankets she pulled up to her chin did little to hide the reality that she was falling in love with this traitorous prince.
The next afternoon everyone had been invited to a garden party on the lawns of St. James’s. This party was open to literally every person in theton. She’d heard Prince George hoped to see how many people he could host at once instead of aiming for an air of exclusivity. Everyone Elsie knew was going, and she assumed Prince Hayes would as well.
She slept with a full set of curling papers and pomade all over her head for as long as she could and began preparing early the next morning. The weather was lovely and a perfect day to attempt the more daring styles in her hair. She would wear one of her more elaborate gowns.
The whole while she prepared, she mulled over Prince Hayes. “Do you suppose a person can be one way with you and then a completely different person around others?” she asked her maid.
The woman’s eyes lifted to the mirror in surprise. “I suppose they could, my lady, but then, beggin’ your pardon, wouldn’t they leave hints of the other person in their manner or conversation now and again?” She applied the papillote iron to the paper-wrapped hair, let it heat through, and then unwrapped the first paper. A perfect curl framed Elsie’s face.
