Page 35 of The Viscount's Seduction
Chapter 10
The same lady’smaid he’d met that morning ushered Bakeley into Lady Jane’s sparsely decorated drawing room. Lady Jane rose to greet him.
He handed off his hat to the maid. “She’s safe.”
“Thank heavens. Lord Hackwell couldn’t be reached.” Her face flashed a momentary relief and then clouded again. “Where is she?”
The maid still hovered near the door, her face stricken also with suspicion, and he fought the anger that rose in response.
“Barton, bring us some tea. Lord Bakeley, come and be seated. I will hear this story.”
While the maid slipped out, he took a seat. He’d spent the journey here wondering how much to tell the lady about the young woman she’d taken in.
“We found her near the docks.”
“We?”
“My brother, Mr. Gibson, and I. He lives very near, and I sought his assistance.”
Lady Jane’s finger tapped the arm of her chair, but her gaze remained steady, pinning him.
He sighed. “She was with two Irishmen, two men she knew from home.”
The lady pressed her lips together and studied her hands, now clasped in her lap, before raising her eyes again. “She’s not a traitor, Bakeley. She merely has a notion her brother’s alive. Where has he put her?”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
“No.” He stood. “He knows nothing about it. She’s…” He cleared his throat. “That is, I’ve come to—”
“No.” The lady shot out of her chair also. “Not Sirena. Far away from Shaldon and every Everly is where she should be. I’ll take her—”
The door creaked open, the servant Barton carrying a tray. “Molly had the kettle boiling already,” she said, laying out cups and sending her mistress a questioning look.
“Thank you, Barton. That will be all for now.”
The lady’s hand shook as she poured from the chipped teapot into faded cups.
“My lady,” he said, taking the cup and setting it aside. “I have a note from her, but first we must talk. Please hear me out.”
She shook her head and sighed. “Very well.”
Hours later, Sirena jerked herself up from a chair set before another fire, the one in Lord Bakeley's small study.
She’d fallen asleep.Asleep. How could she when they were still in so much danger?
She fingered her gram’s necklace in her pocket, tracing the loops of the knot, and pulled it out to look at.
She should leave it here, in this English lord’s home. All the good luck of it had turned to bad. She sighed and set it aside on the round study table and went back to the fire.
After the surgeon had departed, both Walter and Josh had signed the vague, brief statements Lord Bakeley had prepared for them. She’d left the boys in the housekeeper’s care to write out her own statement, and a note to Lady Jane, telling her she was safe and in the care of Lord Bakeley and a chaperone.
She couldn’t leave while Walter and Josh were in danger. It was the least she could do for them, though her heart broke from knowing Lady Jane might not take her back.
Lord Bakeley’s brother would not count as a chaperone, but she had to claim one. And it was only a small lie, one she prayed would save her from being dismissed.
Trying to pretty this up was like putting a bonnet on Mrs. O’Brian’s goat. She’d done a foolish thing, and she didn’t care, except that if she was booted out by Lady Jane, she wasn’t sure where to go.
