The Lady Chosen by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens [Stephanie Laurens]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061746413
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2003-10-02T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Eleven

Over breakfast the next morning, Leonora considered her social calendar; the evenings were now much fuller than they had been three days ago.

“You choose,” Mildred had told her as she’d descended from the carriage last night.

Munching her toast, Leonora weighed the possibilities. Although the Season proper was some weeks distant, there were two balls that evening to which they’d been invited. The major event was the ball at Colchester House in Mayfair, the more minor and assuredly less formal, a ball at the Masseys’ house in Chelsea.

Trentham would expect her to attend the Colchester affair; he’d wait for her to appear there, as he had last night at Lady Holland’s.

Pushing away from the table, Leonora rose and headed for the parlor to dash off a note to Mildred and Gertie that she fancied visiting the Masseys that evening.

Sitting at her escritoire, she wrote the brief note, inscribed her aunts’ names, then rang for a footman. It was her hope that, in this instance, absence would make the heart grow less fond; quite aside from the fact her nonappearance at Colchester House would annoy Trentham, there was also the definite possibility that, if left alone in such an arena, he might find his eye drawn to some other lady, perhaps even become distracted with one of Daphne’s ilk…

Inwardly frowning, she looked up as the footman entered, and handed over the note for delivery.

That done, she sat back and determinedly turned her mind to more serious matters. Given her stubborn refusal of his suit, she was perhaps naive in thinking Trentham would continue to aid her in the matter of Montgomery Mountford, yet when she tried to imagine him losing interest, removing the men he had watching the house, she couldn’t. Regardless of their personal interactions, she knew he wouldn’t leave her to deal with Mountford alone.

Indeed, in light of what she’d learned of his character, the notion seemed laughable.

They would remain in undeclared partnership until the riddle of Mountford was solved; it therefore behooved her to push as hard as she could on that front. Keeping clear of Trentham’s snares while dealing with him on a daily basis would not be easy; prolonging the danger was senseless.

She couldn’t expect any answers to her letters for at least a few days more. So what else could she do?

Trentham’s suggestion that Cedric’s work was most likely Mountford’s target had struck a chord. Besides Cedric’s letters, the workshop had contained more than twenty ledgers and journals. She’d brought them up to the parlor and stacked them in a corner. Eyeing them, she recalled her late cousin’s fine, faded, cramped writing.

Rising, she went upstairs and inspected Cedric’s bedroom. It was inches deep in dust and strewn with cobwebs. She set the maids the task of cleaning the room; she’d search it tomorrow. For today…she descended to the parlor and settled to work through the journals.

By the time evening arrived, she’d uncovered nothing more exciting than the recipe for a concoction to remove stains from porcelain; it was difficult to believe Mountford and his mysterious foreigner were interested in that.

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