A Gentleman Undone Read Online Free

to be independent of those people he would put it into her hands that she might keep it for the child. She wouldn’t want for money, so there’d be no temptation to sell it.
    His fist closed over the box, and opened again. He tilted his hand and the enamel gleamed as the moonlight caught it just so.
    Altogether too much thinking he’d done tonight. He’d be useless at cards if he couldn’t quiet the rest of his brain. He closed his hand on the box again, and brought it back.
    He was just stowing it in a pocket when footsteps sounded in the corridor. For no good reason he withdrew to the armchair with its shadows, whisking his legs back to keep his Hessians away from the spill of moonlight. Unaccountable reflexes a man brought back from war. It wasn’t as though the French had made a practice of sneaking up on one soldier at a time. Nor, of course, was it likely that the footsteps, if indeed they were bound for this room, could represent any threat.
    Two sets of footsteps there were, one lighter than the other, and unmistakably bound his way. A man and woman. Yes, he ought to have anticipated this. Often enough he’d made like use of a darkened room at some gathering in his carefree days.
    Something stopped him immediately rising. The awkwardness, perhaps, of having to explain just why he’d been in here, alone, in the dark. The stubborn assertion that he’d been here first, and why should he have to give way to their sordid purpose? At all events he was still seated, all the way in shadow, when two shapes filled the doorway and came in. The taller shape swung the door gently to behind them, and as the swath of illumination from the hall grew narrower, a green-jeweled cuff-stud glinted faintly.
    Roanoke and his mistress. Or perhaps Roanoke and some other woman—indeed that was the likelier case, given Prince Square-jaw could entertain his mistress at home, at his leisure, without need for skulking about. The door clicked shut and Will abandoned the idea of a prompt exit. They could get on with their business and he’d slip out while their attention was engaged. Perhaps he’d make some attempt to ascertain the lady’s identity—for what purpose, though? If the man betrayed Miss Slaughter, that was nothing to do with him. Did he propose to finagle a seat next to her at supper, and drop vague dire hints of what he’d seen?
    The question was moot. The pair made straight for the bay window and he knew her by her posture alone. Erect and somehow remote, as though holding herself apart from the very air through which she moved. They passed into the bay—he could almost have put out a hand and touched her skirts as she went by; thank goodness their eyes were not so well adjusted to the dark as his—and the draperies creaked along their rod; the thingruel of moonlight grew thinner. Then, silence, save for a few vague rustles. Whatever their next order of business, it apparently required no preamble of conversation.
    Doubtless there were men who would enjoy sitting here, clandestine witness to such goings-on. A pity one of them couldn’t take his place. All he’d wanted was a quarter-hour of darkness and silence; now he must tax his weary brain by calculating how best to retreat undetected from this room which he, by any measure, had the better right to occupy.
    He’d make his try in thirty seconds. Any sooner, and they might not be sufficiently oblivious. Much later, and he’d be more visible to their dark-acclimated eyes.
    An indistinct utterance added itself to the rustles. His hands settled carefully on the chair’s arms and gripped there. Twenty seconds. No more.
    Confound these rutting fools, both of them. Confound her especially, for letting Prince Square-jaw make this use of her not forty minutes after he’d bandied her name about so despicably. Did she have no care at all for her dignity? Then henceforth neither would he. No more misguided gallantry for Cathcart to twit him with.
    Nineteen, twenty. They