Then Cecilia turned and looked directly at Sebastian.
Antonia nearly blinked. The quality of that look…she felt decidedly de trop.
“Given you are Antonia’s escort,” Cecilia was saying to Sebastian, her tone husky, “I’ve placed you in the same wing, two doors down, beyond the Featherstonehaughs.”
The housekeeper faced Antonia and bobbed a curtsy. “If you’ll follow me, my lady, I’ll show you to your room. Your maid’s already there unpacking your things.”
“Thank you.” Antonia raised her skirts, and, without looking at Sebastian or Cecilia—what was going on there?—she started to follow the housekeeper up the stairs.
She’d taken only one step when Sebastian’s long fingers closed like a vise about her elbow.
“As my room is two doors from yours, I’ll see you to your door.”
Seared by his touch—and equally surprised by his hard tone—she glanced back. His face was set in uncompromising lines. She also saw the hand Cecilia reached out to him that he adroitly sidestepped, leaving Cecilia to turn the surreptitious attempt at a caress into a vague gesture.
Facing forward, Antonia continued up the stairs. Sebastian’s grip eased, then his fingers fell away. She gave no sign she’d noticed anything, but once they’d reached the gallery—temporarily deserted—she slowed until the housekeeper was sufficiently far ahead, then halted and looked at Sebastian. “What’s between you and Cecilia?”
She’d have to be a ninnyhammer to have missed the implication.
He halted close beside her, but he’d been looking over the gallery balustrade at Cecilia below.
Antonia resisted the impulse to fold her arms and tap her toe and simply waited.
Eventually, his lips twisted in a faint grimace. “We had an affair six years ago. I broke it off. I’ve barely seen her since.”
Antonia blew out a breath; she was rather surprised he’d told her so directly. “Well, that’s not going to make your mission any easier.” Then she realized and frowned. “I assume Drake knew—he always knows everything—so why…?”
She raised her gaze to Sebastian’s face in time to see a rueful smile tug at his lips.
“Believe it or not,” he murmured, “Drake considered it an advantage.” He met her eyes. “He didn’t want to write my name to Ennis, to identify me as his surrogate, but the connection—which Ennis knows of—allowed Drake to describe me as ‘the man Ennis would least want to see.’”
Antonia made a rude sound. She turned and walked on to where the housekeeper stood not-so-patiently waiting at the archway leading to the east wing. “I’ve noticed that Drake has a warped sense of humor.”
Sebastian said nothing, just followed her to her room. As she passed through the door Mrs. Blanchard had opened, Antonia heard him confirming with the housekeeper that the room he’d been assigned was actually four doors down the wing, there being two dressing rooms in between.
Antonia shut the door and discovered a smile was teasing her lips.
Beccy, her maid, who’d been born on the Rawlings family estate at Lambourn and had been Antonia’s maid since Antonia had left the schoolroom, came to bob a curtsy. “Do you want to change for tea, my lady? Or will it be just a wash?”
Antonia handed Beccy the bonnet she’d been carrying by its ribbons. “Just a wash, and I want to redo my hair. I’ll wear the gray watered silk for dinner.”
“I’ll lay it out while you’re downstairs.” Beccy followed Antonia to the dressing table. After Antonia sat, Beccy started to pull pins from her heavy hair.
“Nice place?” Antonia asked.
“Fair enough,” Beccy replied. “They’re friendly, and everything seems to be run as it should be. More than one iron, and that’s a blessing.”
Antonia smiled. Beccy unraveled her long hair, then plied the brush. Antonia closed her eyes, soothed by the regular tugs on her scalp.
She wasn’t, she decided, going to worry about Sebastian, not until she had some better idea of what this odd awareness that had sprung up between them presaged. There was nothing gentle about it; her senses responded as if to a spark landing on her skin. The effect was far more marked, far more intense, than anything she’d ever felt with any other man.
Of course, she knew what such sparks normally meant, but this was Sebastian—he was almost like a brother…only she’d never seen him in such a light.
Never. Not ever.
He’d always simply been him—in a class of his own, at least in her eyes.
What his particular class was…that was what she now needed to decide.