Adam read faster, flipping the pages as quickly as he could, devouring the text. Nearly twenty minutes later, he stopped and looked up from the novel—for it was indeed a novel, and as he’d originally suspected a romantic one—staring unseeing and dumbfounded at the violet-colored walls of Lucy’s bedchamber. There it was, the second name he’d been looking for: the Duke of Loveridge. Blast it.
She thought that she was the heroine from this story and he was the hero. Two entirely nonexistent people.
But there had been no mention of danger. None whatsoever. If Lady Magnolia in the story was not in danger, was Maggie (or Cecelia, or whatever her name was) truly in danger?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maggie felt a bit guilty. She clearly did not enjoy shopping as much as Lucy did. She’d been perfectly ready to follow Peter’s suggestion and remain in the house. Apparently he’d taken her quite seriously when she’d told him last night that she felt as if she might be in danger. It was only a nagging feeling, really. Something she couldn’t quite place. But Lucy seemed more than ready to ignore Peter’s warning. And it was Bond Street, after all. Maggie remembered enough to know that the prospect of shopping on Bond Street should have her squealing with joy. But as they bumped about inside the duke’s coach, nerves crept up Maggie’s spine.
“Your, ah, mother asked me to ensure you had enough things for the next few days,” Lucy explained, patting Maggie’s gloved hand where it rested in her lap.
The explanation no longer made sense. Even if it were true that her mother was ill, why didn’t they just send to her house to gather her things or send a maid with them? But fear kept Maggie from questioning it aloud. Something was wrong—very wrong—with her stay at the duke’s house. And panic kept her from voicing it. Instead, she smiled and nodded at Lucy. Then returned her scattered attention out the window of the fine coach.
They’d already been to the modiste. They were back in the coach, wending through heavy traffic, on the way to the milliner’s. Maggie glanced at the woman sitting across from her. Oh, out with it. She couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Lucy, I know there is something you’re not telling me. Something about my mother, perhaps? Is she all right?”
Lucy’s head snapped up to face her. Her kind eyes were filled with empathy. “Oh, dear. She’s perfectly all right. At least I hope she is.” Lucy worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
But there had been something else on the tip of her tongue, something else the pretty lady had been about to say. Instead, she shook her black curls and reverted her attention out the window. “We’re almost there.”
Maggie folded her hands calmly, much more calmly than she actually felt. She would let it rest for the time being. Her kiss with Peter last night had been … unexpected, surprising, unforgettable. But how long could she stay with him and his family? Surely people would begin to talk soon. And why wasn’t anyone telling her the details about her mother’s condition?
The coach came to a stop in front of a quaint little hat shop. The footman pulled out the stairs and helped both ladies to alight.
“Here we are,” Lucy said. “Madame Bissette. She makes the most adorable hats. I ordered one a fortnight ago. I do hope it’s ready by now.”
Lucy picked up her skirts and turned toward the store’s entrance. Maggie made to follow her. They were nearly to the door when a child’s voice stopped them. “Cecelia!”
There was that name again. Maggie turned toward it. Why did it sound so familiar?
“Cecelia, is that you?”
She swung around to see a light-haired girl rushing toward her through the throngs of other shoppers. Lucy’s eyes were wide.
“Cecelia, it’s me, Mary,” the girl said, coming to stop not a foot in front of them. She was panting and coughing, her small shoulders shaking, but she wore a look of supreme relief on her pretty young face.
Maggie shook her head. The girl looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place her. The panic that had seized her last night at the ball when the blond lady had called her Cecelia returned to nearly choke her. “Cecelia,” she repeated. “I’m sorry but I don’t know who Cecelia is.”
“Cecelia? You don’t recognize me?” The girl’s face had turned both anxious and confused. She wrung her hands. “We’ve been looking for you. For days.” Her coughing intensified.
“Are you from my mother’s house?” Maggie asked the girl, a mixture of confusion and fear filling her own voice. The adamant manner in which this girl insisted she knew her frightened Maggie.