Her frown deepened. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, and he heard the double meaning in it. Don’t apologize to me right now.
He sketched her a cold bow. “I wish you a good evening, then. I do not think I will join your little boating party.”
“You will not be missed,” she said, and turned on her heel, stalking away.
He went directly to their rooms, sitting by the window until he saw the procession of guests wind out through the garden. Gwen walked arm in arm with Barrington. She tripped, and he pulled her closer as he helped her gain her balance.
Alex drew away from the window.
It was only a charade.
And yet . . . Gwen was out to live wildly; he himself had rebuffed her last night; perhaps she grew curious—
Only a charade, God damn it. He took a deep breath and left the room.
The house was laid out in the shape of a shallow C, the lobby and grand staircase at the middle of the house, with its high domed skylight, scoring the building in half. From the little discussion he’d initiated at dinner, he’d managed to solicit the location of every one of the female guests’ bedrooms. That omitted the entire lower half of the C in which his and Gwen’s rooms were located, and a good deal of the upper as well. He thought it likely that all the bedrooms were in the west, which left the bottom floor of the east, as he’d determined earlier, devoted to public rooms: morning room, drawing room, dining room, gallery.
Upstairs to the east was where he needed to go.
He walked toward the moonlit lobby on silent feet, wanting to check on the party in the less reputable drawing room. The merriment had grown muted; after two minutes’ wait, he counted only three male voices inside. The women he was less concerned about; it seemed that they had been hired to entertain whichever guests found themselves without easy company this evening—and the guards as well, in the meantime.
The lobby and the main staircase were too brightly illuminated, so he retreated back in the direction he had come, until he found a door covered in baize and studded with upholstery nails. He could not disapprove of the spread of all English customs. This one had proved useful to him more than once, when seeking subtler ways through a house. At this hour, with the remains of the feast still littering the dining room, and the guests outside, the servants would be more intent on shifting plates to the scullery than spying on matters abovestairs.
He stepped into the servants’ passage and climbed the stairs silently, then took a right, moving, in darkness, toward the other side of the house. Only once did a noise come from the distance, causing him to freeze. Belatedly he realized the grinding sound came from a dumbwaiter. Someone was sending china down from the dining room.
He let himself out into the main hallway of the east wing. Yes, this part of the house was clearly not meant for public consumption: the floors were covered not in silk runners but in a far cheaper but harder-wearing tapestry, and the walls were bare. The latter sank his spirits. If Barrington did not spend much time here, there might be nothing of interest on the property.
Or perhaps Barrington had the same philosophy as Alex, and lived and traveled lightly, carrying only those items deemed essential—in which case Alex very much hoped that one of these doors opened onto a bedroom or a study.
The doors were locked, which did not stop him. He withdrew from his pocket two of Gwen’s hairpins, and made quick work of the first tumbler. In his time, he’d reluctantly been forced to employ an industrial spy or two; sometimes there was no other way to discover what had happened to a shipment that had gone missing overnight, or a contract suddenly lost just before the documents could be notarized. And a few of these men had spared him an hour’s lesson, here and there. He’d never master the art of breaking glass without a sound, but there were few door locks that could faze him.
The first room was a small library, with no desk or chest of drawers to pique his interest. Nevertheless, he did a dutiful scan of the bookshelves. For a man who preferred his springs in France, Barrington appeared an ardent admirer of his home country. He had over a hundred books on the history of England, its natural habitats and geological history, its flora and fauna.
Alex plucked out one of the books. A Natural History of English Sediment. Christ. Could there have been anything more boring?
On the other hand, Gwen would probably deem this far more interesting than his trade journals. He ran an eye again over the volumes on flora and fauna. He sincerely hoped Barrington stuck to seductive flirtations. If he mentioned anything to do with parkland, Gwen would probably jump on the topic like a kitten on catnip, and the Barbary Queen would make a very odd admirer of landscape architects.