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Chapter 6.3
An hour later, Felix crosses the threshold to be met by Rickshaw, displaying, quite remarkably, an emotion very near agitation. This was instantly explained. “Miss Emma’s here. In the drawing-room with Mr. Francis.”
Felix froze. Then nodded to his butler. “Very good, Rickshaw.” His sharp eyes had already taken in the bored face of the maid sitting in the shadows. Presumably, Emma had been here for some time. His face was set in grim lines as his hand closed on the handle of the drawing-room door.
The sight which met his eyes was not at all what he had expected. As he shut the door behind him, Francis’s eyes lifted to his, amused understanding in the blue depths. He was seated in an armchair and Emma occupied the nearest corner of the chaise.
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The coach swayed as it turned a corner and Maribella clutched the strap swinging by her head. As equilibrium returned, she settled her skirts once more and glanced at the other two occupants of the carriage. The glow from a street lamp momentarily lit the interior of the coach, then faded as the four horses hurried on. Maribella grinned into the darkness. Margaret had insisted that she and Emma share their guardian’s coach. One had to wonder why. Too often these days, her eldest sister had the look of the cat caught just after it had tasted the cream. Tonight, that look of guilty pleasure, or, more specifically, the anticipation of guilty pleasure, was marked. She had gone up to Margaret’s room to hurry her sister along. Margaret has been sitting, staring at her re
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Despite her strategies, Maribella was seen as she slipped from the ballroom. Felix, returning from the card-room where he had been idly passing his time until he could, with reasonable excuse, gravitate to the side of his eldest ward, saw the bright chestnut curls dip through the doorway and for an instant had thought that Margaret was deserting him. But his sharp ears had almost immediately caught the husky tone of her laughter from a knot of gentlemen nearby and he realized it must have been Maribella, most like Margaret in colouring, whom he had seen. But he had more serious problems in his mind than whether Maribella had torn her flounce. His pursuit of the luscious Miss Fleming, or, rather, the difficulties which now lay in his path to her, were a matter for concern. The odd fact that he actually bothered to dance with his eldest ward had already
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