fluttered nervously, touched by a breeze she could not feel.
Lady Stanton, for her part, was momentarily nonplused. Gone was the calculating gleam in her eyes, replaced by…not fear, precisely. Wariness. As if she would cleave to her stratagem as planned, but was no longer convinced of its wisdom.
Susan stood in the very center of the room, perhaps determined not to edge too near to the shadows seeping from the corners. Her wide, quick eyes took in the ceiling, the staircase, the narrow slits of lightless windows, and then her trembling hands were at her pale face. She snatched off her spectacles and shoved them in a pocket. Evangeline had the terrible suspicion Susan did so because she had no wish to see just what they’d gotten themselves into.
A gaunt, wizened butler stood silently against one wall, the sputtering candle above his head doing little to illuminate his expression. His gnarled face remained impassive when whispers came from an adjacent hallway, then footfalls, followed by a beautiful blond lady, four spindly-limbed footmen, and three cowering maids.
The lady did not look at home in the mansion, despite her fancy dress. She looked frightened. After a jerking peek over her shoulder at the vacant marble staircase curving up from the anteroom’s furthest shadows, she hurried into the foyer to greet them.
Lady Stanton moved forward, her steps hesitant. “Lady Hetherington.”
“Good evening.” Lady Hetherington exchanged an indecipherable glance with the butler before facing her guests. “Lady Stanton, Miss Stanton, Miss…?”
“Pemberton.” Evangeline joined the trio and gave her a tentative smile.
The regal lady did not smile back.
“That’s Lionkiller’s estranged sister,” Susan whispered to Evangeline. “The countess.”
“The footmen will see to your trunks,” the lady continued, her voice low and hushed. “You must be exhausted after your journey. Hot water is on its way to your rooms.” She gestured to the three girls still hovering by the doorway. “Molly, Betsy, and Liza will be happy to—”
“We have our own maids,” Lady Stanton interrupted stiffly. She appeared wounded the countess would even offer to supply such a common staple as ladies’ maids, but the crack in her voice suggested she was floundering for any sense of control.
The countess did not appear affronted. If anything, she seemed to have forgotten she’d been speaking. Rather than continue her welcome, the countess glanced at the staircase again and bit at her lower lip.
“I have no maid,” Evangeline said into the silence. Hollow echoes of her voice whispered from the recesses of the high-ceilinged chamber.
Lady Stanton shot her an acid glare, but Lady Hetherington’s mouth relaxed into a brief but grateful smile. Susan murmured a question and both ladies stepped closer to assuage some concern. Evangeline did not. She could not. A sudden chill descended upon the room and her every sense tingled with danger.
Impossibly, she felt him before she saw him.
Although she seemed to be the only one affected thus, she didn’t doubt the prickling sensitivity along her bare neck for a single moment. While the three ladies conversed quietly, gesturing now and again at a maid or a footman, Evangeline lifted her gaze upward once more.
And there he was.
He stood at the landing above the spiral stair, cloaked in shadow. Tall. Unnaturally so. Was it the angle, the skewed perspective of being so far beneath him? Or was his towering stature undeniable, evident in the width of his shoulders, the muscular length of his legs, the long pale fingers curved around the banister?
The shadows made discerning features difficult. Evangeline could not tell if he were truly as savage as he appeared, or if a trick of the light—or lack thereof—caused the slatted darkness to undulate across his form. Almost without realizing it, she began to back away.
He continued down the spiral stairway, silent, sure, the leather of his boots making no noise on the cold marble. Although shadow obscured his face, his eyes glittered like those of a wolf loping alongside a lonely carriage. Thin fingers still curled lightly around the gleaming banister, he took another step forward. When there were as many steps behind him as there were before him, a brief flicker from a nearby sconce lit his face.
Evangeline swallowed a gasp.
Not because of the obsidian eyes framed by equally black lashes. Nor because of the angry slash of cheekbones, the flash of bared teeth, or the scar just above the edge of his jaw. Those things, though separately terrible, together formed a face of cold, cruel beauty. A face for statues, for frescoes, for—