Masquerading the Marquess by Anne Mallory Page B

quite a bit of time before Stephen if would arrive. She picked up her sketchbook and started drawing.
     
    A sketch took shape. Thorny rosebushes hemmed in the background. A garden bench faced sideways. A debutante leaned back against the bench, attempting to get away from a foul-breathed old man leaning toward her. A young dandy had one foot on a globe and was pinching the debutante from behind. She knew exactly how the girl felt. Stephen’s laughing presence had saved her on more than one occasion from bloodying a nose.
     
    Some men were more difficult to handle than others. Although she had felt Angelford’s stare frequently in the past few days, he had refrained from approaching her outright. It was as if he had decided to end the cat-and-mouse game they had been playing for weeks. She wasn’t sure why the thought brought a stab of disappointment. Being away from his overpowering presence made it much easier to formulate sketch ideas. She flipped the page and moved her hand absently across the paper.
     
    Calliope checked the clock again. Little time had passed. Why was she so uneasy? She looked at the new page. She was alone in a ballroom and the walls were closing in. Calliope blinked. Where had the notion originated?
     
    A floorboard creaked. She whipped around, but no one was there. The silence of the house stretched. It was just the house settling, nothing else. Funny how one became so sensitive to noise. The Dalys’ house was always teaming with sound. From the younger boys bounding from room to room to the ragamuffin dog scurrying about, someone or something was always raising a fuss.
     
    Stephen’s servants usually bustled about, but now the house felt watchful. Calliope shifted in her seat. She would convince Stephen to stay in his room down the hall tonight.
     
    Maybe she should get a spot of tea to calm her nerves. She smiled. Tonight she could brew her own tea without receiving raised eyebrows and darting glances from the servants. Grimmond had nearly had apoplexy the first time she’d fetched her own drink.
     
    Poor Grimmond had been uncomfortable leaving the townhouse. Calliope had almost needed to resort to pushing him out the door and latching it behind him. She had finally hinted he could check on how things were faring at Stephen’s primary residence. Grimmond had never complained about his interim role, but she knew he worried about Stephen.
     
    She couldn’t wait to find out from Stephen how much bullying Grimmond had done in the few hours he’d been back.
     
    The rest of the staff thought her a trifle odd; Betsy’s well-intentioned appreciation had confirmed Calliope’s suspicions. Giving them the night off had only increased their perception of her as peculiar. Peculiar, maybe, but every one of them, bar Grimmond, had disappeared as soon as their shift was complete.
     
    The servants’ perceived notions of hierarchy excluded her from joining them. She had scoffed at how the nobility treated their servants. Yet her servants had not allowed her to treat them any differently. She poked her pen into the inkwell. She’d redouble her efforts to win the servants over. She wasn’t part of the nobility; the servants would eventually relate to her.
     
    She sighed. She missed the camaraderie of the active theater atmosphere. But loneliness could be kept at bay. The endless parties and ideas were what she had wanted. And they were what she had received.
     
    Calliope looked down at her paper. The walls had gotten closer and there were faces in the windows.
     
    Tea. Go get some tea, you ninny .
     
    The floorboard in her room creaked again, and suddenly the kitchen seemed a long way off.
     
    Calliope gathered her remaining courage and descended the stairs to brew a cup and wait for Stephen.
     
    * * *
     
     
    The man gazed at the slim shaft of light coming from the townhouse window. The little filly was probably getting ready for a big night out. He spat on the sidewalk, and a snarl curved