Page 93 of Bookshop Cinderella

“Of course it would be the dining room at the end of the corridor,” she muttered, gasping for breath as she ran, oblivious to the stares she received from guests and staff as she went.

By the time she reached the end of the long corridor, she had a hitch in her side, her thighs were chafed from her heavy, wet clothes, and her lungs were burning. Ducking past a pair of footmen carrying trays, she shoved open the door to the dining room and went inside.

“Miss, wait,” one of them said. “It’s a private party. You can’t go in there.”

She didn’t reply but let the door swing shut behind her in the footman’s face.

The Penzance Room, like most other private dining rooms at the Savoy, was actually two, a reception room and a dining room, and she was in the dining room, meaning she’d passed the proper entrance right by. But there was an open connecting door to the reception room at the other end where she could see guests milling about, and she raced toward it as the door behind her opened and the footman gave chase. She entered the reception room, the servant a few dozen steps behind her, and there, she came to an abrupt halt, her gaze searching for one dark head amid the crowd.

Thankfully, Max’s exceptional height enabled her to find him almost at once. A cocktail in his hand, he was standing near the center of the room beside a woman with rich, flaming auburn hair, a woman of such stunning beauty, Evie knew she could only be Lady Helen Maybridge.

The scandal sheets had gottenthe story right, then. Evie’s stomach plummeted at the thought, for she really hadn’t believed—or perhaps she just hadn’t wanted to believe—he’d go back to Helen, and her hope began to falter as the crowd quieted, and one by one, faces turned to see who had dared to invade a duke’s dinner party uninvited.

Max seemed to notice the quiet. He looked up, turning toward the door, and when their eyes met, she knew the only sensible thing to do was flee, run straight back out of his life.

She didn’t move.

Panting, dripping, a lock of wet hair tumbling over her face, she could only stare at himas footsteps halted behind her and a panting footman said, “I’m so sorry, Your Grace. She just ran past us. We couldn’t stop her.”

A flicker of something showed in Max’s face—shock, amusement, and something else, something that might have been...pleasure? He smiled, his eyes creasing at the corners, and her heart tumbled in her breast.

“Evie?” He started toward her, the crowd parting like the Red Sea to let him through. “Evie, what are you doing here?”

She opened her mouth, realizing only now that she had no idea what to say. She wanted to say something worthy of the position she was hoping to assume, and she ought, she supposed, to have given that some thought on the way here, but it was too late now. No time to come up with anything eloquent and duchess-like.

“I’ve been thinking about everything you said,” she burst out, hurling herself over the cliff, hoping he’d catch her and she wouldn’t crash to the ground. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about it for five days. It’s all I’ve been thinking about, truth be told.”

He halted in front of her, glancing down, making her appreciate that she was leaving a puddle of water on the carpet of the Savoy’s elegant Penzance Room, that at least twenty of London’s fashionables were now staring at her as if appalled, including his former (hopefully) love interest, and that she was probably making an utter fool of herself.

None of that, however, was going to stop her, not now, not if that smile in his eyes meant something, not if there was the slightest chance he still wanted her. She sucked in a deep breath and plunged ahead. “And coming here now, I’m sure I’m too late,” she said, speaking quickly as she caught sight of the beautiful redhead approaching them. “After all, when I turned down your marriage proposal, you told me you’d have to marry someone else someday—”

She broke off as the other woman resumed her place by his side, staring as if Evie had two heads, her eyes wide with shock, her rose-pink lips parted in astonishment.

“I’m so sorry,” Evie said, turning to her, feeling a sudden pang of conscience—if not regret—for what she was doing. “I hope you won’t hate me for this, because you look like a very nice person, and God knows you’re every bit as beautiful as everyone says, and I’m sure you would be the perfect wife for Max—”

The woman laughed, a choked, ladylike giggle that was echoed at once by several others in the room, but even that wasn’t enough to deter Evie. Let them laugh. Let every single person in the world laugh at her, ridicule her, shun her, despise her—for the first time in her life, she didn’t care a jot.

“But the thing is,” she went on, overriding all the laughter, “you don’t love him. And he doesn’t love you.”

“Evie,” Max cut in, but if he was going to toss her out for this unbelievable impertinence, she didn’t want him to do it until she’d said everything she had to say.

“You’re probably considering the possibility of marrying him because it’s so suitable,” she went on doggedly, still looking at the woman by his side, “but without love, it would be awful, wouldn’t it? No woman ought to marry a man if she’s not wildly in love with him. Even if he is a duke and is rich as Croesus, it wouldn’t be worth it. Especially if he isn’t in love with you either. That’s why I turned him down, you see, when he asked me to marry him, because I didn’t think he really loved me—not real love, true love, the kind that lasts. I thought he was just infatuated with me and that he was, perhaps, being noble. Hate me if you want—”

“I don’t hate you,” the other woman interrupted, smiling so warmly that Evie, nonplussed, could only stare at her. “In fact, though we’ve only just met, I think I already like you quite a lot.”

“Evie,” Max cut in again, speaking before she could think how to reply, “please allow me to introduce my sisterIdina.”

“Sister?” Evie blinked, not taking her eyes off the beautiful redhead by his side. “You’re his sister?”

“One of the four,” she answered lightly. “I’m the oldest. And you,” she added, still smiling as she held out her hand, “must be Miss Harlow.”

Evie dropped her train and the sodden velvet hit the floor with a thud as she took the other woman’s hand. She couldn’t seem to think straight. Any reply was beyond her.

The woman turned to Max and murmured, “I think I shall have to tell the Savoy to set another place at the table. If you two will pardon me?”

With a nod to both of them, she glided away.

“Your sister?” Evie returned her attention to Max, trying to find her wits, fearing they were irretrievably lost. “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway?”

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