Page 85 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
They all stared at the inn, then Nicholas shook his head. “I can barely believe it, but all we can do is keep watch and wait until he leaves.”
Between them, they devised a schedule of watchers to cover the night.
Eventually, leaving Rory and Young Gillies with Jed and Mike, who had yet to return from the inn’s stable, to spell each other in pairs through the night, and promising to send Harold and Oscar down as well, Nicholas turned Tamerlane and, with Adriana and Dickie, trotted quietly back to Styles Place.
* * *
On being informed of where the agent had chosen to spend the night, Phillip and Viola were as incredulous as the others. But after a moment’s thought, Viola pointed out that there was no reason the agent would have known Nicholas, Adriana, and Dickie had been asking about the horse, and he would have felt confident that neither Viola and her staff nor Phillip would have advertised their interest in The Barbarian.
“Given that we tend to keep to ourselves behind the walls of Styles Place,” she concluded, “he might have felt that spending the night in Sleaford wasn’t any great risk.”
That seemed to be self-evident, and in a state of some disorientation—all but Viola had expected to spend the night on the road somewhere and had packed accordingly—they retreated to their rooms and spent what, for them all, for various reasons, proved a restless night.
Nicholas rose early and slipped out of the house to check with the men on watch at that time. Rory and Young Gilles had, apparently, just relieved Harold and Oscar, who had returned to Styles Place.
“Anything?” Nicholas asked as he joined the pair in a deeply shaded alley opposite the inn.
“He hasn’t moved yet,” Young Gillies replied.
Rory added, “Harold asked the ostlers to give us a wave when they got the order to ready his horse.”
Nicholas nodded. He stared at the inn for a few more minutes, then left the two grooms to their vigil.
He returned to Styles Place to find breakfast laid out on the sideboard in the drawing room, with Shaw, the butler, standing ready to supply coffee as required.
Nicholas was glad to accept a steaming cup of the dark and fragrant brew. He sat at the table and addressed himself to a plate piled with samples of every dish. If they were to spend the rest of the day following the agent, he wanted sustenance to see him through.
One by one, the others appeared and joined him. Dickie was the last, seemingly barely awake.
“I’m definitely not a morning person.” He set down a piled plate and dropped into a chair. Bleary-eyed, he looked across the table at Nicholas. “Has he stirred at all?”
“Apparently not.”
With a grunt, Dickie fell to eating.
Nicholas glanced at Phillip and Viola. Judging by their relaxed expressions, both were hugely relieved to have got all the letters back.
Viola caught Nicholas’s eye and smiled. “We’ve decided to burn the letters.” She glanced at Phillip, seated beside her. “It’ll be safer that way.”
Phillip grunted, sounding exceedingly like his younger brother. “Less chance of anyone misinterpreting and accusing me of having Styles beaten to death.”
“Indeed.” Rather cheerily, Viola patted his hand.
Nicholas studied Phillip’s reaction, the softening of his austere features whenever he looked at Viola, and the happiness shining in her eyes. After a moment, he looked down at his plate.
Several seconds later, unable to stop himself, he glanced at Adriana, who had chosen to sit opposite him. Admittedly, he had his back to the windows overlooking the garden and she might have wanted to contemplate the view, yet he had to wonder.
She hadn’t come to his room last night.
He didn’t know how to interpret that, whether her no-show spoke more about how she felt being under Viola’s roof, which, in Adriana’s mind, in a convoluted way, might also be considered to be Phillip’s, or if, as she’d originally intimated, once—or as was the case, several times—had proved enough to satisfy her sexual curiosity.
She was keeping her attention on her plate. Indeed, given the slight line between her brows, it seemed her mind was distant, her thoughts on something else entirely.
Her attention certainly wasn’t on him, and he honestly didn’t know where they now stood vis-à-vis each other.
He returned his gaze to his plate and told himself to wait. Not to push, not to prod, but to give her the time and space to make up her own mind. Regardless of what he did, she would anyway, and if he pressed, she might resist, more or less instinctively, which would not advance his cause.
His goal remained unwaveringly clear, front and center in his mind. He was determined to secure her as his wife.
