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Finding it empty, she sighed in relief, sitting down on one of the velvet stools and taking a glance in the looking glass. Her hair was holding up nicely, though there was a sheen of sweat on her décolleté. She took a powder puff to it, assessed everything else, and rose.
She left the ladies’ retiring area but wasn’t quite ready to go back to the ballroom.
She knew better than to go up to the fourth floor again, though she was curious. She wandered along aimlessly, nodding to any servant she passed and acting like she knew exactly where she was going, although she did not.
She walked into a wing of the house unfamiliar to her and found herself in front of a large oak door. She turned the knob and?—
She dropped her jaw. This was Thomas’s study. The one that used to belong to his father, Crispin Jameson.
Oh, she should leave at once. But she could not help herself. She inhaled. The distinct aroma of parchment and leather coupled with Thomas’s own scent of spice and outdoors…
She inhaled again, closing her eyes.
What a lovely, lovely space.
It was here that Thomas did his work. Where he pored over the ledgers from the tenants living on his land, the bills and invoices that had to be paid, servants’ wages, legal documents. Everything.
The Ashford estate was a large one, though not as large as the Lybrook Estate, Laurel Ridge, where Tricia had grown up tending a portion of the land. But Thomas was an earl, not a duke. Still, the Ashford estate was known as one of the richest earldoms in Britain.
Oh, if only Tricia could be the lady of this estate.
Indeed, she could be. Thomas would marry her in an instant. Why was she resisting?
She knew damned well why. She wanted to know for certain that he loved her. She wanted his fidelity. She didn’t want him running off to mistresses or whores. She knew how marriages of convenience ended up. She’d heard enough from Lady Sarah about how her parents lived. They rarely saw one another. Her father spent most of his time in London, keeping Sarah and her mother in a different townhome while they were in the city or on their estate.
Sarah knew that her father kept mistresses, that he frequented brothels. Her own mother had grown old before her time, her hair gray, her figure stout.
That was not what Tricia wanted.
Both of Thomas’s sisters had found love matches, as had Tricia’s own mother. That was what she wanted.
Tricia walked farther into the office, again inhaling the fragrant aroma. She sat behind Thomas’s large wooden desk, in his leather chair, where his scent was even more profound. She closed her eyes, inhaling, inhaling, inhaling…
Until she heard the doorknob turning.
Oh no! What if Thomas found her here?
Worse, what if someone else found her here?
But that was a silly worry. Who else would enter Thomas’s office?
Perhaps a servant, coming in to clean. But would they be doing that at this time of night?
Still, she could not take a chance. She quickly moved from the chair and under the desk, hoping she wouldn’t be found.
Then the creak of the door opening.
She held her breath.
“Let’s get on with it, quickly,” a masculine voice said.
It was low, nearly a whisper, though it seemed familiar. Had Tricia heard the voice before?
“I don’t feel right about this,” another voice, this one even more familiar than the first, replied.
“We don’t have a choice. We’re in too far. See if he left it in here.”
“How do you know it’s even in here?”
