Page 65 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

He’d hidden away so many parts of himself, he hadn’t expected that speaking of concealment could be painful. Or that his last look around the house would be infused with new memories—of where she had stood, the places her hands had rested. He hadn’t felt this confused in thirty years.

“Amanda,” he said quietly as he turned the key in the lock, uncertain what his next words would be.

But she was already down the steps, too far away to hear them anyway.

No more than a quarter of an hour later, they were crossing the Hursts’ threshold, and Mrs. West was coming toward them.

“We decided to discuss the boys’ lessons while taking a stroll.” Amanda offered the explanation without prompting. He suspected she had been rehearsing it in her head, as they’d walked all the way home in silence. “So as not to waste the lovely afternoon.”

Mrs. West nodded. “Did you pass the boys on your way back?”

Instinct, experience—he hardly knew to what he ought to attribute the shock of sudden awareness that passed down his spine. “The boys?” he echoed.

Now Hurst stepped into the entry hall, an open book in his hands. “Ah, there you are,” he said, hardly looking up. “Mrs. West has told you, I suppose, that Lord Dulsworthy called not an hour ago, asking to take the boys for a drive.”

Familiar guilt slammed into him like a well-aimed punch, and he had to struggle to right himself in time to catch Amanda as she slumped to the floor in a faint.

Chapter 16

Someone was shaking Amanda’s shoulder, rousing her. Was she to be allowed no rest at all? She couldn’t quite remember why she didn’t want to wake up—something hovered at the edge of her consciousness, something she couldn’t bear to examine. No, no. That was just Mama, leaning over her, saying something about the heat, the sun. Muttering under her breath about the tutor presuming to give orders to her and to Mr. Hurst.

The tutor…

“Jamie! Pip!” Amanda sat bolt upright and almost fell back again when the blood rushed to her head.

Mama was fanning her with the brim of her own bonnet—when had it been removed? And there was Rebecca hurrying toward her with a pillow in one hand and a glass of something in the other.

“A cordial,” she explained, pressing the little glass into Amanda’s hand. “To help revive you. You must’ve walked quite a long way. This heat is extraordinary.”

“It’s not—it’s not the heat.” She struggled free of their hands and tried to rise. Just a few yards away, Langley stood speaking to Mr. Hurst in a low but urgent voice; Mr. Hurst was shaking his head in disbelief. “They’re gone. I should never have left them.”

“The boys are with their guardian, my dear,” her mother reminded her patiently. “Everything’s fine. I don’t see any need for worry.…”

“Drink this,” Rebecca pleaded.

At first, Amanda refused. Her head was muddled enough already. If everyone would just be quiet, so she could hear what Langley was saying. But then she thought of Jamie and Philip, George, a codebook so valuable another man might already be dead because of it.…

She snatched the glass from Rebecca’s fingers and tossed the sweet liquid down her throat, wishing it were brandy.

Her sputtering cough drew Langley’s notice, though he avoided her gaze. “I’ll be after them as soon as a horse is brought round, Lady Kingston.”

“After them?” Mama frowned, first at him, then at her. “Why on earth—?”

Amanda returned the glass to Rebecca, scrambled to her feet, and took her mother’s hand. “The boys may be in danger.”

“Danger? Surely you don’t mean to suggest that Lord Dulsworthy—?”

“I can’t explain right now, Mama,” she interrupted with a squeeze of her fingers. “There’s too much. You’ll just have to trust that Mr. Stanhope knows what he’s talking about—more than he can say.”

Langley turned back to Mr. Hurst. “I would not ask if it were not of vital importance.”

Charles glanced downward. He was holding a closed book in one hand, and pinned to its cover by his thumb was a small, cream-colored rectangular card on which something had been written. Amanda would have been willing to wager most anything that on the reverse of that card was an etching of a bird.

“Yes, Mr. Stanhope,” Charles agreed with a nod. “But it’s a part of town into which I’ve never traveled—a place in which I have no wish to be seen. You understand, I think, my hesitation?”

Disgust etched hard lines on Langley’s face. “Lives are at stake, Mr. Hurst. Surely a man of sense, such as yourself, values life above reputation?”

Rebecca rushed to her husband’s side. “Oh, Charles!”