Page 5 of A Relentless Rake

“Thank goodness!” The housekeeper hugged Olivia tightly against her bosom. “I thought we were both going to be killed—or worse.”

Oh God, shewasgoing to be sick!

Olivia pushed the woman away, flung open the window, and stuck her head outside as she gulped in several mouthfuls of cold night air.

Finally, when her stomach had stopped churning and her head had ceased pounding, she eased down against the squabs and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. Her breath slowly returned to normal with each passing street that brought them closer to home and safety, and her nausea settled into a hard knot in her belly.

He knew her. The masked man who’d questioned her in the alleyknewwho she was, where she lived, and that she was searching for her missing brother.

But how?

Henry had disappeared without word or reason from the old town house that held both the Everett School and their private quarters. Vanishing like that hadn’t been like him. Not at all. He was a boring, staid schoolmaster and mathematician whose biggest dream was being admitted to the Royal Society, and he’d never missed two days of instruction before, not even when he’d been sick with fever last winter. Even then, pale and weak, he’d dragged himself into the classroom every morning.

But there had been no note left in his room, and no message had arrived during the two days since he’d disappeared. When her worry finally overtook her this evening, Olivia had broken down and frantically searched his room, but all she’d been able to find for explanation was a note with directions to an alley in the City of London and a time—midnight, three nights ago.

Foolish! She never should have gone out in the middle of the night on this wild goose chase. Her head knew that. But her heart would have made her do it all again if it meant a chance to find Henry. Since their father died five years ago, her older brother was the only family she had left.

“Not the proper way for a young lady to behave,” Mrs. Adams muttered beneath her breath. “Disgraceful and scandalous!”

Olivia bit her lip. Now was probably not the time to admit she’d lost the woman’s best kitchen knife.

Mrs. Adams had a right to be angry, just as she was correct that tonight Olivia had put at risk not only her safety but also her reputation. And on her reputation rested the school’s future.

Her propriety was the backbone of the Everett School’s good standing. That was why families sent their daughters to them. She’d promised to teach the girls well while carefully safeguarding their virtue and instilling strong moral values in them. But Olivia also made room for scholarship girls who wouldn’t otherwise receive an education at all by carefully managing every penny in the budget—and by throwing in several extra pounds from Henry’s salary and hers. That left the school hovering on the knife’s edge of economic ruin, always just one unexpected bill away from going into debt, but those scholarship girls would be able to become governesses, companions, or ladies’ maids. The cut in her pay was well worth giving them a chance at a good life.

Yet all that would be destroyed if her reputation were ever questioned.

Which wouldneverhappen. She’d taken great pains to ensure no one ever found out about her past, just as she’d made certain no one would find out about tonight. As far as anyone knew, she was a prim and proper schoolmistress, as sexless as the companions who gathered in corners at society soirees and aging gracefully into spinsterhood at the ripe old age of twenty-five.

That was exactly how she meant to keep things.

“You must never do anything like this again, do you hear?” Mrs. Adams scolded. She was near the same age as Olivia’s mother, had Mama lived, and the housekeeper saw it as her duty to not only keep house for the school but also provide maternal influence.

“Yes, Mrs. Adams,” Olivia answered dutifully, because it was expected and she always did as expected.Now.Tonight’s outing was an anomaly.

Mrs. Adams’s hand flew to her mouth in horror. “You have blood on your hem!”

Olivia grabbed at her skirt. A dark spot marred the light blue muslin. “It isn’t mine,” she assured Mrs. Adams quickly. The masked man must have gotten bloodied when he fought off the attackers and rubbed it onto her skirt when he’d pressed her against the wall.

Her shoulders sagged. The dress would have to be thrown away, and she couldn’t afford a new one. Tonight was proving to be one disaster after another.

The carriage finally stopped in front of the school. Four stories tall and three bays wide, the century-old building that stood on the fringes of Westminster had once been home to barristers, physicians, and respectable middle-class merchants until London’s fortunes shifted to the west. Now it served as both a school for two dozen girls and home for her, Henry, and the limited staff who kept the place operating smoothly. It barely contained its handful of offices and common rooms on the ground floor, three schoolrooms on the first, two dormitories on the second, and the staff’s rooms tucked beneath the eaves wherever they could fit, including hers and Henry’s.

At this late hour, though, the normally bustling building sat quiet and dark, with all the girls nestled in their beds and the staff gratefully at rest in theirs. The only light was the lamp that glowed over the front door, and not one sound or movement came from within. Exactly as it should have been.

Olivia paid the driver a precious coin, then escorted Mrs. Adams inside. The housekeeper mumbled a harsh good night and headed upstairs to her room.

Olivia paused in the dark stair hall and pulled in a deep but trembling breath. She shook to her bones, and not just from how close they’d come to being hurt tonight but also by the encounter with the masked stranger.

Did he know Henry? Was that how he knew who she was and why she was in the alley tonight? And if he did, then perhaps—

“Olivia.”

She jumped in fright as a dark figure stepped out from the shadows in the hall. A terrified beat passed before she recognized him.

“Henry!” She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

But something was wrong. He was stiff in her arms, tense… She pulled back to search his face for answers, but he set her away from him before she could ask where he’d been or give him the scolding he deeply deserved for worrying her.