Page 4 of Holly & Folly

She took in a frustrated breath and retraced her steps past the emperors and consorts, her quick footsteps echoing. When she reached the end of the corridor, she stopped. To the right was the second passage of busts and vases. Now that she considered it, she had no memory of traversing two of them on the journey to her bedchamber.

Drat these grand houses!

A maid appeared down the corridor, and Nell sighed with relief.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Might you point me in the direction of the drawing room?”

“Of course.” The maid pointed down the way from which she had come and ticked off a list of lefts and rights, speaking so quickly and correcting her errors so often that Nell could not make heads or tails of where she was to go. But the maid looked to be in a hurry, her pretty blonde hair slightly frazzled under her cap.

“Thank you…” Nell waited for her to give her name.

She curtsied. “Clara, miss.”

This was the maid Shaw had mentioned. “Thank you, Clara.”

The maid offered another smile, then continued on her way.

Nell looked one way, then the other, hardly more sure of her path than before Clara’s attempt to help. Her pulse gathered pace, for each second of delay made it more likely that her entrance would cause a stir—the very last thing she wished for. She was paralyzed, though, for returning to her bedchamber to begin again might well delay her even more than simply continuing on the path she had taken.

The bust to her right caught her eye, and she met its stony gaze.

She read the chiseled letters below the bust, and a small laugh escaped her.

Mercury, the god of travel—and a known trickster.

“I would ask you the way, but I suspect you would not tell me,” she said.

“Quite likely.”

Nell whirled around at the sound of the deep voice and found a man emerging from the corridor ahead. His brown hair was cropped just long enough to be windswept, a traveling cloak hung over his arm, and his eyes held an amused glint.

Of course they did. She had been talking to a statue. She was fortunate they did not hold genuine concern, or fear, even.

The gentleman walked at a leisurely pace toward Nell and Mercury, a thoughtful tilt to his head as he looked at the bust. “He seems quite taciturn.”

“Unlike the others,” Nell quipped.

The man’s head turned toward her, his smile growing. “Naturally.”

Nell could not stop her own smile. “Perhaps you could direct me to the drawing room—or the dining room.” At this point, it was likely the party had gone in without her.

“Perhaps I could.”

Nell raised an expectant brow.

“Or,” he continued, “I could lead you there myself.”

Nell opened her mouth to accept this kind offer, only to stop herself. “Thank you, sir, but I shan’t trouble you.” Arriving late to dinner in the company of a lone gentleman might well be the nail in the coffin of her reputation—and Wesley’s, for that matter.

The man’s smile lifted at one edge. “What, then, do you intend to do? Interrogate Mercury until he cracks—as it were? He is made of marble, so I doubt you would make much progress. Or shall you wander about until you stumble upon the dining room?”

“Or you could simply tell me the way.”

“That seems unnecessarily disobliging when I am on my way there myself. Come.” He began walking.

Nell hesitated, and the man stopped mid-stride, giving her an enigmatic look.

“What is it?” he asked.