Just then, she thought she heard a familiar baritone come from the doors behind her. A mouse coming face to face with a hawk could not have felt more ill.
“Marguerite, your pardon for my late arrival. I am most sorry,” the gentleman said.
“La, Andre! You are not sorry for being tardy.”
“I am sorry I was thrown from my horse, which was the cause of my delay.”
Mildred did not hear Madame Follet’s response. The blood had drained from her.
It could not be. It could not be!
She wanted to turn and look to confirm her fears, but she could not risk revealing herself.
“Miss Abbey, are you well?” Devon asked. “Forgive me, but you look pale of a sudden.”
As she faced Devon, she discerned that the man she suspected to be Alastair stood near the other end of the table, where Madame sat.
“The soup does not agree with me, I think,” she whispered.
“But you have hardly touched it.”
“I was unsure if you would come,” Madame said, “but I have saved you a seat for dinner.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the man rounding the table. She recognized the build, the height, the jet-black hair. Dear heavens, it was Alastair!
In a panic, she bent down behind the table as if she had dropped something.
“Miss Abbey?” Devon inquired, bending down as well.
“I think one of my earrings fell,” she said, pretending to look about the floor.
“They are both of them in your ears.”
She blinked several times, her mind in a whir. “Oh, well, thank you.”
Realizing she could not spend the dinner beneath the table, she sat back up, holding her napkin before her face and keeping herself angled toward her end of the table. Her heart raced. What was she to do? She could not keep her napkin at her face the entire dinner. This was dreadful! She had to find a way to leave.
“I forgot my—my—something—in my chambers,” she murmured as she rose.
She would not be able to excuse herself to the hostess but hoped Madame Follet would forgive her later. Alastair sat across the table near the other end. If she turned to her right and went through the set of doors nearest to her, he would not glimpse her face.
Holding the napkin in front of her still, she made for the egress—and walked straight into a maid carrying a tureen of gravy. The contents splashed down the front of Mildred’s gown.
“Oh, miss, I’m terribly sorry!” the maid cried.
“Miss Abbey!” Lord Devon cried, coming to her aid.
One of the other gentlemen had approached to help with picking up the tureen.
“I’m quite all right,” Mildred mumbled, conscious that half the table had risen to look her way. She reached down for the napkin she had dropped.
Lord Devon took her elbow. “Are you certain—”
“Yes, yes, I am fine,” she assured him before stepping into a puddle of gravy in her haste to flee.
Once outside the dining hall, she hurried down the corridor, but her legs had begun to shake with violence. She slipped into an empty but lighted parlor. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it and sank to the floor.
It was Alastair. She knew his voice, and Madame had called him by name. She was not at all surprised that he would be known to Madame, but how was it he should be here the very same evening as her? And what was she to do now that he was?