Excitement coursed through her.
Was this how it would feel when she captured the love and attention of London’s most elite? A soft voice whispered that this…this was better.
She shook her head. No. She’d not think like this. Ken was a wonderful man, but she had a mission to help her family and heal old wounds. And besides—he’d not marry her knowing what he did about her family, would he?
Would any lord? And what about Anna? If Mirabelle could fool them all, then surely they’d just accept her younger sister without all the judgement that Mirabelle had faced.
Would he choose her despite her birth? Would any man once he met her brothers?
That made her wince. She loved them all dearly but all of them, except for Ace, were hooligans. He’d been gentrified by years with the elite.
She let out a sigh as she rose from her bed and crossed to the window that overlooked the street below.
The night was deep and the roads quiet as she stared unseeing into the darkness, lost in her thoughts, until it was pierced by the swinging light of a carriage lantern.
The soft clip-clop of a horse’s hooves made her sit up straighter as her eyes squinted. The carriage drew closer, coming out of the vague shadows and into sharper contrast.
One of her brothers was arriving home. Most likely Gris.
He and Tris were splitting the evenings at the club. They weren’t twins, though some thought they were. They had the same heavy frames, the same piercing eyes, and born only ten months apart, they were closer than any of the other Smith siblings, having shared a bed for much of their childhood.
They frequently communicated with hardly a word, their glances all they needed to tell the other what they thought on any given topic.
But as Gris stepped out of the carriage, he reached in and helped a second man out, placing an arm around him for support as he half dragged the man up the stairs.
Was it Tris? She could hardly tell in the dark of the night but her stomach dropped. Was he injured? Had he been in a brawl?
Was he wounded?
Not even grabbing her housecoat, she raced out of her room and down the hall in only her night rail, her simple braid bouncing on her back as she lifted the hem and dashed down the stairs, the thumping of her feet matching that of her heart as the door swung open.
And then she skidded to a halt halfway down the steps.
Because it wasn’t Tris that Gris held.
It was Ken.
And the way he was slumped over looked terribly wrong. Her eyes went wide and her breath swelled in her lungs as she tried to calm the fear that pounded like a hammer on her bones, knees turning to jelly. “Gris?”
“What are you doing awake?” He looked up at her with a fierce scowl, his anger doing nothing to quiet the racing of her heart.
That was what he wished to talk about now? “What’s wrong?”
Gris grimaced as he looked at Ken. “With Boxby? Fall down drunk.”
“What?” She blinked back confusion as she finished her trip down the stairs. “Drunk?”
“You heard me. Now go to bed.”
A thousand questions rose on her lips but only one popped out. “Why didn’t you just take him to his own house?”
He grunted then, looking at the swaying man hanging off his shoulder. “I’ve forgotten his address.” That’s when she realized Gris had been drinking too. Clearly not as much as Ken but still…
“You forgot?”
“Go to bed,” he growled again. “And put something else on.”
She raised her brows, a question dangling on the tip of her tongue. Why would she need to put something else on to go to bed? Her lips pursed as she stared at her brother, attempting to decide if a fight was worth the trouble. It would likely wake the entire house.