As the carriage neared the townhouse, Maxwell noticed Maxine massaging her wrist.

She was looking out the window, her posture naturally proud. She was definitely gentry. His eyes veered back on her hands.

"Are you hurt?"

Her head slowly turned to face him. Her pale grey eyes matched his stern look. Brow arching high, she asked, "Now you ask?"

"I did not mean to—"

"I do not truly care what you meant to do, my lord," she said, gathering her skirts. "But I would appreciate if you could ask the driver to stop the carriage here."

"Why?"

She offered a short smile. "As you may very well see, I do not dress as a footman and he will be very curious as to why you brought home a baseborn woman into your expensive townhouse."

"Baseborn? Is that what you are?"

A corner of her lips twitched in a mocking smile. "A plebeian if you must prefer then," she said, knocking on the carriage roof when he did not.

"I did not mean to demean your nature, Max."

"What would you prefer then? Low-class? Coarse?" She tilted her head to the right. The carriage was drawing to a stop. "Wretched?"

Maxwell narrowed his eyes. "You surely do make the most out of—"

"—insults?" she finished for him, offering him a disarming smile. "Of course, I do, milord." She pushed the door open and climbed out.

He followed, surprising her and the driver. "Go back to the ball," he ordered to the man. "I shall walk my friend to her estate," he said.

"Yes, milord," the driver replied and before Maxine could protest, the carriage was driving away.

She shook her head and continued on foot toward the townhouse. He walked behind her in a leisurely pace, studying her steps.

She could be gentry after all, he thought. She walked like one and she talked like one.

But from where could she be? Who was her father?

"I ought to demand that you stop following me, but since we are toward he same destination, I would appreciate if you walk on ahead," she said over her shoulder, adding, "my lord."

"Why?" he asked with doubt.

She stopped and rolled her eyes. "If you are thinking that I would attack you from behind, please, do spare me of your wild imaginations."

Maxwell was thinking precisely that. How did she bloody read his mind?

He walked past her and she continued walking behind him.

"I am not done with my questions, if you must know," he said when they turned a corner near the townhouse.

"Whyever am I not surprised?" was her sarcastic response from behind.

Her boots echoed along the pavement. She wore boots to a bloody ball!

"As you know, I am a very curious man."

"Ah, whyever am I surprised you consider yourself one?"

"What one?"

"Man."

He glared at her over his shoulder and she was smiling at him as though she had not called him an animal!

Whirling around to face the street as it was the only option for him to stop himself from strangling her, Maxwell counted until his breath was even.

"You have planned this," he uttered.

No answer came. He stopped and turned to find that she had disappeared. He turned around and found no trace of her. It was then that he realized they had reached the townhouse and she had probably turned to enter through the side door.

Maxwell cursed under his breath and run up the front doors.

*****

Maxwell surprised a maid when he stormed into the service corridor.

"Milord!" she uttered, eyes wide. "How can I be of—"

"I wish to speak to the valet," he impatiently said. "Where is he staying?"

The maid blinked in surprise.

"I meant my brother's valet."

The woman's face flushed. "You meant Max!"

"Yes."

"The handsome lad?"

Maxwell did his best not to gape. "If you believe so, yes."

She pointed down the corridor. "The last door to the right, milord. He shares the room with the driver."

He walked away without saying another word. The maid hurried out of sight just as Maxwell reached the farthest door. He pushed it open.

The woman gasped in surprise, whirling around to face him. To his utter horror, she was on the process of wearing a shirt. Her chest was bandaged. Glowering, he stepped into the room and slammed the door behind him. He swallowed as she glared at him and said, "You did not bloody lock the door. Not my fault."

"I locked it!" she hissed, pulling the shirt over her head in haste. Maxwell looked down. Good that she was already in her breeches.

"As you can very well see, I am the evidence of your incompetence," he managed to say while staring at her bedraggled state.

"What do you want?" she demanded with a sigh. "More answers to your questions?"

His eyes went to the magenta gown on the bed. "You have planned this."

"Of course. I would not have brought a gown if I did not." She bent down to pick up the garment and started to fold it.

"Why did you go to the library in Wickhurst?"

She stiffened and stopped what she was doing. When she turned to face him, her eyes were alight with anger once more. "You have been spying on me."

He shrugged. "I suspect you to be one as well. We are even."

She scoffed. "Spying on the Everards. Of course, your ever famous conclusion."

"Why were you in the library?"

"I was looking into Herald articles."

"Be specific, Max," he prompted.

"Do not call me that, milord." She returned to her task and he waited until she was done. She placed the linen wrapper back into her bag and slid the luggage under the bed. "I was looking for my mother."

"In articles?"

"Yes, of course."

"How?"

"You mean the process or how I read the articles?"

He narrowed his eyes in warning.

"I merely looked for signs of how my—" she stopped and did not continue.

"How your what?" he demanded.

She shook her head and faced him. Silence lingered between them for a while. "Clues. I was looking for clues."

"Of what?"

"If Amelia Trilby was truly my mother. I saw her photo on a recent Herald article and I started to suspect that she could be the woman I had been looking for. My visit to the library gave me clues to prove my theory. Now I am here to prove it."

"By confronting Amelia Trilby? Are you daft? She is a Trilby."

"I know and I am—" she stopped once more and he frowned. What? What was she? She shook her head. "I am her daughter. I am certain of it."

"How could you be certain? Instinct?"

"Of course," was her confident reply. "Now, milord, if I could respectfully ask that you leave my room."

"You mean the room you share with the driver."

"I rather like that man, milord. He is by far the best male company I had since we left Wickhurst." Her voice was filled with contemptuous meaning.

"He is a man and you—"

"I am a man as well in his eyes. Please, milord, I am tired and I have to take a nap before Lord Nick arrives."

"Lord Nick."

"He prefers to be called as such."

Her face flushed at the mention of Nicholas and Maxwell's frown merely deepened, his brows forming a straight line. "You do fancy Nicholas, do you not?"

Her jaw dropped but she quickly recovered. "Another atrocious theory, milord. Bravo!" she uttered with a clap and the most pretentious of smiles.

"You do, do you not?" he repeated.

"I may have," she said with a smile, surprising him, "as most women did. But that has changed for it was merely a passing fancy. I have more important things to mind than growing feelings toward anyone, most of all an Everard."

He was highly in doubt.

In less than a second her face turned stern and she uttered, "Now, if you could kindly step out of my room." When he did not move, she added, "Please, milord. I am tired."

Maxwell looked her up and down. The upper part of her shirt was still unbuttoned, showing her collarbones and allowing a peek of the upper portion of her bandage.

When his eyes returned to her eyes, her face was flushed. Her hands went up to close the shirt up to her neck.

"At the very least you do know what to hide," he commented before he turned and walked out the door.

He walked back to his own chamber, no longer interested in going back to the ball.

If the woman was a Trilby, Maxwell could not allow his family to be tangled with her family again for it might lead to bigger trouble. And now that he knew that League was investigating Osegod, it would not do his family good to be on the bad side of the Trilbys who were Osegod's greatest allies.

Perhaps Maxine could be a pawn they could use should the Trilbys or Osegod make their move against them. Or perhaps he was making a mistake. Or mayhap not.

He must wait and see what Osegod was planning to do. If the man did something untoward, then perhaps they could make one of his Trilby friends pay the price. The question he had in mind at the moment was in what way could his brother's valet be useful?

*****

The Everards, most of them, were present in the townhouse the following day.

And they were all too loud. Ralph and Emma would not stop bickering down the corridor. Ralph was taunting his sister about someone she danced with last night, a matter that Emma had denied, saying she danced with no other but her brothers and brothers-in-law. It had to take Lady Alice to shout for the two to stop their ruckus, but it was already too late for Nicholas and Ysabella joined in, both asking questions that Emma could not answer at once.

Nicholas threw threats while Ysabella was overwhelmed by the gossip.

Maxine had to ask one of the footmen to wait on Nicholas for her during breakfast, feigning an aching head. Ysabella and her husband were in the dining room and unless she wanted Ysabella to shout and reveal who she truly was Maxine had to find a way to hide.

But sooner or later Nicholas would call for her.

And he did just that before luncheon. She came to his bedchamber and he looked as bad as when he arrived the previous night.

"Do you need—" she started but stopped when she noticed that Maxwell was also in the room, sitting in one corner holding a copy of the Town Herald. He looked up, his face looking utterly bored.

"Ah, there you are, Max," Nicholas said, turning to face her with a frown. "This bloody cravat. I wish to change it."

Maxine wanted to cry. She had tied that cravat that morning with difficulty and now he wanted it changed?

"It is a simple tea party, Nicholas," said Maxwell. "Do not be such a bloody nancy."

Maxine walked to find darker cravat for Nicholas while her master snapped at his brother, saying, "Adrien Haverston shall be there, Max. You know how that bloke is. He would—"

"I do not believe Westershire would bother to care for your cravat."

"I meant he would be there and so would be his female friends!"

"Adrien Haverston had been married for years, Nick. He no longer invites female friends. Where the bloody hell have you been?" Maxwell asked, jumping to his feet.

"But will there be no other guests apart from—"

"No," Maxwell said. "We are the only guests. Get that bloody cravat off him," he ordered at Maxine when she started to make the first knot. "It is hideous."

"Says the man who wears his hair down like a woman!" Nicholas shot back but he took the cravat from Maxine and threw it aside.

"And what do you call a woman who ties her hair up? A man?" Maxwell asked and Maxine stiffened, glaring at Maxwell over Nicholas' shoulder.

The man's lips curled into a small smile and he shrugged.

"Now that you have said it, I believe it is a good question!" Nicholas was saying as Maxwell left the room. "But by the by, Max, Levi sent a note that he and Tori shall be in attendance today after having missed the ball due. Their carriage broke down on their way yesterday and—"

"Your brother has already left the chamber, milord," Maxine said with a smile.

Nicholas whirled around. Cursing under his breath, he grabbed his coat and allowed Maxine to assist him.

"No cravat, milord?"

"You heard my brother," he snapped and walked out, muttering something that sounded like, "bloody tea party!"

Maxine went to pick up the two cravats Nicholas threw aside and carefully folded them back in his bag. They would be leaving Willowfair soon.

She paused, staring at an empty space. Should she stay here? Should she at least try to find her mother and talk to her?

She was so close.

If she left with the Everards, she might not have another chance.

The door to the bedchamber swung open and Maxine turned around with a smile, expecting Nicholas. Perhaps he had changed his mind and wanted the cravat after all?

"Nick, Levi and Tori have finally arrived and they look as if they had been to hell and—" the unexpected visitor was saying before stopping all at once.

To her utter surprise and horror, it was not Nicholas standing in the doorway. Nor was it Maxwell and she wanted it to be Maxwell now that she realized who it was.

The woman walked toward her with a frown on her face, her words forgotten as she took careful steps toward Maxine.

Ysabella frowned at her, her green globes lighting up with curious familiarity.

Maxine could not move. She wanted to move. She wanted to be able to turn and run toward the window and throw herself out.

Ysabella opened her mouth and closed it again when no words came. She tilted her head to the right and then to the left, narrowing her eyes at Maxine.

And when she opened her mouth again, a word came out. "Maxine?"