She let herself in and removed her cloak. “Anyone home?”
“In here!”
She followed the sound of Donovan’s voice into the drawing room and found him sitting before the fire. He was waiting up for her. He was much better now, and the bruises had faded from purple to yellow and green. He was working again, too. Just this morning he’d been cleaning windows. He winced only a tiny bit as he came to his feet when she walked into the drawing room.
“How was the party?”
Hollis smiled. She felt weightless, as if she was about to float out of her shoes. She did, in fact, bump into the wall as she stepped into the room. “It was wonderful, Donovan. I wish you could have come.”
He grinned at her. “Dear Lord, I can smell your joy from here. What have you been drinking?”
“A terrible thing! It has the taste of licorice, but too much of it. As...something?”
“Absinthe?”
“Yes!” she said triumphantly. She came forward and kissed him on the cheek. “I had more than I ought.”
“It would seem,” he said as she collapsed onto a chair. He eased himself into the one beside her. “Tell me about it.”
“Lord Douglas engaged in a shouting match with Princess Justine over a silly game of Chairs, and then Mr. and Mrs. Dawson had a row because Mr. Dawson kissedthe peacockunder the mistletoe.”
“That sounds dreadful for both parties. Anything else?”
“Yes! Marek and I discovered there reallyarefour soldiers. We’re going to find them. With your help, of course.”
“Marek, is it?”
“We’re friends, Donovan.”
“Mmm,” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “And you’re going to help your friend find these soldiers, is that the plan?”
“Well.” She avoided his gaze by fussing with a loose crystal in her gown. “I thought you and I would help him as we would any friend.”
“We don’t have any friends that we help in that manner. How are we going to help him?”
“Lord Douglas said they are down at the docks somewhere. Marek knows nothing of the docks.”
“But I do,” he said.
“You know more than him,” she said. “Will you please help us?”
Donovan smiled. “You know I’d do anything you ask of me.”
“Idoknow. And I’m asking. Hopefully, I’m asking with all due civility and not shouting, but at this point, I really can’t say if I am or not. There’s a very solid ringing in my ears.”
“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” he said with a grin. “All right then, it is half-past three in the morning. Off to bed with you.”
Hollis yawned loudly and found her feet. Donovan put his hands on her shoulders and pointed her in the direction of the door. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thank you, I can manage. Lord, it’s a wonder I haven’t popped out of this dress yet.” She blew him a kiss and made her way to her room.
Her room was lit softly by a dying fire—Donovan clearly expected her home some time ago. Hollis paused to look around her. Her gaze landed on a painting on the far wall. It was a landscape scene,Fields at Dawn,or something like that. She gathered it was meant to evoke gloom, given that a gray mist covered the fields.
She’d never liked the painting. She’d wanted something prettier, something more colorful for this room. But Percy had wanted this one. And Hollis had always done what Percy wanted. She’d done what he’d wanted because she’d loved him so and had been very good about burying her wishes in favor of his. But it was time to add some color to this gray room.
Hollis kicked off her shoes and walked to the painting. It was large and heavy, but she managed to bring it down without breaking a toe or putting a hole in the wall. She turned it around to face the wall and hoped she remembered to tell Ruth to take it out tomorrow.
Hollis walked to her bed and sat on the end, looking at the patch of wall where the painting had hung, where the wallpaper was a little lighter in color than the paper that had surrounded the frame. The lighter patch reminded her of how she felt about Percy. He was a little lighter in the part of her where he’d always existed. And soon, that patch of lightness would fade, too, like Percy had, until she could hardly see it.
