She waited several long minutes before thrusting a hand into one of Jamie’s coat pockets. On the first try, she brought out the key, along with the note she’d left for him that morning on the mantelpiece. Even though she remembered precisely what she’d written, Bliss unfolded the paper anyway, and scanned it with her eyes.

I will always love you, Jamie, she read. I’ve got to say good-bye and we both know why, so I won’t belabor the point. I do hope you’ll be happy. Forever, Bliss.

Her throat thick, Bliss refolded the note and put it back into Jamie’s pocket. After collecting her cloak, she slipped out of the suite and locked the door behind her.

“Hello,” said a ragged, familiar voice as she withdrew the key.

Walter’s grandfather, the senior Mr. Davis, was standing behind her, his skeletal hand on the knob of the door leading into his own suite. He showed his piano-key teeth in a smile that made Bliss want to dash back inside her own rooms.

“You’re—standing,” she observed stupidly. Until that moment, she’d thought Mr. Davis was permanently confined to his invalid’s chair.

“Yes,” the old man conceded with a nod. “I can, for short periods of time.” His misted eyes went over her with a disconcerting thoroughness. “Going out?”

Bliss forced herself to smile pleasantly. After all, it wasn’t Mr. Davis’s fault if he wasn’t very personable. “I thought I’d take a walk.”

Mr. Davis seemed to be looking at—no, through—the door, and seeing something there that he hated abjectly. “It seems to me,” he said presently, “that your husband takes a great many chances with your safety.”

Bliss was about to answer lightly, but then she remembered the whip, sent as a wedding present, and shivered a little.

Mr. Davis had not missed her reaction. “Something wrong, my dear?”

Bliss wanted to get away from the sight of this old man, and the mood he created. “Certainly not,” she said with a bright smile.

Her neighbor seemed a bit wobbly; his hand began to tremble on the knob, and his legs looked unsteady as well. He was about to speak when the knob of Bliss’s door rattled ominously and Jamie called out, “Duchess!”

Bliss smiled and dropped the key into the pocket of her cloak, standing back from the door. “Yes, dear?” she sang sweetly, forgetting all about Mr. Davis and his peculiar remarks.

“Open this damn door!” Jamie bellowed.

“Oh, but I couldn’t do that,” Bliss replied. “I must consider your—your safety.”

She heard Jamie’s sigh, could envision him resting his forehead against the door in frustration. “All right, Duchess,” he said. “You’ve made your point. Now let me out of ’ere.”

“I will, of course. At suppertime, or thereabouts.” With that, Bliss turned and strolled down the hallway to the stairs. When the door of the suite began rattling on its hinges, she quickened her pace.

By the time Bliss had reached the lobby, she was beginning to regret the rashness of her actions. Alas, there was no going back, so she hurried out into the fresh air and walked rapidly away from the hotel without any particular destination in mind.