“Why not? I thought this entire proposition today was so your ward could attend.”

“It’s… Never mind.” Tobias wiped his hand over his face.

“You’re still distracted,” Lucien said. “By the maid. A maid? What the hell were you thinking?” He gave Tobias an icy glower. “Also, don’t fuck with my maids.”

Before Tobias could say something stupid, such as she wasn’t one of his maids, Evie strode into the ballroom. Leaving Lucien behind, Tobias went to meet her.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“On her way home.” Evie gave him a look that told him everything he needed to know—she knew exactly who the “maid” was, and she wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Tobias briefly clasped her hand. “Thank you.”

He left the club without a backward glance.

By the time he reached his house, he’d considered several ways he might approach Fiona. Miss Wingate. As he walked inside, he asked Carrin to summon her to his study. There, he waited anxiously for her arrival.

He did not have long to wait.

Now dressed in a floral-patterned gown with her vibrant hair in a severe style without a curl falling loose as it had in the garden, she tentatively stepped inside.

“Close the door.” He shouldn’t have her do that for propriety’s sake, but this was a private conversation.

She did as he said and moved to the middle of the room. She looked lovely, despite the obvious tension in her frame. Her jaw was tight as she regarded him with well-earned wariness.

He stood near his desk, his arms folded, willing himself not to look at her mouth lest he recall kissing her. “Why were you at the club dressed as a maid?”

“I wanted to see the inside. I thought it would be safe to go at that time of day.”

“You thought it would be safe?” He ran a hand through his hair before dropping it to his side. “There is nothing safe about disguising yourself and stealing into a private club, even one where women are allowed.”

“I understand that now,” she said softly.

“I should bloody hope so. The irony is that you chose a truly awful day for your excursion. There was a meeting to discuss this Season’s assemblies as well as whether family members—and wards of members—could attend.”

“And can they?” she asked in a voice that grew smaller and higher with each word.

He stepped toward her, glowering. “It doesn’t matter to you because you won’t be going.”

Her eyes rounded briefly. “Because you’re sending me back to Bitterley.”

“I bloody well should. What were you thinking dressing as a maid and—” He stopped short, frowning. “How did you even know how to dress as a maid?”

“I’m clever.”

Yes, she was. “Who helped you?”

“No one.”

“I don’t believe you. Why aren’t you telling me the truth?”

She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye unflinchingly. “If you’re going to send me away, just do it, please.”

He closed the space between them so that she had to tip her head back. “You are fortunate you weren’t recognized because you would have been ruined.”