Tempting the Bride by Sherry Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

received. Yet if Miss Fitzhugh had been the one to arrange for this meeting, she would not have needed to ask for a key. She would have been the one who’d issued the instruction to give the key to Martin.
    The possibility that a third party was pulling the strings had just shot up to near certainty.
    “How many keys do you have to the room?”
    “Three, sir.”
    “Where are the other two?”
    “One is with the guest under whose name the room is registered. The other key we hold.”
    And if Helena Fitzhugh had taken the third key, then she was definitely not the one under whose name the room was registered.
    Hastings reached inside his day coat and slid across a one-pound note. “Give me the third key and say nothing of me to anyone.”
    The clerk looked at the note for a long moment—then quickly pocketed it. “Here you go, sir.”
    The key was heavy and cold in Hastings’s hand as he walked toward the lift. It had seemed imperative that he should have a key. But now that he did, he didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t very well interrupt a lovers’ rendezvous without clear and present danger.
    A moment later, clear and present danger arrived in the form of Mrs. Monteth, approaching the clerk’s station.
    His heart seized. Not the lift then, with its unpredictable speed. He walked to the stairs as fast as he dared without attracting undue attention, glancing at Mrs. Monteth every two seconds. The moment he was out of her sight, he sprinted up the steps, praying the lift wouldrequire a long wait and then stop at every floor along the way.
    His lungs burned. He ran faster.
    T he Savoy was not as tall as the hotel Helena had stayed at in New York City, but still, from the top floor it was a long drop to the ground. Helena stood just inside the balcony, waiting.
    Sometimes it still seemed only last week that she and Andrew first met, and the world was glorious with the promise of happiness. Sometimes it seemed a lifetime ago, and she’d always had this crux of desolation in her heart.
    A scratch came at the door. She rushed to open it. Andrew stood before her, his face at once glowing and apologetic. “Sorry I’m late. Monteth wanted to drag me back inside the club for a drink—and I always underestimate how long it takes to get anywhere in London nowadays.”
    It didn’t matter why he was late; it mattered only that he was here. She pulled him in, shut the door, and threw her arms about him. “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.”
    How well she remembered the first time she’d hugged him, impulsively, after he’d told her he didn’t see why she wouldn’t make a terrific publisher. They’d been on the banks of her brother’s trout stream, having known each other all of a week. But what a glorious week, spending every waking minute together. She’d gone to sleep each night with an enormous smile on her face.
    The present-day Andrew nuzzled her hair. “I’ve missed you terribly, Helena.”
    The sound of pounding feet reverberated in thepassage—a vibration she felt in her own shins. Her chest tightened. Surely it couldn’t be Mrs. Monteth making such an uncivilized racket.
    “I shouldn’t be here at all,” Andrew went on. “But ever since we ran into each other at the rail station the other day, your question of whether a promise to your brother was more important than a promise to you has agonized me. I did promise to be always at your side, didn’t I?”
    She barely heard him. But she heard all too clearly the sound of a key turning in the lock. She sprang back from him as if he’d suddenly developed the pox.
    But it was only Hastings, clutching onto the doorjamb, breathing hard.
    “What are
you
doing here?” she cried, flabbergasted, relieved, and outraged. Her action might carry risks, but he had no right to interfere in such a crude manner.
    “It’s not what it looks like,” blurted Andrew at the same time.
    “I know what it is and I don’t care.” Hastings pushed the door shut behind