“No, y’great twit!” Jack cuffed him on the ear. “It ain’t thunder, it’s—”
He heard it then, a low, pounding rumble, and flung a wide-eyed look at the rise behind them. Smythe and Charles heard it, and so did Amanda, placing her hands on his shoulders to look up the hill. She’d no sooner leaned forward than Lucifer, his sweat-lathered hide gleaming in the moonlight, plunged over the crest at an all out gallop.
“Holy Jesus!” Jack howled. “It’s him!”
There was nowhere to run to in the open-ended triangle formed by the drawn together coaches but the hedgerow alongside the road. Jack made a leap for it just as Harry did. They crashed together and fell side by side, knocked senseless.
“Oh, it is him!” Amanda cried joyously. “My dearest darling!”
Over the pounding of Lucifer’s hooves, Lesley heard her voice, but couldn’t make out the words or see where she was. He had eyes only for the pistol in Smythe’s hand as it swung toward him.
“Good God! That’s Lucifer!” Charles gasped, and threw himself at the thief.
Behind him, Amanda screamed and threw her reticule. It sailed toward Smythe, hanging in the air for a moment along with the ring of her voice and the ring of steel as Lesley drew his rapier. The pistol fired, belching fire and smoke, a half second before her reticule and Charles both struck Smythe.
Recoiling at the shattering report, Amanda cringed and flung her hands over her eyes. She was too terrified to look until she heard Lucifer whinny, and Charles laugh, and slowly lowered her hands.
With the tip of Lesley’s rapier quivering in the hollow of his throat, Smythe was pinned, arms out flung, against the side of the hackney. Sweat glistened on his face in the glow of the carriage lamps, Lucifer’s hide shimmered a wet, dark blue, and Charles’s teeth gleamed white in his dirty face as he got up with Smythe’s pistol in his hand and brushed his soiled waistcoat.
“Nicely done,” he said, grinning up at his younger brother.
“I trust you know how to use a pistol?” Lesley asked him frostily.
“Of course I do,” Charles retorted indignantly. “Now look here—”
He broke off at the sound of horse’s hooves, and looked back at the medium-sized sorrel galloping toward them over the hill. Lesley glanced behind him, keeping the rapier taut against Smythe’s jugular, and cursed. He didn’t see Amanda, who’d gone limp with relief with one hand pressed to her throat in the shadowed door frame of the carriage.
“So you nabbed him after all, my lord!” Fisk said with a laugh, as he reined in his horse beside Lucifer.
“My lord?” Amanda gasped, her fingers sliding away from her throat.
Lesley saw her then, and felt his heart lurch between his ribs. Dirt smudged her nose, and her windblown hair tangled around her face much as it had the night he’d met her in his mother’s garden.
“He’s all yours, Fisk,” he said brusquely and withdrew his rapier from Smythe’s throat.
As the thief sagged to the ground with a moan of relief, and Fisk dismounted to take charge, Lesley wheeled Lucifer toward the carriage. A tremulous smile quivered on Amanda’s lips, and his heart lurched again as he touched the blade to the tip of his nose.
“I wish you happy, my lady.” He saluted her, then dug his heels into Lucifer’s flanks.
“No, wait!” Amanda cried, springing up in the doorway. “Oh, please, you don’t understand!”
But it was too late. Lucifer was already disappearing over the hill in a gray swirl of dust.
“I say, Lesley!” Charles strode into the middle of the road and shouted angrily after him, “How incredibly rude!”
“What did you say?” Thunderstruck, Amanda clutched the door frame to keep from falling.
“I said, how incredibly rude! But perhaps I should have said how insufferably—”
“No, Charles, his name!” she shrieked. “Who is he?”
“Who is he?” The duke eyed her incredulously. “For God’s sake, Amanda! Don’t you know your own fiancé?”
“That was Lesley?” she squeaked, feeling suddenly faint.
“Yes, of course, it was Lesley! I admit I recognized Lucifer first, probably because he wasn’t wearing a mask, but—”
“Oh no,” Amanda moaned.
And then she swooned.
Chapter Sixteen
“Listen to this, Mandy.” Andrew folded the morning Times in half and read, “It is rumored that His Highness plans to privately receive the Duke of Braxton and Lady Amanda Gilbertson to congratulate them on their daring capture of the thief Smythe and his cohorts. This is an honor most deserved by these two noble heroes.’” He gave a short laugh and grinned at his sister. “D’you suppose the pun was intentional?”
Amanda’s only reply was an indifferent shrug. Still abed in her night rail and wrapper, she sat propped on her pillows staring gloomily at the cup of morning chocolate turning cold on the tray placed over her lap.
“I don’t think I care much for lovesickness.” Andrew tossed the paper on the floor and pulled his chair closer to the bed. “You had more to say when last you had a putrid throat.”
“I should have known,” Amanda murmured, almost to herself. “I keep going over it in my mind and it seems so clear to me now I can’t think why I didn’t.”
“That’s hindsight for you,” Andrew replied philosophically, propping his nearly healed ankle on the foot of her bed.
“But it was right there for all the world and his wife to see! I suppose it’s understandable I didn’t connect him to the man in the black mask when he jumped Lucifer over the wall, but I should have at Lady Cottingham’s when he appeared within an hour of his own leave taking. Especially because—”
“Are you going to drink that chocolate?”
“Do you mind awfully?” Amanda snapped irritably. “I’m trying to make sense of this.”
“It’s a shame to let it waste.”
“Then by all means drink it.”
“Thank you.” Andrew helped himself to a healthy swallow. “It’s my opinion you aren’t trying to make sense of anything. You’re just wallowing in self-pity.”
“I am not!” Amanda declared, but a telltale flush crept up her throat.
“You are, too. It’s all you’ve done these last two days. When are you going to get on with it?”
“Get on with what? My life?” She made a derisive noise in her throat. “It’s over! I might as well don my caps!”
“You could do that.” Andrew nodded. “Or you could at least make an attempt to find your dearest darling.”
“What would you have me do?” Amanda folded her arms and glared at him. “No one’s seen him since he galloped off on Lucifer!”
“Well.” He paused to take another sip of the tepid chocolate. “Getting out of bed might be a good place to start the search.”
“I don’t want to get out of bed,” she replied petulantly. “I’ve nothing to get out of bed for.”
“You’ve got your costume to ready for the duchess’s masquerade tonight, don’t you?”
“I’m not going.”
“You have to go, Mandy, it’s in your honor. Yours and Charles’s.”
“Don’t even mention Charles!” Amanda pushed the tray aside and angrily punched her pillows. “I haven’t seen him, either, since he and Mr. Fisk brought me home and explained things to Papa!”
“And isn’t that a marvel?” Andrew said brightly, looking for ways to cheer her without tipping his hand. “He’s so proud, he hasn’t even thought to punish you. And Mama hasn’t swooned in two days!”
Amanda looked down her nose at him and glowered.
“Oh, come, Mandy. It’s hardly Charles’s fault Lesley thought you were eloping with him. I would have thought the same thing.”
“Then you’re just as totty-headed as he is!”
The flush had spread across her cheeks now, and there was a definite spark in her eyes. And she’d withdrawn one leg from under the covers.
“Perha
ps,” he suggested carefully, “Charles has gone looking for him.”
“Or perhaps he’s just driving around the countryside testing his wind device!” Amanda waved one hand above her head, then demanded incredulously of her brother, “Do you know that’s all he talked about on our way back to London?”
“I thought you sobbed and cried the whole story to him. Isn’t that why he summoned Teddy home, to get to the bottom of things?”
“Ooh, that little jackanapes!” Flinging the bedclothes aside, she folded her legs beneath her and clenched her fists on her knees. “This is all his fault!”
“Hardly, Mandy,” Andrew replied reasonably. “Teddy certainly began it, but you and Lesley had an equal hand in the finish.”
That should have launched her to her feet like a cannon shot, but instead she sighed heavily and sank back against the pillows.
“You’re right, of course,” she agreed dismally.
The spark faded from her eyes, and her toes inched toward the covers again. Oh, no you don’t, Andrew thought, but was saved from flinging the linens aside and throwing her over his shoulder by a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Amanda sighed again.
It was Marie, praise God, with the promised delivery from Charles.
“This just come from His Grace,” she said, cleverly carrying the box to the chair farthest from the bed.
Which left Amanda no choice but to get up and cross the room to see what it was. As she pulled off the note fixed to the lid and opened it, Marie placed herself between her mistress and the bed, prepared to prevent her, bodily if necessary, from climbing back into it.
“‘My dear Amanda,’” she read aloud, “‘I’ve taken the liberty of arranging our costumes for the masquerade this evening. Since we are to be the honored couple, I thought we should look the part. My mother and yours kindly assisted, and I have their assurance the gown and slippers will fit. We shall be the talk of the town, I’m sure. Your devoted, Charles.’” Amanda put the note aside and looked curiously at Andrew. “Why did Mama say nothing of this to me?”
“Because she and Her Grace wanted to surprise you,” he said, keeping to himself that Lord Hampton had kept his wife otherwise occupied to prevent her emptying her budget to Amanda. “Go on, open it.”
“Oh my!” She breathed, as she removed the lid, tossed it aside, and lifted a filmy white gown with twists of gold in the sleeves and the bodice out of its tissue.
It was a lovely thing, even to Andrew, who knew nothing of women’s clothes. At the sparkle that came into his sister’s eyes as she held it against her, he glanced at Marie and winked.
“What’s this?” Amanda draped the gown carefully over the back of the chair and withdrew from the bottom of the box a delicate string of golden coins.
“It’s a girdle, m’lady,” said Marie, coming forward to take it from her. “Goes round you like this.”
“It’s Roman, then.” Amanda raised a dubious eyebrow as Marie roped the coins around her. “You knew about this?”
“Had to, didn’t I,” she replied guilelessly, “since I’m the one who dresses you. Should be something for your hair, too.”
There was, a thin gold circlet, which drew another gasp from Amanda, and smoothed the suspicious pucker from her brow. As she went scurrying to her glass to admire it, Andrew breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’ll be right as a trivet now,” Marie murmured, patting his arm as she went to help Amanda with the circlet.
Andrew left, and quickly made his way downstairs. At the sound of his footsteps in the foyer, the study door sprang open, and Lord Hampton appeared on the threshold.
“Yes?”
“Yes.” Andrew smiled.
“That’s one hurdle,” his father sighed. “Now if Charles can pull off the rest—”
“Don’t even think that he can’t,” Andrew interrupted feelingly, “or we may never get her out of bed again.”
“What costume did he send, by the way?”
“A gown in the Roman style.”
“Good God!” Lord Hampton’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “I shudder to think what Charles will wear!”
His brows took a similar leap that evening, when the Duke of Braxton, resplendent in a toga and crown of laurel leaves, strode regally across the foyer of his mother’s house to greet them. Even Andrew suffered a moment’s shock behind his mask, but Amanda laughed, lightly and gaily, for the first time in two days.
“Charles, you look marvelous!”
“I do, don’t I?” He grinned, tripping over the hem as he turned a circle in front of her. “But how on earth do you walk in a skirt?”
“Very carefully, Charles. Now tell me who we are.”
“Because everyone is crying us heroes, who better to be, I thought, than Caesar and Calpurnia?”
“Then so we shall be.” Amanda gave her cloak to a footman and took the duke’s arm.
Her filmy Roman gown shimmered in the glow of the chandelier, and the girdle of coins tinkled like small bells. As the Emperor of the Tiber led his Empress away, he glanced a quick nod to the Gilbertsons over his shoulder.
“At last,” Lady Hampton remarked, “I understand why everyone calls Charles His Dottiness.”
“At last,” Lord Hampton sighed, then whispered to his son, “D’you suppose that means he’s done it?”
“Let us hope,” Andrew muttered, and as yeoman to his Lord and Lady of the Manor parents, followed them into the ballroom.
He thought to catch Charles alone, but the crush was even worse than at Lady Cottingham’s, for the whole of the ton had turned out to congratulate Charles and Amanda. The costumes were mostly rich and elaborate so the ladies could flaunt their jewels, which only accented the elegant simplicity of Amanda’s gown.
Mindful of the pike he carried to complete his costume, Andrew wove his way through the crowd looking for Teddy, appropriately dressed as a jester. He found him at last and roared with laughter, for he sat glumly, his legs folded beneath him and his chin in his hands, at his mother’s feet. The Duchess of Braxton was dressed as a medieval queen, and held in her hand a leash attached to the loose collar buckled around the neck of her court fool.
“This ain’t funny,” Teddy said, the bells on his hat jingling as he glanced up at him sourly.
“But it is your just desserts,” Andrew replied unsympathetically, and took up a yeoman-like stance next to the duchess as his parents approached.
“And there will be no throwing spokes in anyone’s wheel this evening,” Her Grace said sternly, and gave the leash a shake, “for I shall know where you are at every moment.”
“Eugenia,” Lord Hampton said to her anxiously in a low voice. “Was Charles successful?”
“I’m not at all certain,” she replied worriedly.
“He received a message shortly after the guests began to arrive, but I’ve no idea what it said.” She sighed, surveying the packed ballroom. “I suppose we should begin the dancing or people will begin to wonder.”
Her Grace nodded to the orchestra leader, who’d been awaiting her signal, and the music began. It was a waltz, and the floor cleared, but for Charles and Amanda. Though Caesar stumbled once or twice—whether over the steps or his toga, Andrew couldn’t tell—there wasn’t so much as a twitter from the crowd. His empress smiled up at him fondly, indulgently, yet somewhat wanly.
Andrew heard it, and felt a rush of gooseflesh up his back as the opening bars repeated, and other couples swung onto the floor in time to the music. He glanced around quickly, but because no one else seemed to be reacting, he thought he’d imagined it—until Lucifer burst through the open French doors that gave onto the terrace.
His piercing whinny and the clatter of his hooves on the marble floor drew a bleat of jarring, screeching notes from the startled musicians, and a round of shrieks from the crowd. When he rose halfway on his hind legs, laid back his ears, and bugled deep in his chest, the dancers scattered. All but Charles and Amanda, who turned to face t
he stallion and the man in the black silk mask on his back.
His sister’s lips moved, and though Andrew was too far away to hear the words, he knew she murmured “my dearest darling.” Behind her, his laurel wreath askew, Charles stood grinning from ear to ear, until Lucifer danced sideways, and Lesley drew his rapier. The ring of the blade drawing free of its scabbard brought a gasp from the guests, and a stricken look to the duke’s face.
For a moment, Lesley held the rapier at his side, then tossed it into the air. It turned end over end as it fell, the light from the chandeliers sliding up the blade and winking on the hilt. When it landed with a clatter a safe distance away, Charles sighed audibly and went limp with relief.
“Bennett, shouldn’t you do something?” Lady Hampton twittered nervously. “I thought it was Lesley we were expecting.”
“It is, Cornelia,” Lord Hampton growled, and Andrew heard the clap of his father’s hand over his mother’s mouth.
Then Lesley tugged off his mask and flung it toward Amanda, his name rippling through the crowd on a murmur of disbelief. A tremulous smile quavering on her lips, she picked it up and ran it lightly through her fingers, her glimmering eyes fixed on Lesley’s face. For a moment there was only the jingle of Lucifer’s bit and the clash of his hooves on the floor, then Amanda was running toward him, the guests were gasping in horror, and Teddy was leaping and whooping at the end of his leash.
Grinning and leaning down from his saddle, Lesley caught her in one arm and swooped her up in front of him. With a shrill whinny, Lucifer spun toward the doors on his hind legs, giving Andrew a glimpse of the shining smile on his sister’s face before he leaped away into the darkness.
Pandemonium broke out in his wake, but mostly among the Earnshaw and Gilbertson families. Dumbfounded as the guests were by the shocking abduction they’d just seen, they were even more taken aback when the Duchess of Braxton hiked up her skirts and shouted to the orchestra, “Play something lively!”
She cast off Teddy’s leash, and Andrew threw down his pike. Lord Hampton whirled the duchess in a giddy circle, Charles tossed his laurel wreath into the air, grabbed a stunned Lady Hampton and pranced her around the floor.
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