Regency Masquerades: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Six Traditional Regency Romance Novels of Secrets and Disguises

by Brenda Hiatt

  He paused, perhaps to see if she would correct him. Falcon decided to say nothing, wondering what “other things” he meant.

  “I realize that I do not even know what to say when I introduce you, señora. It is customary to give more than a name—do I say that you are here on business, or a visit? Your husband does not travel with you—do I make a right guess that he was killed in the war?”

  “I lost my entire family in the war, Lord Danebridge.” She gave him a long, level look that she hoped would discourage him from further questions. “You may say that, and that I am here on business related to that loss.”

  “I am sorry for your loss, señora,” he responded quickly. “I understand how painful that must be.” He sounded sincere, and she wondered if he had lost someone, too.

  The footman who had dutifully held the box seats for them before the play began had disappeared during the performance, but he silently reappeared during this conversation. When the first knock sounded on the door to the baron’s box, the young man opened the door to admit the first visitors.

  “Danebridge, you rascal!” exclaimed a short, plump fellow who bustled in energetically without further ado. “When did you get into Town, and how could you have failed to send round your card to let us know? Thought you were still overseas! You are in deep trouble with my mother now.” He jerked his head towards the older woman who had trailed in behind him. Plump and short to match her son, she was tastefully gowned and plumed in pale amethyst.

  “Giddings! And Lady Giddings. You must accept my apologies,” the baron said. “I was brought into Town unexpectedly on business, and did not expect to be here long. I had hoped to be on my way home to see Tobey by now, in fact, but I find I am detained. I have been here only a matter of days, truly!”

  “I’m certain your son must miss you a great deal,” allowed Lady Giddings sympathetically. “I will forgive you as long as you introduce us to your charming companion!” She wiggled her gloved fingers at Falcon in a friendly fashion.

  Lord Danebridge opened his mouth to reply but before he could do so another knock sounded on the door of the box, and the footman admitted yet more visitors. The conversation repeated in a similar vein, more visitors arrived, and suddenly the box was quite crowded beyond capacity. If such a crush was normal, Falcon wondered if anyone was ever accidentally pushed out over the rail of the balcony.

  “I will introduce all of you to my guests, Doña Sofia Alomar de Montero from Spain and her companion, Mrs. Meara. The señora lost all of her family in the recent war. She is here visiting London on business.”

  Lady Giddings was all sympathy for Falcon now. “You poor dear! And so young, too,” she said, inspecting Falcon curiously through her quizzing glass as if to determine if her assessment was correct. “Well! I am certain now that we know you are amongst us, Lord Danebridge, we must have you join us for an evening. Won’t you take dinner with us on Saturday? And señora, please, you must join us as well! We will make a charming party out of it.”

  Falcon looked helplessly at Lord Danebridge, hoping he would find her some way out of accepting the woman’s invitation. She was in no position to begin socializing with people in London!

  “I’m sorry, Lady—Giddings, is it?” she started to say, but Lord Danebridge spoke up at the same moment.

  “That is very kind of you, Lady Giddings.” He shot a wicked smile at Falcon. “Doña Alomar knows hardly anyone in London. I’m sure she would be delighted. And you know I cannot possibly turn down a chance to enjoy the superb offerings of that fine cook of yours.”

  Not to be outdone, the other visitors, too, offered invitations to various entertainments and events, including a ball on the following Wednesday. Lord Danebridge accepted all of them. Falcon thought perhaps she should give up on Sweeney, Timmins and Pumphrey and just wreak vengeance on Lord Danebridge instead. At least I know where he is, she thought ruefully.

  A bell rang to signal the end of the interval, and the visitors departed, although a few left slowly, perhaps hoping to be invited to stay and share the box. Lord Danebridge was charming and cordial but did not go so far as that, to Falcon’s great relief.

  Once the crowd had departed, she chose her words carefully. “Lord Danebridge, I must protest. I have no wish to socialize with anyone in London. I know you meant well, but—”

  “Of course, you must trust me. I have your best interests at heart. You are well on your way now to becoming a Toast of the Town, a very enviable thing to be. No door will be closed to you—you’ll see! I am so delighted to be able to help you in this way.” He grinned.

  Exasperation was pushing the edge of Falcon’s temper. On the stage below the farce had begun, and the bursts of laughter from the audience could hardly have been more opposite to her mood. “This—this is not the sort of help I need, Lord Danebridge! I would more than appreciate it if you would refrain from making decisions for me, with or without so much as a ‘by your leave’!” If looks could kill, the one she gave him should have struck him down on the spot.

  The baron, however, replied with an expression that was all innocence. “My only wish is to assist you. I admit I would find the task easier if you would only confide in me. I do apologize if I have erred.”

  Falcon could not help feeling that somehow Lord Danebridge knew exactly what he was doing. What could she say? What did he really want?

  “Will you not at least explain now what that earlier fiasco was all about?” he prompted. “I do not truly believe you are a madwoman—there must be some reason why you would suddenly dash into the lower regions of this theater and disturb all those people in the standing area.”

  Angry as she might be, she did at least owe him an explanation. “I—I thought I saw someone I knew—someone I am seeking. But when I got down there I could not find him. I am not certain now that I saw him at all.”

  “This person is named Sweeney?”

  Falcon realized that she must have failed to hide her surprise, for he explained at once, “You said his name when you jumped up from your seat.”

  “Oh.” Truly, the play must have unnerved her more than she realized. She was reading far too much into Lord Danebridge’s behavior. Not everyone had secrets to hide and conspiracies to put in motion. “Yes, Mr. Sweeney.”

  “Is a theater a likely place to find this person?”

  In fact, it was. Falcon remembered that Sweeney had been quite interested in theater and that he had at times encouraged the soldiers in the Forty-third to take part in their own small productions. She nodded.

  “Well, you see? There is something right there that I can help you with.” He looked immensely pleased with himself. “A man, you know, has many greater resources at his disposal than a woman, especially in a great city like London. I will be happy to make a circuit of the various theaters and inquire if your friend is in the regular habit of purchasing tickets. I might even be lucky enough to procure an address. Knowing the interests of a person can be a great help if you are trying to locate him.”

  Falcon resented his patronizing tone, but she admitted she might never have thought of checking with the theaters. Why should she not allow Lord Danebridge to help her with this one problem? Triss had not been able to find Sweeney—perhaps Lord Danebridge could.

  Chapter Nine

  On the morning following the Drury Lane performance Falcon paced the carpet in her room impatiently, waiting for the arrival of her new walking dress. She looked at Maggie and sighed. “I suppose the modiste did not expect that we would plan to go anywhere before noon. I had hoped for an earlier start to the day.”

  “Child, the Tower of London has stood for centuries—how much difference in the scheme of things would it make to be gettin’ off to see it an hour sooner?”

  “None, I suppose, Maggie. If only we could be certain the difference will be only an hour or so! I am determined not to let another day go by without an attempt to see Timmins.”

  “As ye’ve no other suitable clothes, there is
not a thing ye can do but wait. The woman said mornin’, and mornin’ it still is. Have patience, lass.”

  Falcon rolled her eyes and went to the window. Patience was not and never had been one of her strong suits, despite her mother’s many efforts to teach her.

  She had intended to ask Lord Danebridge about posting a reward for the return of her trunk, hoping that she could afford to pay a suitable sum now that her finances were somewhat improved. She held little hope that her valuables would still be in the trunk, but surely the reward would be less costly than purchasing more clothes! Yet every day that passed with no word of her trunk made her less hopeful of its recovery.

  So much else had seemed to happen at the theater last night, she had quite forgotten to inquire about the reward. She had failed to ask other planned questions, too—about his wife, for instance.

  She thought over what she had learned about Lord Danebridge from his friends at the theater.

  He had a son whom he obviously loved. That had only surprised her a little. It helped to explain the absence of his wife—she assumed that Lady Danebridge must have stayed in the country with the son. But one thing was still puzzling about that—no one, not even the baron himself, had so much as mentioned her.

  His friend Giddings had clearly been genuinely surprised to see him, and had mentioned that he’d thought the baron was still “overseas”. That puzzled Falcon, too. If Lord Danebridge had only just returned from there, as he claimed, what had he been doing in Wickenden? The small Wiltshire village was not directly on any route leading from any major port on the English coast.

  Finally, if the baron had been unexpectedly called to London on business and was in such a hurry to go home, why on earth was he spending so much of his time with her? For the past two days he had given the impression of having nothing better to do at all.

  She turned back from the window and began pacing again. The man was going to drive her mad. On the one hand he had been and was continuing to be extremely helpful. On the other hand, he was overbearing and presumptuous—imagine committing her to all those social engagements without so much as consulting her? And when he knew perfectly well the constraints on her purse strings! Or at least, thought he did.

  Falcon stopped cold in the middle of the room. His intentions might not be perfectly clear, but she thought they were becoming more so by the minute. He was slowly, cleverly, insidiously manipulating her into a growing dependence upon him. But to what end? She could only think of one, and it was certainly not honorable.

  While she pondered the best way to find answers to her questions, her dress arrived. Maggie went down to retrieve it and came bustling back up the stairs with the large parcel in her arms.

  “Here ’tis—I can hardly wait to see ye in it!”

  Falcon hurried to unwrap the package and lifted out the heavy silk dress whose rich color had attracted her yesterday.

  “While Benita helps me to dress, Maggie, would you please find Carlos? Send him to Triss to let him know I will be ready to go in a very few minutes.”

  In his study in Fitzharding Street Jeremy, too, had been pondering questions that he had failed to ask and information that he had managed to glean during the previous evening.

  He had been surprisingly content to simply watch the señora during the first half of the program. She had become so thoroughly engrossed in the Shakespeare, he did not believe that the emotions that flickered across her face could have been anything but genuine. She seemed to have forgotten everything but the action on the stage and was truly startled each time a major response came from the audience to break the spell. He had found ample opportunity to study the perfection of her skin, the curl of her eyelashes and the expressive curve of her lips—and the true distress the matter of the play seemed to bring out in her.

  The business about Sweeney had sent him scurrying back through Señorita Alvez Bonastre’s letters from Corporal Triss as soon as he had returned home last night. He thought he remembered some reference to Sweeney, and some other names as well, and was gratified when he found it. In many of the letters, Corporal Triss had reported on Sweeney and two other men. In the later letters, after he had become sergeant, he expressed increasing difficulty in keeping track of the men.

  Who were they? Lovers who had left her behind? Had she followed them to England to try to gain their protection again? The thought, along with something that might have been a twinge of jealousy, had crossed his mind when she rushed off in search of Sweeney in the theater last night. Or were they contacts, involved in some intrigue that might threaten the nation, or the fragile peace in Europe, as his superiors feared? The Treaty of Paris was not yet signed, although Louis XVIII was back in Paris and Napoleon was in exile on Elba.

  Jeremy was convinced now beyond doubt that the señorita and the señora were the same person. How many more names did she use? And why? Perhaps if he could find Sweeney, he would find some answers as well.

  He had attempted several times during the previous evening to steer the conversation around to how Doña Alomar de Montero had spent her afternoon, but each time she had seemed to find a way to circumvent him. She had not mentioned any change in her financial state or given any hint of what had occupied her time. He had no better idea now than before of her reason for visiting the solicitor.

  In truth, he was making very little headway on this case at all. A growing urge to spend time in the woman’s company was the only result he had to show for several days’ effort, and he was not particularly pleased about that. She was already too much in his mind. To form any personal feelings about a case was dangerous in his work.

  Patience, he reminded himself. Her show of temper last night was a sign of progress, was it not? He was slowly, steadily attempting to maneuver her into an impossible situation, hoping she would be forced into revealing the truth or at least into making an error that would give away her game. How long could she carry on the masquerade? There was some time pressure on her now, with a round of social engagements on the horizon. And Jeremy had yet some cards to play.

  In an improved state of mind, he put on his hat and gloves and headed for the door. Too bad Mr. Fallesby’s office was not on the way to Charles Street. He would have to stop in later today to make an appointment with the solicitor.

  Falcon was waiting for Triss to return with a hackney when Lord Danebridge arrived at Mrs. Isham’s.

  “I have a certain feeling of déjà vu about this,” she said, greeting the baron with a frown.

  He grinned. “Why, whatever do you mean? Is that any way to greet one’s friends?”

  “I believe it was only yesterday morning that you arrived at the Covent Garden lodgings while I was waiting for Sergeant Triss to come ’round with a hackney, and here we are again.”

  “Au contraire, my dear. Today I am here at a very respectable few minutes after the noon hour. It is not morning at all.”

  “I’m afraid I am just on my way out.”

  “What?” His disbelief was terribly exaggerated. “Surely you cannot mean to say you are engaged again for the afternoon—two days in a row! I must have been mistaken when I thought you had few acquaintances in London! And here you are, seeking out even more—your Mr. Sweeney. Perhaps you have changed your mind about looking for him?”

  “Oh, no!” Falcon assured him. “That is, I am not so busy socially. Business, you know. It can be tedious.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, indeed—how well I know that. Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you—I could endeavor to keep you amused.”

  His look was innocence itself, but Falcon did not trust whatever he meant by that last remark. “I do not think so,” she said coldly.

  “You don’t think I could amuse you? I am crushed!” He feigned a wounded look that was so ridiculous she was hard pressed not to smile. Then he exchanged it for a smoldering, seductive look that triggered a response in her pulse despite her intended resistance. “There are ladies who would disagree with you quite heartil
y, I want you to know.”

  What was it that fascinated her so about his eyes? She knew it was a mistake to look into them, yet she never seemed able to stop herself. How quickly they changed! A moment ago they had been as light as silver, and now they had darkened to the deep gray of steel. They made her forget what she was going to say next.

  Fortunately, at that moment Triss arrived to announce that he had procured a hackney.

  “Good day, your lordship!” he began jovially. “Saw your rig outside. Shall I ’ave the ’ackney wait, señora?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” said the baron at the same time. “No need. I am happy to make my vehicle available for the señora’s use.”

  Falcon finally found a smile for Lord Danebridge. Surely she had him this time! “Unless you came in something other than your curricle, sir, I’m afraid we cannot avail ourselves of your offer.” She made little effort to disguise her satisfaction. “Sergeant Triss needs must accompany me this afternoon, and you cannot possibly accommodate all three of us.”

  The baron only laughed. “Well, then, let us all three go in your hackney! I am not above using a public vehicle when I must!”

  Triss turned a puzzled face to Falcon. “‘E’s coming with us to the Tower?”

  She sighed. So much for concealing her destination. “I believe not. You cannot possibly wish to join us, Lord Danebridge—my business takes us to the Tower of London this afternoon. I am certain you must have been there countless times. You would find the excursion utterly boring.”

  “Not at all! I find the Tower fascinating—such a sense of history and all. I do hope you plan to take in the Royal Menagerie, and the Jewel Office. Oh, and the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula. You must not miss those, while you are there on your business. Allow me to act as your personal guide and escort.”