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

by Brenda Hiatt

“A former friend of your husband?”

  “Please! He is not any kind of a friend.”

  “Ah. A business acquaintance, then.”

  “No. Please, he is just someone I need to find. Thank you so much for discovering that he will be at the theater on Tuesday.”

  “There is no guarantee that he will actually appear. Suppose he bought the tickets for a friend?”

  “Then I will have to keep trying. Did you not say you had news of my trunk, as well?”

  He let it go, for now. That she was so reluctant to talk about whatever it was seemed significant in itself. Before he could tell her his scheme to return her trunk, however, they were hailed by a couple in an elegant high-wheeled phaeton that had drawn abreast of them.

  “Yoo-hoo, Lord Danebridge!” It was Lady Varnham and her husband, the earl, who were clearly as surprised to see him in London as Lord Giddings and his mother had been.

  Jeremy had no choice but to introduce the señora to them, more aware than ever that each time he performed this act the social repercussions spread a little further, like the ripples on a pond after a stone has been cast. He had seen the entries about “the Spanish Spitfire” in the betting book at his club, speculating on how soon the mysterious newcomer’s identity would be discovered. By the time this day ended, he had no doubt that her name would be in full circulation among the elite members of the ton.

  Once Lord and Lady Varnham moved on, Jeremy picked up the thread of conversation with his companion. He was about to spin an entire web of lies in order to return her trunk. Acting a part, lying, dissembling—these were necessary tools of his trade. He had fallen into his profession almost unintentionally, first as a result of military need and then out of a sense of duty to his country. But how much he looked forward to quitting it! He had sacrificed too much and stayed in it too long. And I should never have accepted this last case.

  “I received an anonymous message about your trunk,” he began. “Someone interested in the reward claims to have your trunk and will return it tomorrow. There is always the danger of paying the reward for the wrong item, however. I was hoping you would agree to accompany me, to identify it and the contents.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Attend Sunday service at St. George’s Hanover Square with me.” If she was indeed Catholic, would she object? But she simply waited for him to go on.

  “I suspect our thief will be there at a very early hour. I have been instructed to go there and look for the trunk. I am to leave the reward money under the cushion of a particular pew.”

  “Does it not seem very peculiar?”

  “There will be few witnesses at a church in the wee hours to see someone leave off a trunk there. Yet later, particularly on a Sunday, there will be many people about, insuring anonymity for the thief who returns to gather the reward. It is actually rather ingenious.”

  “It seems fraught with risk for the thief, to me. What is to stop us from catching him when he leaves off the trunk? Or to prevent us from retrieving the trunk without bothering to leave the reward? Or for that matter, from watching that pew to see who collects the money and catching him then?”

  She was too clever, by half. “I suppose he, if it is a ‘he’, imagines that we are not interested in catching him, since he is returning our goods to us. I thought your chief concern was the recovery of the trunk?”

  “Yes, it is. But it seems so wrong to allow someone to succeed at this.”

  “It seems dishonorable to advertise a reward and then withhold it. Suppose the person returning the trunk is not the one who originally stole it?”

  “Oh. I had not considered that.”

  “Imagine, too, how desperate someone’s circumstances must be to push them to such measures. In a city the size of London, there are many destitute souls. I do not begrudge them the money since our anonymous person is at least returning what was taken.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are right, of course…”

  They had come to the place where the carriage-way paralleled the shore of the Serpentine for a distance. Jeremy slowed his cattle, allowing other vehicles and riders to pass them. The view framed by the trees that edged the road was admirable, particularly on such a fine day. The feathery spring foliage was a brilliant green. The sun sparkled on the water, and a flotilla of ducks and swans dotted the swath of blue. Doña Alomar had grown quiet and stared out at it all thoughtfully.

  “Penny for your thoughts, or should I make it a pound?” He would have gladly paid any price to know what went on in her mind.

  She shook her head, but at least she smiled. Suddenly he felt as if the sun was truly shining for the first time since his arrival at her house this day.

  “Then you will go with me in the morning?”

  “Yes. Oh, you cannot imagine what it will mean to me to have my things back, if indeed it is not a trick being played upon us. I must have hope.”

  “‘Shall I live in hope? All men, I hope, live so…’” he quoted. It was a line from Richard III.

  She laughed. Actually laughed! The musical sound filled him with joy. He had no idea such a small victory would affect him so much.

  She said, “I do hope my affairs shall turn out better than did Anne’s in the play. Oh, there I go—more hope!”

  He laughed with her, and it felt like freedom. He could not remember being as happy and in charity with a woman as he was at this moment since before he had lost his own Anne. Perhaps it was only the combination of the warm sun and the sparkling view that caused the feeling—but no, he knew it was the radiance of this beautiful woman’s own warmth as she sat beside him.

  The moment felt like a gift. He wanted to savor it, prolong it, but he did not know how. What would he not give for them to be ordinary people, on an ordinary carriage drive! But he could not change who they were—a woman who was a mystery and a man who must unmask her. No matter who she turned out to be, no matter what reason was behind her masquerade, still his own deceptions would always stand as a barrier between them. They came to the grove that marked the end of the Serpentine and continued along the carriageway.

  “I believe I may have found a student for you to teach, if that would add to your hopes,” he said. “My own son wishes to learn Spanish.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I am not invited for any merit of my own, Maggie, but merely because I am connected with Lord Danebridge and am someone new and different—in short, a novelty,” Falcon said late that afternoon as she prepared herself for the Giddings dinner party.

  She peered into the small looking glass that stood on the dressing table in her bedchamber and applied one last stroke of burnt cork to darken her eyebrows. A box of Chinese colors borrowed from Mrs. Isham sat on the table before her along with a small pot of rouge, both of which had contributed to the deepened color of her skin and lashes.

  “How unfortunate that I cannot change the color of my eyes. Black would be so much more the thing!”

  She had chosen to wear her traditional close-fitting black basquiña with rows of fringe, but instead of pairing it with her modest, long-sleeved bodice she had decided that the more daring, v-necked bodice with short sleeves seemed appropriate for evening wear.

  “They want a Spanish woman, and that is exactly what they shall have,” she proclaimed.

  She only wished that she felt as confident as she sounded. Why had she allowed Lord Danebridge to bully her into this situation? The evening had every prospect of being an ordeal. What if the other guests asked her personal questions she could not answer? What if she made some sort of mistake that would betray her identity as a false one? She was not at all certain she could carry off this masquerade.

  “Time?” she asked, getting up and taking one final, critical turn before the tall cheval glass near the window.

  “Tis that close to seven, child,” Maggie answered. “You look as fine as fivepence.”

  “Do you think they will believe that it is the Spanish fashion to forego jewelry?”
Falcon felt naked with nothing to adorn the length of her throat exposed by the neckline of her bodice. She would not be able to keep her mantilla wrapped about her neck and face for the entire evening if she hoped to eat. At least no one would know that the small jet earrings on her earlobes were the same ones she had been wearing every day since the theft of her trunk.

  Lord Danebridge arrived no more than two minutes later. Falcon went down to meet him since she was ready; she felt a great reluctance to have him in her private rooms, as if somehow such admittance symbolized a breach in the barrier she wished to keep between them. She could not afford an involvement with this man, no matter how much she might be tempted.

  She had tried to make the adjustments to her appearance subtle. Would he notice any difference? He raised an eyebrow as he smiled and complimented her, but he made no direct comment.

  The carriage awaiting them outside was not his curricle but an elegant, glossy, dark maroon closed coach with heraldic arms emblazoned on the doors. She could not help expressing her surprise.

  “Your equipage, Lord Danebridge? How beautiful!”

  “My mother and son came up in it from my estate in Hertfordshire,” he answered, handing her up the steps.

  The interior was as luxurious as the rest, with thickly cushioned seats upholstered in brown velvet and walls covered with butter-soft leather. The discomforts of travel would surely be minimized in such a vehicle! Falcon’s admiration was only distracted when the baron climbed in and settled himself beside her.

  It did not matter that he left a respectable space between them, just as he had done earlier in the day in the park, or even that he made no attempt to touch her. He might just as well have climbed in and pulled her into his arms. His close presence charged the air between them. In the small enclosed space Falcon felt nearly overwhelmed.

  ¡Cielos! Surely she could do this. She had resisted his attraction well enough this afternoon. She was quite certain he did not know the power of his effect upon her. Steel could resist a magnet if held away with sufficient force.

  The carriage lurched forward and she gave up any idea of switching to the seat opposite him. Changing seats would not allow her to escape from her own feelings, at any rate.

  Apparently quite unaffected, Lord Danebridge reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a small box. “I hope this will not seem presumptuous on my part. I mentioned to my mother that your luggage had been stolen, and she has offered to loan you a piece of her own jewelry to wear at the dinner tonight.”

  Falcon felt the heat rise into her cheeks. How carefully he must have been observing her, studying her—when? It had to have been the night they had gone to the theater, for surely in the daytime her lack of jewelry would not have drawn notice.

  He opened the box, revealing an exquisite necklace of gold filigree and black jet beads. “You did not say so, I know, but I guessed that your jewelry was among the items lost with your trunk. Would you not wear this as a token of friendship, just for tonight? My mother would be most pleased to think she had done something to help you.”

  He set the box on his lap while he stripped off his gloves and then he lifted the necklace out of its velvet nest, holding the piece gently between his fingers. It looked very delicate indeed in his strong, masculine hands.

  He sounded so sincere. Should she accept? Just when she had resolved to disentangle herself from him, she seemed to be getting more deeply involved than ever. Yet, to refuse would seem ungrateful and she might offend Lady Danebridge, who surely meant nothing by the gesture but kindness. If the necklace were a gift offered by the baron that would be quite a different story.

  “Your mother is thoughtful and generous, indeed,” she answered slowly. “I had thought that perhaps no one would notice…”

  She had carefully kept her eyes on the necklace, but now she looked at him, meeting his gray eyes almost reluctantly. “Thank you.”

  The warmth of his smile reflected in his eyes very nearly undid all of her resolutions to resist him. If he had tried to kiss her at that moment, certainly she could not have pretended any kind of indifference. But he did not. He simply held out the necklace. “May I help you with it? If you hold your mantilla out of the way, I think I can see well enough to fasten the catch.”

  Falcon gathered up the lace veil and raised it. She closed her eyes, trying not to notice the warmth of his fingers at the back of her neck. She tensed at his touch, but he was done in an instant. He must have great experience at this sort of thing, she thought.

  Until they were finally set down in front of the Giddings townhouse, Lord Danebridge chatted amiably about the various people he thought were likely to be at the party, and a little bit about Lord Giddings and how he had come to know him. He also instructed her in the peculiar British custom of “taking wine,” which was sure to be observed at the dinner. Only the English would take something as natural as drinking wine during one’s meal and turn it into an elaborately structured social ritual, she reflected. The thought brought a wry smile to her face.

  She suspected that Lord Danebridge’s intention was to help her relax. He truly was a kind and generous man. It was a shame that she was not some other person, one who could make him a suitable wife.

  Lord Giddings’s mother took charge of Falcon once they arrived, ushering her about to meet the other guests. Lord Danebridge was never far away; he seemed to be hovering almost protectively. Falcon found this surprisingly reassuring, although she was too busy to give it much thought. It was only when they went in to dinner that she felt suddenly quite lost without him, for they were each partnered with other guests and he was not seated close to her.

  The party seemed to Falcon excessively glittering for something that had been termed a small gathering. In the Giddings dining room a long table robed in spotless white linen was set for a dozen couples and boasted a vast, impressive assortment of gleaming silver and sparkling crystal. Here before her was the very model of cultured civilization that the officers’ wives had struggled so often to emulate both at home and on campaign, to their own frustration. But Falcon pushed such thoughts aside. The food was plentiful and excellent. The conversation at the table was lively and frequently turned towards her.

  “And where were you during the war, Doña Alomar?” asked an older gentleman who had been introduced as General Crouchley. “It would seem that there was no safe place to be in all of Spain from what we hear.”

  “Ah, I take it then that you yourself were spared from having to serve in the Peninsula, General?” Falcon thought she might deflect the question by turning the conversation in another direction.

  “I don’t believe that the señora enjoys discussing the war,” Lord Danebridge interjected from his place farther up the table.

  Was he trying to rescue her? But it was his fault that she was here in the first place. Almost to spite him she decided to answer the general.

  “I was forced to change my location several times,” she said, glossing over months of hard, dangerous travel and experiences that had changed her forever. “For much of the time, however, I was in relative safety in convents, one in the Andalusian mountains and later in another nearer to Sevilla.” With a smile she added, “We spent many hours making bandages and bullets, and many more helping Wellington—by praying for the deliverance of Spain, of course.”

  Chuckles and approving smiles met this sally, and Falcon began to feel more at ease.

  “Do you find our English houses strange?” a lady asked, peering down the table at Falcon through a quizzing glass. “I recall that Lady Holland said the Spanish houses have no fireplaces! Lady Holland was there ten years ago—I don’t suppose you met her.”

  “I did not have that pleasure,” Falcon responded politely. “In Spain we do not have chimneys in our houses such as one sees here. We heat our rooms with the brasero, a kind of basin made of copper or brass. It is filled with coals and set on a wooden base in the middle of a room.”

  The company had man
y such questions, which Falcon answered as best she could. She tried to keep away from any discussion of religion, even though that appeared to her to be the biggest difference of all between England and Spain. In Spain, religious devotion was as much a part of living as breathing, pervading every detail of daily activity from the greeting given to people who knocked on one’s door to praying in the streets when the Angelus bell rang. Here in England, she had the impression that practicing religion was observed merely as an afterthought, tacked on at the end of a week, but she did not think such a comment would be appreciated.

  Her considered replies seemed to please the company, who continued to seek her out in conversation. To her intense relief, no one asked anything terribly personal. She nodded and smiled, even laughed a little, and the stiffness began to ease out of her shoulders. She could do this.

  Jeremy was not enjoying his dinner. The food tasted flat and he could not seem to pay attention to the conversational offerings of his dinner partner, an attractive young lady who was exhibiting considerable patience with him. She was no doubt quite charming, if he would only notice. But he was too busy watching the señora and listening with great trepidation to what he could hear of her conversations.

  This is exactly what you intended when you accepted this invitation, he reminded himself. You have only yourself to blame. Indeed, he had wanted her to be thrust into a situation where she would have to reveal something of her past in Spain and perhaps would even by some blunder reveal the truth or at least offer up some new clue about her identity. But how could he have predicted that instead of listening with rapt attention to glean information, he would instead feel protective of her? He was listening for trouble, ready to head off any situation or line of questions that might be difficult for her, no matter how helpful to him.

  Even more reprehensible, he felt jealous. He resented the other men who were taking delight in the señora’s company, and when the ladies withdrew from the dining room after the dessert course, he was keenly aware of which gentlemen did not stay behind but went with them. He very quickly excused himself to join them.