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

by Brenda Hiatt

  No, he had regarded her as if she was the prize in some mysterious quest. And she had seen that same look just now, when he thought he had won a place in their home.

  She turned back to find Max regarding her with annoyed masculine confusion. She knew she tested his patience and his devotion, for try as he might he couldn’t make her fit his concept of what a little sister should be. But he loved her anyway, and she supposed she should be glad of that.

  So she said, “Oh, don’t mind me. The accident overset me, I suppose. Mr. Vayle did me a service and was injured in the deed, and surely it’s only right that we shelter him until he is recovered.”

  Max’s scowl cleared away, and he smiled at her approvingly. She knew she had managed to return to the sweet little sister he preferred. She didn’t want to ruin this performance, so she took a deep breath and added in a conciliatory voice, “But we must help him determine his identity and locate his connections. He won’t want to stay here indefinitely.”

  Max nodded, frowning again, but this time not at her. “He seems rather foreign, don’t you think? Oh, he’s British-born, perhaps, but his accent is odd. Perhaps he’s a colonial, recently come home to England. I should send notes ’round to the captains of ships arrived from India and Canada, to see if they recognize his name.”

  The prospect of taking positive action restored Max’s good humor, and he dropped a kiss on her forehead as he headed for his study. “While I do that, you’ll see to Vayle’s comfort, won’t you? The medico said he should have gruel. Could you tell the cook to prepare that?”

  Gwen only nodded. She had no desire to play Lady Bountiful to a man she didn’t trust. But bringing the mysterious Mr. Vayle his gruel would give her a chance to observe him, and perhaps to interrogate him.

  He was hiding something, she could tell, something more than his supposedly lost identity. She made up her mind to discover what that was before he won over her brother entirely and started borrowing large sums from him, or used him as an introduction to society.

  Chapter Three

  As the sun set and evening gathered outside, Valerian sat up in his bed and took stock of his predicament. If he wanted to be restored to his old life, he would have to get some control of his new life—starting with his new identity.

  ’Struth, ’twould be less complicated if he really did have amnesia. At least he truly would have a blank where his past was. Instead, he was compelled to juggle two names, his own and one wholly unfamiliar to him. Unless he contrived to forget his real identity, he would doubtless trip himself up.

  Therefore, and from this moment on, he must think of himself as Jocelyn Vayle. Introduce himself as Jocelyn Vayle. Answer immediately to Jocelyn Vayle. Most important, he must not even twitch when someone mentioned “Caine,” which was bound to happen eventually.

  His family had called him “Val” until he decided that was too unsophisticated for a young man about town. “Vayle” was close enough, he supposed, to catch his attention when people addressed him.

  He leaned against the bank of pillows, closed his eyes, and murmured “I am Vayle, I am Vayle” until he almost believed it.

  But not quite. “I cannot manage this on my own,” he said aloud. “Help me out, Francis.”

  A sudden noise almost sent him off the bed. Sitting bolt upright, he looked around in confusion, expecting an apparition.

  Instead, the door opened and Gwendolyn Sevaric stood there, outlined by the lamplight from the hallway. “Were you calling for someone, Mr. Vayle? If you require a servant, there is a bellpull just beside you.”

  With effort, he mustered a smile. “Did I cry out? I must have been dreaming. Forgive me for disturbing you.”

  “You did not,” she said flatly, crossing to the wall sconce to turn up the light. “We have brought your dinner. Winnie, you may come in now.”

  The pudgy chaperone entered the room, glancing at the bed, then ducking her head as if afraid to be caught looking. Quickly she faded back into the corner, so that Vayle could hardly make her out in the shadows. For such a substantial woman, she was good at effacing herself.

  A footman followed with a tray and stood at attention next to the bed.

  Vayle gazed at the silver dishes with delight. Food! After a hundred years, the very thought set his stomach rumbling. To taste again! To swirl wine on his tongue, to chomp into rare roast beef and creamy cheese and warm crusty bread. A meal would set all his appetites aflame, and that was how he best liked his appetites.

  “You are a ministering angel,” he told Gwen as the footman set the tray on his lap.

  “Hardly.” With a sweeping gesture, she lifted the silver cover from the bowl. Underneath was a pale, lumpy blob, something like paste diluted with glue.

  “Gruel.” She set the cover down on the night table and looked at the tray with a satisfied smile. “There is cream, and a bit of sugar for sweetening if you like. Also a pot of weak tea.”

  He stared at her in dismay. “But I don’t like gruel. Not that I’ve ever eaten any, but I can tell by looking at it that it is not to my taste.”

  “You aren’t meant to like it, Mr. Vayle. No one does.” She picked up the spoon and dipped it into the glutinous mixture, letting blobs of it fall back into the bowl. It was all too clear she was enjoying this. “But gruel is nourishing and will not overtax your weakened digestive system.”

  “The carriage clipped me on the head, not the belly.” Steeling himself, he looked again at the mess in the bowl. It was even more repellent now that she had stirred it up. “I assure you that most parts of me are in perfect functioning order. What’s more,” he added plaintively, “I’m ravenous.”

  The chaperone crept up to the bedside, her face troubled. “Miss Gwen, perhaps—”

  His tormentor shook her head. “Doctor’s orders, Winnie. He said Mr. Vayle is to have gruel, and gruel he shall have.”

  He crossed his arms and gritted his teeth. “I won’t eat it!”

  “But you will. Because Winnie and I shall stay with you until you’ve swallowed every bite.” She drew up a chair and sat herself right next to the bed. Her hands lay poised in her lap, ready at any instant to seize the spoon and force-feed him. “We are responsible for your good health, and it is no more than my Christian duty to repay you for saving my life. Sit down, Winnie. We’ll keep Mr. Vayle company while he dines.”

  He regarded her through narrowed eyes. What kind of woman rewarded her rescuer with a bowl of pap? Gwen Sevaric was determined to punish him, for no reason he could imagine. Her hazel eyes gleamed with irony and suspicion.

  She had suspected him from the very start. In their first encounter on the street, when he had smiled and bowed, she drew her skirts in and glared at him as if he had insulted her. What the devil was wrong with bowing? True, he’d been after her, but she could not have known that. Then he risked his very life to shove her out of the path of stampeding horses.

  Altogether gallant, in his opinion.

  Certainly not deserving of gruel.

  Perhaps Sevarics had an inbred dislike of Caines, so instinctive Gwen felt it without knowing who he was. But Max liked him well enough. And until Gwen, he had never met a woman able to resist his charm, nor one who had tried. Gwen, he suspected, didn’t even have to try.

  He glanced over at Winnie, who gave him a tremulous smile. When he smiled back, the color rose in her cheeks and she simpered like a girl. Now that was more like it. Winnie, he realized, he could twist about his finger. That might come in handy someday.

  But Gwen, well, no smile was likely to sway her. She wouldn’t even let herself be distracted from the gruel. When he looked at her beseechingly, she only tilted her head. “Do begin, sir. Your dinner will taste better warm, I suspect.”

  With a sigh, he picked up the spoon. Making Gwen happy was one of his tasks, and at all costs he must win her over. It was his misfortune that her happiness at this moment seemed to depend on torturing him with gruel.

  Then again, should he fail,
he would wind up in Hell, where gruel was probably the only item on the menu.

  “You are most kind,” he said, raising his spoon to his lips. The words tasted nearly as bad as the meal looked. When the first bite stuck in his throat like a clump of glue, he grabbed for the teacup. It was empty.

  “Allow me,” said Gwen, taking the cup and filling it from the pot while he choked and sputtered. As he swallowed the lukewarm tea, she added cream to the gruel.

  His gorge rose, but manfully he plowed in again. It tasted no better, but at least it didn’t clot up in his throat any longer. Finally he succeeded in emptying half the bowl without casting up his accounts.

  Winnie clucked sympathetically as he gulped at the tea again, and Gwen smiled the ironic cat-smile he was coming to loathe.

  “It must be rather terrifying,” she said, “not knowing who you are. Have you no recollections at all?”

  Grateful for a reason to stop eating, he made a vague gesture. “None whatever. When Lord Sevaric told me my name was Jocelyn Vayle, I felt as though I were hearing it for the first time.”

  She leaned forward, elbows on her thighs, and propped her chin in her hands. “How odd that you speak perfect English and know how to use a spoon. I wonder that you have forgot some things and not others.”

  “Should you rather I found myself helpless as a squalling babe?” He grinned. “You’d not have liked changing my nappies, I warrant.”

  Gwen flushed to the roots of her hair and Vayle knew he’d scored a point. Discomposing the arrogant Miss Sevaric was an achievement he savored.

  “’Struth, I cannot explain what has happened to me,” he said in a kinder voice. “And I regret this inconvenience to your family. But I cannot be sorry I chanced to be passing by when you were in danger.”

  Get out of that, he thought smugly.

  But he discovered Gwen was better at offense than at defense, or perhaps they were the same thing for her. She turned her head inquiringly to the side and remarked, “Did you truly just ‘chance’ by? I ask because you appeared to recognize us earlier, when we passed you on the street. Do you remember?”

  Vayle assumed an innocent, befuddled expression. “I recall nothing before waking up in this bed. What did I say?”

  “You did not speak. But you looked as if you wanted to.” She frowned and poured him more tea. “I suppose it meant nothing. Lady Anathea was with us, and there was never a man who didn’t want to make her acquaintance.”

  “Anathea? What an unusual name.”

  “She is exceedingly beautiful. A true Incomparable.”

  He agreed completely, except, of course, he wasn’t supposed to remember the buxom Anathea. Gwen didn’t sound envious, he decided. Only a bit forlorn. Plain as she was, especially with those pursed lips, she was doubtless accustomed to being ignored. Vayle had to admit that he himself wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed Gwendolyn, not if Anathea was about.

  “I was there, too,” Winnie put in. These were the first words she had addressed directly to Vayle, and they were accompanied by another girlish blush.

  He turned to her with a wide smile. “That explains why you ladies caught my attention. How could I pass by the Three Graces without making my bow?”

  Gwen shot him an irritated look. “You have not finished your dinner, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, I have.” He rubbed his temples, his discomfort real this time. That gruel might as well have been poison. “I seem to have the headache again. Perhaps I will recollect more at breakfast. Don’t ask me how I know,” he added cunningly, “but I’m certain that I usually dine on beefsteak in the mornings.”

  Gwen came to her feet and took the tray. “Gruel,” she said crisply, “until Dr. Murkin says otherwise. And we don’t expect him to call again for several days.”

  Vayle watched her stalk from the room and could not help observing the well-shaped rump under her drab brown skirt. No beauty, Miss Sevaric, but she did have a trim figure.

  Winnie trailed behind, casting a look over her shoulder from the door. “You will let me know if I can do anything for you?” she whispered when Gwen was out of range.

  “Perhaps another lamp,” he said after a moment. “I’ll try to sleep, but I seem to have an aversion to darkness.”

  Winnie nodded, and soon a footman appeared and set a lamp on the table beside the bed.

  “Can you procure a glass of wine?” Vayle asked hopefully.

  “No, sir.” The footman looked guiltily toward the door. “Miss Sevaric would have my head.”

  “Is she always such a tyrant?”

  Their tentative amity vanished as the footman drew himself up austerely. “We are all fond of her, sir,” he said, and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

  The man never denied she was a tyrant, though, Vayle thought as he kicked away the covers. Just that her servants were fond of her nonetheless. He could understand that, he supposed. Prickly as she was, Gwen did have a few redeeming qualities. She had lovely eyes, and a sharp intellect, and, he admitted, an astute sense of irony. Even her refusal to succumb to his charm was rather stimulating.

  He refused to credit Gwen, much less her gruel, but he couldn’t deny that he was suffering few ill effects from his encounter with the carriage. Except for a steady throb in his head and a gnawing at his stomach, he felt healthy. Even restless. Too restless to stay abed.

  Throwing off the covers, he swung his legs over the side and stood up. The dizziness almost overwhelmed him, but he clutched the chair back and concentrated on its undeniable reality. After Proctor’s incorporeal office, he took great comfort in the substantiality of oak.

  He couldn’t leave the room without rousing Gwen’s ire, so he went to the window and opened the casement. The evening chill was pleasing, for it reminded him yet again that he had a body and that it experienced sensations. He leaned into the darkness, marveling at the lamps lining the street as far as he could see. Even as he watched, a boy raised a long pole to the lamp at the top of one iron post, bringing it to flame before moving to the next. How festive they made the night, glowing like golden halos in the still air.

  He’d always loved the night, the time of mystery and excitement. Now the soft hush, the soft glow, beckoned to him, reminding him of how many adventures lingered in the shadows of the evening. The gaming hells would be lively at this hour, and doubtless he’d encounter a willing woman and her own vacant bed.

  With a sigh of regret, he drew his head in and closed the window. Ah, well. ’Twould have to wait. But tomorrow night he’d sample the delights of this new century, because—saving only the amnesia—he intended to make an immediate and miraculous recovery.

  With a sigh, he turned up the lamp on the side table and looked around for entertainment. The stack of newspapers caught his eye. Sevaric had left them in hopes he’d recognize a familiar name. Not bloody likely. But he picked up a copy of the Times and began to read.

  Just seeing the date gave him a shiver. The 26th of November, 1816. Until this moment, it had not truly struck him. He’d been dead for a hundred years! And six months, for the duel had been fought in May.

  After a while he set the paper aside, having learned more than he cared to about a recent war with France. But that was scarcely noteworthy. This one seemed more conclusive than most, though there was much dissension among the victorious allies. At least they agreed about one thing. They were all glad to imprison someone named Bonaparte on a remote island. Vayle knew a moment’s empathy for the unknown exile, for he felt himself marooned in an alien century, and his return home was far from certain.

  Distances must be shorter now. This journal was reporting diplomatic events that had occurred only three days earlier in Paris. In Vayle’s day, Paris fashions were obsolete before they made it to British shores. Now, he supposed, he might be able to order a coat or waistcoat from France and expect it within a fortnight!

  Modernity had its appeal, but it was some comfort to learn that human nature had not changed one jot in the last ce
ntury, exactly as Francis had predicted. Scattered about the newspaper were snippets of gossip regarding adultery, extravagant wagers, and other scandals. People were aflutter about one Beau Brummell, a dandy, apparently, who had fled the country to escape his creditors.

  Had there been a publication like this one in 1716, Valerian Caine would have been prominently featured. Back then, he was the most interesting person in London, a gossip’s dream, in fact. His gaming for high stakes always attracted attention, though he usually won and never once had to flee to the Continent. The most beautiful women vied for access to his bed. And jealous husbands occasionally challenged him even after he established his lethal reputation. Risk, love, and danger—

  The perfect life. He could hardly wait to reclaim it.

  But first there was the nuisance of completing his task. At least Max Sevaric would be easy to manipulate, because it was clear the man’s rigid code of honor had been temporarily diverted by the feud. It wouldn’t take much to set him straight again.

  The stiff-lipped sister would be more difficult to handle.

  Gwendolyn’s stubbornness could very well do him in. He’d only just met her, but he understood women, and he could tell this one had never been happy. If there was any joy she wanted for herself, she had long since given up hope of achieving it.

  Gwen Sevaric was like a castle under siege, armed for defense. She would let no one come close. He sensed that, without knowing why. Else, he thought, she would have succumbed to his charm before this.

  True, she had no looks to speak of. To marry well—and a woman had no other possible aspiration—she required beauty, title, and fortune. Two of the three, at least. The Sevarics lived well, to judge by this house set in front of a parklike square. But there was no sign of an immense fortune to attract a suitor. As for title, Max was a mere baron, and the Sevaric history was nothing to boast of. All in all, Gwen had little to offer a husband but a sharp tongue, and what man would voluntarily wed a shrew?