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

by Brenda Hiatt

  Supernatural intervention was required to make her happy, but Vayle did not expect Proctor to hand him a miracle. In fact, Gwen put him forcibly in mind of Proctor. Both were the kind to serve up gruel, real or virtual, solely to watch him squirm.

  With a groan, he stacked the newspapers on the side table and folded his arms. So far he’d met the Sevarics and taken their measure. One would be easy to handle, the other well nigh impossible.

  What of the Caines? From the vision Proctor had granted him, he knew that Dorothea was beautiful. No surprise, because good looks ran in his family, but he’d a faint recollection of intelligence in her eyes. Unfortunate, that. A stupid but lovely woman would be more easily managed.

  Somehow he must contrive a meeting with Dorothea without Max knowing of it. That meant venturing into the city on his own, all the while maintaining a residence here. Max would be sympathetic and buy his pose as a healthy but disoriented amnesiac, but Gwen—

  “Mr. Vayle?”

  Startled, he looked up to see Winnie enter the room, a large tray balanced on her stomach. The rich odor of juicy beef and hot bread wafted to his nostrils and brought tears to his eyes.

  “Forgive me if I disturbed you,” she said in a timorous voice. With an awkward little dance step, she kicked the door closed behind her. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  He opened his arms. “Bless your heart, sweet lady. You are the answer to my prayers.”

  “Shhh.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “I’ll be turned off if we are discovered.” Tiptoeing to the bed, she handed him the tray and jerked back as if expecting immediate punishment for her daring escapade.

  He’d have come to his feet and hugged her if not for the tray on his lap. Why was she so frightened? Would the Sevarics cast her out for so little reason? The Sevaric baron he’d killed in the duel was of such a disposition, or so his wife had maintained, but neither Max nor Gwen seemed quite so bloodthirsty.

  “This smells delicious,” he said carefully, “but not for all the world would I make trouble for you.”

  Winnie’s hands fluttered. “Please, enjoy yourself. And pray do not fret about my security. I have no reason to fear dismissal—Lord Sevaric and Miss Gwen have been all that is kind. I only fear to offend them by taking advantage.”

  For my sake, he thought with a shaft of awareness. “They are concerned for my health,” he said, “but you have seen that I am well enough except for the headache. Thank you, Miss Winifred, and this shall remain our secret. Will you keep me company while I eat?”

  Flushing hotly, Winnie drew up a chair.

  For all she must be fifty years old, her eyes reminded him of an alert, wary kitten longing to be stroked. No man had ever made love to her, he knew with certainty. Almost no one had paid her any attention whatever.

  In fact, a hundred years ago he’d not have given her a second thought. Not even if she brought him a plate like the one he saw when he lifted the silver cover—roast beef smothered in juices, a fat potato slathered with butter, mushrooms stuffed with sausage and cheese. How she had mastered this he didn’t know. Why had she done so for a stranger he wasn’t ready to ask.

  Especially as he intended to pry her for information. Guilt tickled at his throat, but still he swallowed the first bite of rare beefsteak. It was delicious. This one bite was more real to him than a hundred years in the Afterlife had been.

  “You said that you are new here,” he began over a mouthful of potato. “Were you not always Miss Sevaric’s chaperone?”

  “Only since Lord Sevaric’s return after Waterloo,” she replied. “I am a cousin three times removed, and resided in Yorkshire with my sister until he asked me to come here. Miss Gwen lived with her father until he died of apoplexy, or some other ailment. I’m not sure. After that she was by herself in this house until her brother sold out. He thought to launch her into society and knew she would require a companion.”

  “So you have been dancing at all the fashionable balls?” he asked, raising his fork in a mock salute.

  She sighed and gazed off into the distance. Vayle suspected she was envisioning the color and light of a great ball. “Alas, no. Miss Gwen has no interest in balls or any other gatherings. Oh, please don’t think I am complaining. We take walks in the park and visit the subscription libraries and sometimes stop for ices at Gunter’s. In truth, I have enjoyed myself immensely and am ever so grateful to be here in London. I only wish—”

  He swallowed a mushroom. “What? What do you wish?”

  “They are both so lonely,” Winnie said after a long silence. “Miss Gwen, and Lord Sevaric as well.”

  Vayle regarded her somberly. Winnie, he suspected, knew loneliness when she saw it. She must have experienced it all her life.

  The idea sliced through him. A century ago he’d been surrounded by his fellow rogues at the clubs and gaming tables. And there were women, always women, in his arms and in his bed. He had never thought about being lonely.

  He didn’t want to think about it now. “Miss Sevaric should get out more,” he said. “Have you any idea why she is reluctant to go into society?”

  Winnie shook her head. “I thought at first it was because… well, her best friend is a beauty and she is not. Perhaps she feels cast in the shade by Lady Anathea.”

  “At first? Have you changed your mind?”

  She wrung her hands. “Dear me. I’ve no right to speak of this, and I beg you to tell no one that I did. It’s only that you are like fresh air in this house. Your presence has stirred things up. Perhaps you can help.”

  “That is my greatest wish,” he assured her. “The Sevarics have been kind to me. And you know, I can do little enough for myself until I remember who I am. In the meantime, it would give me a sense of purpose to be of use to them.”

  Winnie nodded slowly. “I understand, I do. I want to help, too, but I don’t know how. The truth is, I have no idea what happened to Miss Gwen. But something did, something horrible, after her father died and before Lord Sevaric returned. Sometimes we share a bedchamber when relatives come to London and require the use of my room. She has nightmares and cries in her sleep. It is only my intuition, but I believe she is hiding a secret.”

  He swallowed a lump in his throat. “From her brother, too?”

  “He knows,” she replied despondently. “I’m certain of that. That is why he is so careful of her safety. But neither of them is telling.”

  “I see.” He put down his fork. Gwen’s secret must have something to do with the feud, although he could not fathom how a reclusive spinster became entangled in the web. ’Struth, he had no idea how things stood between the Caines and the Sevarics a century after the duel. Nor could he ask. He wasn’t supposed to know the Caines even existed. Damn!

  “I often wonder,” Winnie said thoughtfully, “if Miss Gwen’s troubles are connected to her father’s obsession. Even in Yorkshire, we used to read in the gossip pages about Lord Basil Sevaric and Hugo Caine. They were feuding, you see, and stopped at nothing to cause problems for each other.”

  “Indeed?” Vayle perked up at this felicitous opening. Perhaps this would all be easier than he suspected. “What set them at odds?”

  Winnie frowned and lowered her voice to a whisper. “As I understand it, many years ago a wicked Caine scoundrel seduced the wife of the third baron Sevaric. Lord Sevaric called him out, of course, and was killed in the duel. By some accounts the villain fired early. But he got his just punishment, because the baron managed a clean shot and cut him down, too.”

  Vayle suppressed his automatic reaction to that slander. Was he now remembered only as a scurrilous cheat? Then he took a long, calming breath. Winnie had recounted only the Sevaric version, twisted by a century of feuding. Naturally the Sevarics would seek to blacken his reputation, if only to justify their own.

  But a cheat? Bile rose in his throat. His standards of morality had been somewhat flexible, and he had surely bedded Sevaric’s wife. Other men’s wives, too. M
arriages were made for convenience, and once an heir popped out most women looked elsewhere for their pleasure. He had been more than willing to provide it.

  But even so, he had never turned a false card, tossed loaded dice, or refused a gentleman’s challenge. By the code of his set of friends, he had been an honorable man.

  Until now, it had not occurred to him to question his definition of “honorable.” But until now, he’d not been faced with the consequences of his actions, nor charged with setting them to rights.

  “Miss Winifred,” he began carefully, “how can this ancient quarrel signify? Gwen Sevaric does not strike me as a woman who would pursue a grudge, let alone one originated by people who are long since dead and gone.”

  “She is not.” Nervously, Winnie fingered the fringe of the coverlet. “But her father was possessed by the feud. Although I met him only twice, I always thought him more than a little mad. He compelled Miss Gwen to serve as his assistant and rarely permitted her to go out. She cannot help but have been affected.”

  Outside in the hall, there was the sound of a door opening and shutting. Winnie came to her feet. “I—I have said far too much, Mr. Vayle. Pray forgive me. This is none of your concern, and you have been most polite, listening to an old woman’s troubles.”

  She hesitated there beside the bed, then added softly, “It is only that I worry for Miss Gwen, and hope you will be patient with her uncertain temper. She does not mean to be—that is, there are reasons for her stern disposition. I don’t know what they are, but at heart she is generous and sweet-natured.”

  “’Struth, ’tis not for me to stand her judge,” he said gravely. “And I cannot help but respect any lady wise enough to treasure you, Miss Winifred.”

  Flushing, she gave him an apologetic smile. “I must take the tray with me, sir.”

  With regret, he watched his mostly uneaten dinner leave the room. Ah well, he reflected. She had left him food for thought.

  Chapter Four

  Clootie proved invaluable the next morning. Vayle was determined to get out and explore this new century, but his lack of a reflection and unfamiliarity with the garments made his escape dependent on the efficient valet.

  “There you go, sir.” Clootie stood back, hairbrush in hand, and gestured toward the mirror. “Does it please you?”

  Vayle pretended to study the mirror, but a reflected glare from the window was all he could see where his face should be. “Well enough.” He glanced down at his front—a white shirt, a blue waistcoat, and a plain dark blue jacket. “Rather neutral, though, don’t you think? I’d prefer a more colorful ensemble.”

  Clootie nodded, surveying him head to toe. “You might sport a brighter pattern in the waistcoat, I’d expect. The ladies like that, you know.”

  “They do? Well, then, order me a few new waistcoats. One in, say, blue and gold. And perhaps a vivid green?”

  “Very well, sir.” Clootie opened the wardrobe door and removed a waistcoat. “I’ll take this as a pattern for the tailor. Now about your evening clothes. You’ll likely want another set made up for your visits to—to the establishments we spoke of, where the young gentlemen go. The ladies there do appreciate fresh linen and stylish dress.”

  Since Vayle agreed that pleasing the ladies was of paramount importance, he recklessly pledged to be fitted for another evening coat and breeches. His hundred pounds, he realized, wouldn’t last long at this rate. Then again, no tailor had ever dunned him for payment. He didn’t suppose merchants had changed very much in a century. They would know that outfitting a well-looking man-about-town, even on credit, was good for business.

  When he entered the breakfast room, he found brother and sister dividing up a newspaper and a plate of eggs. Max greeted him with a grin. “I could tell last night you weren’t going to waste much time convalescing. Sit down and have some beefsteak.”

  Vayle couldn’t resist a triumphant glance across the table at Gwen as the footman gave him a plate of beef. But she merely observed coolly, “If you find yourself convulsed with pain later today, please don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Nonsense!” Max said in a bracing tone. “Vayle’s no weakling. I could tell that the first I saw him. And no real man will let an injury keep him down. Why, I remember when the medicos took off Bayard Chilton’s leg after Vitoria. It’d hardly stopped bleeding before he was hopping around, demanding to join the victory party.”

  “Max, please,” Gwen said faintly, and even Vayle hesitated before chewing up his bite of beefsteak.

  “Sorry, m’dear. Forgot where I was for a moment.” In an obvious effort to change the subject, Max said to Vayle, “I’ve been thinking of how we might help you determine who you are. We’ll take you about in public. If you’re a Londoner, someone is bound to recognize you. And if you’re country-bred, you might encounter a neighbor up for the Little Season. You don’t seem the rural sort, though.”

  “Certainly not,” Vayle replied without thinking. Recollecting his amnesia, he added more tentatively, “Is it possible that I might be unknown to all?”

  Max and Gwen exchanged glances. “We did note your accent. Nothing amiss with it, of course,” Max said hastily. “You aren’t a foreigner, that’s clear enough. But you don’t precisely sound—English either. I thought you might have been reared in the colonies.”

  “The colonies? You mean Virginia?”

  “Virginia?” Gwen set her cup down with a clatter. “But Mr. Vayle, Virginia isn’t our colony any longer.”

  “Right.” France must have taken it in one of those interminable wars. He smiled apologetically. “I forgot.”

  “That is a deal to forget, isn’t it?” She regarded him through narrowed eyes, and he sensed her skepticism. “Especially when we’ve only recently concluded hostilities with the United States?”

  The United States? What on earth was that? Vayle was too confused to answer, so he stuffed a corner of toast in his mouth and nodded.

  Gwen sniffed in that skeptical way he knew all too well by now. “Surely you recall that the United States won its independence during Lord North’s ministry.”

  “Right,” he repeated. “Lord North. I think I remember the name.”

  “I don’t quite understand this form of amnesia, Mr. Vayle. You have forgotten about the United States, yet you remember that Virginia was once our colony? You can’t yet be thirty, and that means you remember a situation that existed before your birth, and have forgot what has been the rule afterward.”

  Fortunately, Max was impatient with this inquisition. “Gwen, for pity’s sake, don’t confuse the man. He’s told you he doesn’t remember. Now,” he said with a grin at Vayle, “if he says he doesn’t recall who won the Derby last year, I’ll be worried.”

  The Derby. Could he mean the county Derbyshire? But how could anyone win a county? Was that some new way to finance wars—lotteries with an entire county as a prize? Vayle’s head was aching again, and he decided only a diversion would extricate him. He essayed an agreeable wave of his hand, knocked over his coffee cup, and once the ensuing bustle concluded, no one thought to mention the United States or Lord North or the Derby again.

  But Max was as good as his word. In an effort to determine Vayle’s identity, they trooped off to a horse auction, a boxing parlor, and a gentleman’s haberdashery. Finally Vayle had to plead exhaustion and retreat to his bedchamber. But hardly had he risen from his nap than Max was knocking at the door, inviting him to visit a fashionable club.

  A club! Now that was more like it. Vayle rang for Clootie and donned his evening clothes, thinking to himself that Max might not be such a dull dog after all.

  Two hours later Vayle stared at the remains of his dinner—boiled beef and overcooked potatoes—and resumed his earlier opinion of his companion. Max was a sturdy fellow, brave and honorable, no doubt. But his notion of what constituted a suitable club was sorely misguided.

  ’Struth, he had never spent a more tedious evening than here at White’s. The dini
ng room was a cavernous place, poorly lit and overheated, furnished with dark woods and mediocre hunting prints. Most of the members assembled at the tables were so old that Vayle fancied he saw cobwebs dangling from their ears. The conversations, from what he could hear, concerned tiresome Parliamentary feuds and fusses. To think gentlemen actually vied for admission to this pretentious graveyard. He could hardly wait to escape.

  “I had hoped for better luck tonight.” Max swallowed the last of his port and gestured around at the other diners. “They all seem to like you, at any rate.”

  “No one recognized me or my name,” he said, trying to sound disappointed, “and you must have introduced me to forty men. Ought we try a somewhat, ah, livelier establishment?”

  “Bored, are you?” With an understanding chuckle, Max rose. “Not fond of White’s myself, but nearly everyone of importance shows up here sooner or later. There’s still hope someone will be able to identify you. Shall we try the gaming room?”

  Gambling! Vayle came to his feet in a hurry, sniffing a chance to pad his bankroll. The miserly hundred pounds that Proctor had allowed him would serve as a stake, and he usually left the tables a winner.

  As Max led him down the hall, two uniformed men flushed with drink erupted from a side room.

  “Sevaric! Been looking for you. Trent said you were here, and by God, so you are!”

  They each clapped Max on the back, and he returned the gesture with a heartiness that made Vayle glad he wasn’t one of their circle. Colonel Trent and Captain McHale were old war comrades, Vayle surmised. After perfunctory handshakes, the men returned their attention to Max.

  “Come bend an elbow with us,” Trent urged. “Last time we saw you was the night before Waterloo.”

  “I oughtn’t—” Max shot a glance at Vayle.

  “Never mind me,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “You go on with your friends. I’ll just wander around for a few hours. You can find me later in the gaming room.”