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

by Brenda Hiatt

  His words echoed off the vaulted ceiling. But there was no other sound.

  “Speak up. I’m calling on you, Proctor. Francis? Answer me!”

  “And who, pray tell, are Proctor and Francis?”

  He whirled around.

  Gwen stood by the door of the church. “Have you run mad, Mr. Vayle?”

  After a last, frustrated glance at the altar, he made his way down the aisle. “I was… praying.”

  She regarded him skeptically. “To Proctor and Francis?”

  “My favorite saints. Martyrs. Lions ate ’em in the Colosseum.”

  “Francis being, of course, a traditional Roman name.”

  He gritted his teeth. “It was Franciscus back then, but he and I are on familiar terms. What of it?”

  “Nothing at all, sir. I am merely astonished to discover a religious streak where it was least expected.”

  “’Struth, I am rather deeply concerned with matters relating to the Hereafter. How much did you hear?”

  “Not much, I’m sorry to say. If you were making your confession, I arrived in time to catch only the last few words.” She grinned. “Well, it could not have been a confession. You weren’t here long enough to recount all your sins.”

  He shuffled uneasily. “If you are referring to that unfortunate incident with Lady Melbrook—”

  “I am not your conscience, Mr. Vayle. Now do come along. The carriage is waiting, and we have a wedding to celebrate.”

  He could not mistake the bitterness in her voice. Gwen Sevaric had never said a word against the forced marriage of her brother, but it was clear she resented it deeply. Another complication, especially if she ended up living with Max and Dorie.

  Vayle groaned inwardly and followed her through the door.

  Just outside the church, Mrs. Fitzniggle was engaged in a lively conversation with the vicar. She waved a hand when her charges appeared. “My cousin the vicar has invited me to tea with his family. Pray, make my apologies to Lord Sevaric and tell him I’ll be along later.”

  Gwen looked appalled. “But that means—”

  “The two of you will do well enough for the ride home,” Mrs. Fitzniggle ruled, dismissing the proprieties as swiftly as she enforced them when it suited her. “But keep the curtains drawn over the windows, lest anyone see you alone together.”

  Gwen huddled against the paneled door as far away from Vayle as she could manage. He was not a large man, but he seemed to occupy most of the space in the carriage. A combination of long legs and vibrant personality, she decided, though he had yet to say a word.

  And that suited her just fine. She didn’t want to talk to him either, nor to anyone else. What was left of her life had come to an end when her brother married Dorothea Caine.

  Now she would be the spinster relation, a ghostly presence in the house where she had been mistress since she was thirteen years old. Dorothea had replaced her, literally overnight, and from now on Lady Sevaric would order the staff and tend to Max’s comfort.

  Perhaps she could convince him to buy a cottage for her in some quiet village. She’d live there with Winnie, another castaway, tending the garden and knitting shawls. She knew nothing of gardens and knitting, but she could learn. What else was left to her?

  She glanced at Vayle. He sat staring out the window, his arms folded across his chest, a sulky downturn to his lips. He’d forgotten to draw the curtains, of course, but then he cared nothing for her reputation.

  No one would suspect them of impropriety in any case. The elegant Mr. Vayle would never be attracted to homely Gwen Sevaric. Even Mrs. Fitzniggle had rejected the possibility with a wave of her hand.

  While he was distracted, she took the opportunity to examine his face. Ever since the dowager Duchess of Rathbone appeared to recognize him, she had looked for some family resemblance to the detested Caines. Like Robin, he had green eyes, but his were a deep, transluscent emerald while Lord Lynton’s eyes were paler and invariably bloodshot. Both Vayle and Dorothea Caine had high cheekbones and a natural grace, but so did many others.

  Besides, Jocelyn Vayle could not be related to the Caines, even distantly. Her father had traced every branch of the family, down to the last twig, and only Robin and Dorothea remained of the once-flourishing Caine dynasty.

  From the time she was old enough to notice, Papa had huddled like a spider in his secret office, dispatching hired agents to track down everything of value the Caines owned so that he could snatch it from them. When his eyes grew dim, he dictated to her as she wrote in his heavy ledgers, and for ten years she recorded all there was to know about the Caines.

  Not even a bastard child would have escaped his attention, although that was her first thought when the duchess beckoned Vayle to her side at Lady Sefton’s ball. Later that night she had gone to the hidden office and scoured the ledgers, searching for some hint of a Caine by-blow. At one point her father had worried about that possibility, too, and paid a great deal of money for a diligent search that led nowhere.

  It was mere coincidence that the unwelcome houseguest put her in mind of the Caines. And maybe she was only scrounging for an excuse to despise the man, for reasons she did not want to examine too closely.

  “Why do you so dislike this marriage?” Vayle asked suddenly.

  Startled, she gazed directly into those iridescent eyes and knew exactly why he disturbed her. Seizing a deep breath, and then another, she managed a careless shrug. “What makes you think I do?”

  “Is it because you are concerned for your own future? I well understand, because everything will change for you now.”

  “Yes, but Max had to marry eventually. I am only dealing rather abruptly with a situation I’d have faced sooner or later. I shall come about.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment. “I am sure you will. ’Struth, I can’t remember ever meeting any woman so determined to fend for herself.”

  “But you can’t remember anything at all. Or so you say.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You doubt my loss of memory?”

  “I have… reservations. When it suits your convenience, you seem remarkably perceptive. But I am no expert on mental disorders.”

  “A neat change of subject, Miss Sevaric. But I’m not of a mood to defend myself on the subject of amnesia, except to say I truly recall nothing that happened in the world for the last hundred or so years before I came awake in your house. And since I am only seven-and-twenty—”

  “How is it you know that?” she interrupted. “If you remember how old you are, why can you not remember where it is you came from?”

  “God knows,” he replied softly. “Quiz me at your pleasure, but later if you don’t mind. For now, I wonder how you feel about your brother’s alliance with a Caine. There are rumors of a feud, but I have met Robin and he is too dissolute to be a threat. Dorothea is certainly harmless. What set your families at odds?”

  She closed her eyes as the memory swept back. But she couldn’t tell him about the incident that transformed her dreams to nightmares until she dreaded going to sleep at all, nor the reasons why Max had taken up the old quarrel.

  He had tried to escape it, years ago, buying a commission in the army before Father’s obsession with destroying the Caines caught him up. At the time, she resented Max for leaving. Men had choices. Even a war was cleaner and more honorable than what she experienced in her father’s house and later, when she was taken from it. Or so she had thought, until Max came home and she saw the fathomless pain in his eyes.

  And then, to her never-ending regret, she had drawn her brother into her own nightmare and set him on the poisonous trail of vengeance.

  Damned if she would repeat that mistake by sharing the tale with a frivolous stranger. An account of the feud’s origin was safe, and distant enough to be practically irrelevant now. She would tell him that, and hope the old story satisfied Vayle’s galling curiosity.

  “Caines and Sevarics have been at each other’s throats for a hundred years,” sh
e said in a flat voice. “And all because a degenerate rakehell seduced the wife of my great, great… some number of greats… grandfather.”

  Vayle sat forward, his eyes glittering with curiosity. “When was this?”

  “In 1716.” Even after a century, she supposed, it was entertaining gossip. And perhaps it would be a lesson for this present-day rakehell. “By all accounts, Valerian Caine was a libertine who thought nothing of bedding married women. But this time, Richard Sevaric returned home unexpectedly. There was a duel then, and both men were killed.”

  Vayle shuddered, or did she imagine it?

  “Surely that ought to have put an end to the quarrel. Why carry on, with both of them dead? Were they not sufficiently punished?”

  “Valerian Caine got his just desserts, that’s true. But Richard Sevaric didn’t deserve to die, just for having an adulterous wife.”

  “Would she have strayed had Sevaric not neglected her? Why settle all the blame on her lover?”

  She raised her hands in exasperated surrender. “I’ll agree that Blanche Sevaric was no innocent. She took vows to be faithful, and whatever the temptation, she was honor-bound to keep those vows. I’ll not defend her, but I despise even more the lecher who sniffed out an unhappy wife and lured her to infidelity.”

  He smiled then, although his eyes were shadowed. “You Sevarics set a great store by honor. But where’s the honor in that sordid little story? Why pursue a feud that ought to have died with the men who began it?”

  “If it were merely the duel, perhaps you would be right.” She disliked conceding even that much, though she had once been of the same opinion. “The duel, though, wasn’t all of it. Soon after that, the Caines accused my family of stealing a treasure of great worth. And when the Sevarics denied any knowledge, the battle was joined. There have been any number of offenses on both sides ever since, and I expect the contenders lost track of how the hostilities began. They simply took vengeance for each latest outrage.”

  He fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “And just what is the latest offense, the one that put you and your brother at odds with the Caines?”

  She swallowed the venom that rose to her throat. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to give Max the truth. And she would not have done that, had he not commanded her when she was too disoriented to realize he ought never hear the story at all.

  But it was too late. Now he knew, so the feud persisted through yet another generation. He wanted vengeance, and so, most of the time, did she. The trouble was, no matter how much vengeance they got, she felt no release.

  Now he was married to a Caine, and no good could come of it. Max would always be torn between loyalty to his sister and the duty he owed his wife. She thought she could not cry any more, but a tear streaked down her cheek. Surreptitiously she wiped it away with the back of her hand while she pretended to cough.

  When she dared to look at Vayle again, he was gazing at her with a somber expression. “Don’t worry about Max and Dorothea,” he said gently. “This was meant to be. Now there can be peace, and an end to the feud.”

  She wanted to believe him. At least, she hoped Max would find happiness. She felt some pity for Dorothea, who didn’t seem to be pretending when she said she didn’t want the marriage. But Gwen found it hard to trust her. She was a Caine, and her late-night arrival at Sevaric House was suspect, especially in light of the consequences.

  Max would not have invited her, or welcomed her presence. And the entrapment in the secret office was all too convenient. If only she had not let Vayle distract her this morning, Gwen might have been the one to find them. Unlike Mrs. Fitzniggle, she would have kept her mouth shut.

  For that matter, why had Vayle been wandering the halls in the middle of the night? Some deep instinct told her he knew more than he was telling, but she could not imagine why he would want her brother and Dorothea together. He’d nothing to gain, and Vayle was the kind of man who acted exclusively in his own interest.

  When the coach drew up in front of Sevaric House, Vayle descended and turned back, holding out his hand to help her alight. She slid across the leather squabs and was about to step down when she saw a cloaked figure emerge from the side door and hurry down the street.

  Dorothea!

  She nearly called out, then bit her tongue. Vayle had not seen the new Lady Sevaric making her escape, for he was looking into the carriage. And Gwen saw no duty to object if the bride chose to flee before the marriage was consummated.

  Dorothea must have decided that a coerced marriage was no true marriage, and took the sensible way out. Now there might be an annulment, if Mrs. Fitzniggle could be bought off.

  With a smile, Gwen took Vayle’s hand and allowed him to lead her into the house.

  Max didn’t like to be thwarted, so he would likely be furious. But it wasn’t as though he loved the girl. He hardly knew her. Gwen needed only persuade him this was for the best, before he did something stupid like chasing after his unwilling bride.

  Chapter Fourteen

  From the drawing-room doorway, Wilson coughed discreetly. “The wedding breakfast is prepared, my lord. And may I say,” he added, a smile breaking over his face, “that I and the staff extend our heartiest congratulations on the occasion of your marriage. You are fortunate in your bride.”

  That was some relief, Max thought as Wilson bowed out. The staff, following the besotted butler’s lead, would ignore the two families’ long enmity. Would that society follow suit, but this match between Caine and Sevaric would likely be a nine-days’ wonder and the talk of the Little Season.

  From the sideboard, Max picked up the special license and scowled at his bride’s neat signature: Dorothea Mary Caine. No longer. He wasn’t going to think of her as a Caine any longer, and neither was anyone else. The sooner she was established as a Sevaric, the better for them both.

  At least they were doing the wedding breakfast right, if a trifle late, after four o’clock. It would be private, as befitted the unusual situation, but congenial enough, since the interfering Mrs. Fitzniggle had chosen to dine at the vicarage. The rest, Gwen and Winnie and Vayle, were gathered by the fire, talking in low voices.

  The bride was still upstairs resting.

  Max dispatched a maid to rouse her, and waited restlessly by the door, gripping and releasing the hilt of his sword. Soon the maid was back, looking frightened. “Miss—I mean, Lady Sevaric doesn’t answer, milord.”

  She had been up all night, or near enough, he reminded himself. Perhaps he should let her sleep.

  “The bride?” Gwen broke in. “I thought she had gone out.”

  Max’s hand dropped from his sword, and he turned to his sister. “What do you mean?”

  Gwen’s face took on the innocent expression that she wore when she wanted to trick him. “Oh, didn’t you know? I saw her leaving the house as I returned from the church.”

  “When you returned—” For a moment, Max couldn’t find breath enough to speak. “But that was more than an hour ago! You should have said something!”

  Gwen shrugged. “I thought it odd that she didn’t take a carriage, but then, nothing a Caine does surprises me.”

  The thought must have occurred to the others at the very moment it occurred to him—she had scarpered. Max Sevaric had a runaway bride. And his own sister had as much as abetted her.

  Gwen met his scowl briefly, then looked away, and he knew it was true. She had deliberately kept quiet to give Dorie a head start. His own sister had schemed against him.

  Hardly had the anger gripped him than he understood. His marriage would displace her as the chatelaine of the household. She would not grudge that, of course, but to have to give way to a Caine—

  In all the chaos of the last few hours, he hadn’t given a thought to how that would affect her. Now he knew. She wouldn’t look at him, but her jaw was set in that way that always reminded him of his father.

  He rubbed his forehead with his fist. None of his army friends would belie
ve it, but he was the milksop of the Sevaric clan. He’d rather face a battalion of Imperial Guards than his sister or his father in an obstinate mood.

  His new bride appeared to be just as forceful, though in a subtler way. She didn’t rant or rave like his father, or glare like his sister, but she got her way nonetheless.

  Gwen took his arm, standing on tiptoe to speak in his ear. “Listen, Max. She’s deserted you. You can get an annulment on the grounds of nonconsummation.”

  For just an instant he considered the idea. He wouldn’t admit it, even to Gwen, but Dorie’s escape hurt him, and frightened him, too. To run away like that, without a word—what sort of life would he have, with a wife like Dorothea Caine?

  Dorothea Sevaric, he told himself fiercely. Dorie.

  “Never.” The force of the exclamation surprised Max himself. But it felt right. And so he knew it was right. “I took vows before God, and by God, it’s my duty to fulfill them. I’d have no honor left if I disavowed her now, just because she’s proving a bit difficult. Couldn’t look at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

  And besides, though he couldn’t say such to his sister, an annulment was only obtained by claiming incapacity to consummate. And that a man of the 52nd Foot would never say, even if it were true. Which it most decidedly wasn’t. Or wouldn’t be, anyway, if he ever got a chance at a wedding night.

  Gwen opened her mouth as if to argue the point, but Max cut her short with a harsh “Enough.” He didn’t look at her again as he crossed to the door. “I’m going after her.”

  Winnie called, “Oh, no, my lord, shouldn’t you do better to wait here? Surely Miss—I mean, Lady Sevaric—only went out for a bit, perhaps to collect her things from her rooms.”

  “Or she went to see her brother,” Vayle put in. “She might have wanted to explain the marriage to him, before he had time to misunderstand.”