Chasing the Heiress

by Rachael Miles

  She said nothing. He led her gently but firmly in the steps of the dance, and in his arms, she began to relax. She made fewer mistakes, her feet seeming less disjointed from her body.

  “After our dance, wait ten minutes, then excuse yourself to the lady’s withdrawing room. The one on this floor, to the right of the entrance.”

  She looked at him with blank eyes, but then her eyes focused on the front entrance, then moved to the right of them.

  “Agree.”

  She nodded just as the waltz ended, and he returned her to her former place, trying to look as bored in her company as possible.

  * * *

  As soon as he returned Lucy to her chaperone, an aged dowager already half asleep, Colin began to evaluate each of his options.

  The lady’s withdrawing room was at the end of a hallway. A footman stood at the entrance to that hall. Two more stood at the entrance to the ballroom, with another two at the entrance to the house itself. He counted back in memory: outside, four or five helped guests in and out of their carriages. A frontal assault would be difficult, if not impossible.

  The ballroom was on the second floor. Even if she were well, the drop to the ground below one of the windows would be risky to attempt safely, and if she were drugged, as he believed, impossible.

  The doors to the terrace—he hurried up the stairs and looked over the ballroom—were also guarded by one or two footmen. Who knew how many servants were in the gardens?

  The front door—impossible as it seemed—was his best option.

  But he had allies in the ballroom. He simply needed to gather them. First, he needed a female relative, one he could trust to reassure Lucy. Luckily, he knew exactly where to find one: the gaming room.

  * * *

  Ophelia Mason stood at the entrance to the gaming room, gossiping with a small crowd of married women. Her peacock feather plume was as good as a beacon to find her.

  Smiling at the women, he pulled Ophelia aside. “I need your help. I’ll explain later. At this moment, however, you feel faint and need an escort to the lady’s withdrawing room.”

  “Oooh, intrigue. Whom are we deceiving?”

  “The footmen.” Colin nodded in their direction.

  “Hmm. They are everywhere, aren’t they?” Ophelia mused. “I can’t understand it. Sidney told me that Prinny is in Brighton.”

  Before they turned the corner and came into the footman’s view, she slumped into his body, whispering, “Like this?”

  “Exactly.”

  He helped her past the footman without garnering a second glance. The footman was looking out into the ballroom, not down the hall itself.

  “Lady Fairbourne is in the withdrawing room. Help her into the next room down. It’s a study if I remember correctly. I’ll be waiting.”

  “To do what? Debauch the intended? That’s not like you, Colin. Besides, she seems a bit dim.”

  He felt his frustration surge. “I know her; she’s not dim. I think she’s been drugged.”

  “Then, dear, she’s been drugged for weeks,” Ophelia said, then stopped, “Oh, dear, you are serious. Not dim, then? I spoke to her several times in the last month. I regret now not having paid more attention.”

  “Call her Lucy. Tell her you are bringing her to me.”

  * * *

  Lucy entered the withdrawing room, an antechamber with seating and a large mirror. She sat at one of the chairs, hands folded limply in her lap. The mirror reflected her in many colors, but she knew the position: despair. She closed her eyes.

  He had come to her, in grey silk, elegant, and danced with her at a crowded ball, just as she had dreamed it. But it couldn’t be him.

  A hand touched hers, and she opened her eyes, trying to focus them. A woman with kind eyes knelt before her, and the colors wrapped around her.

  “I’m Ophelia Mason. We’ve met before. At Lady Wentworth’s ball last week.”

  The colors turned into flowers. Rosemary for remembrance. Pansies for thoughts. Fennel and columbine. She knew the flowers weren’t real. Nothing was real.

  “Lucy? Colin said your name is Lucy.”

  The woman said her name, her real name. The name he called her.

  “My cousin Colin Somerville. He says he knows you. Do you know him ?”

  She nodded.

  “Here, let’s see if this helps.” Ophelia poured cold water from the pitcher onto a linen handkerchief, then pressed it against Lucy’s temples. The cold pushed the colors to the edges of the room.

  She nodded.

  “He wants me to bring you to him. He’s in the next room. Will you come with me?”

  The woman might not be real, but the cold was real. She could believe in the cold.

  “Yes,” she whispered, hoping to keep the colors from returning. Ophelia took her arm.

  * * *

  When the door to the study opened, Colin stood before her, his eyes searching hers. Ophelia led her in, and he folded her in his arms.

  “Lucy, look at me.”

  “Do I know you, sir?” she spoke deliberately, making sure to form the words correctly. It was best not to give anything away. If she did, she would awaken in her room with the barred windows and locked doors. No, she had to find a way to make the dream stay.

  “Yes. You saved my life.” He pressed his lips to hers, gently, but with remembered passion, and she stiffened, then melted into him. “Is that enough to remember me by?”

  She pressed her fingers to her temples. “It’s not safe. He’ll know you’ve been here. He’ll kill you and her.”

  “My angel, my star. No one is going to kill me, or Ophelia.”

  “It is you.” Her vision seemed clearer. “Can you help me? I can’t think.”

  “Can you refuse what they are giving you?”

  She shook her head and pushed down her glove. He saw the still-pink scar at her wrist, the marks of restraints, and the bruises.

  “Ophelia, get Clive, quickly. He’s waiting on the stairs. Then, if you can, find Edmund and Aidan. If a footman asks where Lucy is, tell him Lady Fairbourne is ill in the withdrawing room, and you are finding her a doctor. That should gain us some time.”

  * * *

  Clive entered the room with Ophelia, Edmund following behind them.

  “Whatever you are planning, brother, you better move quickly,” Clive advised. “Marner and Barnes have noticed she is missing from the ballroom and are looking for her.”

  Edmund stepped forward and saw Lucy, her arm still uncovered. His face blanched. All of the brothers were unsympathetic to men who beat women, but Edmund felt it most strongly. The woman he loved had also been abused by her relatives.

  “Ophelia, walk with Lady Fairbourne around the ballroom. Don’t let her drink or eat anything. When you are done, introduce her to Kate, and have her do the same thing, then Ariel. Has Sophia arrived? Or Audrey?”

  “If they haven’t, I have other friends who will help.” Ophelia extended her arm to Lucy, “Come, we will walk to see if some exertion makes you feel better.”

  “Keep her with you or someone you trust for the next hour,” Colin instructed.

  Edmund glanced at the clock on the mantel. “The ball ends in an hour, brother. You haven’t much time.”

  “Half an hour, then,” he instructed Ophelia and Lucy before they slipped into the hall. “I have a plan, but it’s a risky one. And we need the clothes from one of the postboys.”

  * * *

  As she walked around the ballroom with Ophelia’s friends, the colors receded, and she felt more stable on her feet. But at the same time, she knew better what a danger Colin and the others were taking on themselves. By the time Ophelia escorted her back toward the withdrawing room, then slipped with her into the study, she was shivering with fear.

  “We have some clothes for you, and Ophelia is going to help you into them, but you must change quickly. I’ll be waiting outside the door.”

  She leaned into his cheek and whispered, “Don’t leave me
.”

  He looked at the clock. “Ophelia, watch at the door.”

  He began to undress her, forcing himself not to remember the last time he’d held her, the last time he’d untied the strings under her bodice and at her waist. He focused on the ribbon first, untying it just enough to loosen the drawstring. Then he moved to the pins. He loosened the dress enough to slip it off.

  He looked at her partially clad and wished to weep, then kill. He’d seen that she’d grown thin, but not how thin.

  Within five minutes, Lucy had become a very pretty boy. The postboy’s legs were longer than Lucy’s, so they used the pins from her dress to fold the pants legs up. Colin had intended to bind her breasts as she had done in the camps, but there was no need. She was already so thin, and the shirt was tight enough that it, with the jacket, did the job suitably well. The only problem had been her hair. Curls and curls down the back of her neck. He’d considered cutting it off, but there was no time. Instead, at Ophelia’s suggestion, they made her a turban out of a strip of petticoat to mimic the uniform of Lady Stanford’s postboys.

  “Lucy.” He lifted her chin so his eyes could meet hers. They were filled with fear and exhaustion. “We have one chance. Watch the floor as we leave. Don’t look up; don’t meet anyone’s eyes. Hold on to Ophelia, and whatever happens, don’t stop walking.”

  They took their positions, Colin on one side of Ophelia, Lucy on the other. Ophelia pretended to lean on Lucy, all the while directing her steps. Edmund stood outside the study door, lounging against the wall. “The carriage is first in line. The twins stand ready, as do I.”

  Lucy’s feet were steadier, but she still moved as if she were uncertain. They passed the guard at the end of the hall to the withdrawing room without incident.

  They neared the door to the ballroom just as Sophia’s two cousins engaged in a loud disagreement and called on the two footmen at the door to adjudicate. Though the footman refused to move, it was enough of a distraction for the three of them to enter the main hallway.

  Any time someone approached, Ophelia groaned, and Colin nodded them away. As they had hoped, few paid any attention at all to the servant who appeared to be helping Ophelia walk upright.

  When they were almost to the front door, Colin heard his name called. It was Barnes, the fiancé. “Get her out of here,” he whispered to Ophelia, then he motioned to his postboy, who was waiting at the door. “Help Mrs. Mason to her carriage.” One of the footmen at the door stared at the pair but, to Colin’s relief, looked away.

  “I say, will she be all right?” Barnes patted Colin’s back as if they were old friends. “I’ve never seen Mrs. Mason discomfited in this way.”

  “She believes she ate something earlier which didn’t agree with her.” Colin forced himself to maintain a pose of friendly conversation, even though he wished to bash the man’s crooked teeth in.

  “I hope not from my table.” Barnes pressed his clammy hands together in false consternation.

  “That’s unlikely. The indisposition has come on her too quickly.” Colin had disliked Barnes before for the way his vote went to the highest bidder, all while pretending to vote on conscience. But perversely, Colin hated Barnes now for not caring enough about Lucy to recognize her in the most flimsy disguise. Colin would have recognized Lucy anywhere. “I’m sure a night’s sleep will cure Mrs. Mason.”

  “Barnes!” Edmund called from the ballroom doorway. “We need you to settle a dispute. Cragfield here still believes that Lord Byron authored that novel that came out this summer. You remember the one—The Vampyre—but I can’t remember the name of the true author.”

  Barnes turned back to the ballroom, “Polidori, that’s the name you want. Polidori.”

  By the time Barnes turned back to finish his conversation, Colin was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I see you’ve lost her again.” Charters rolled up his sleeves to throw a dart at a target across the room. “I told you the ball was a dangerous idea.”

  “I had men watching every door on the first floor,” Marner objected.

  “Then she must have jumped from an upper window. Are you certain her body isn’t lying broken in the rosebushes?” He let the derision fill his tone. “Do you need for me to check?”

  “She was helped.”

  “I thought you said she had no friends”.

  “Perhaps she’s made some during the season,” Marner snapped.

  “That should not have been possible.” Charters aimed and threw, hitting the bull’s-eye firmly in the middle. “Did you follow my instructions for events? Someone beside her at all times? Only men who believed in her incapacity dancing with her? The drug timed to make her appear uncertain and, if she spoke, unwell.”

  “We did everything.” Marner paced. “But she’s disappeared.”

  “And what precisely do you wish for me to do about it?” Charters threw another dart with the same result.

  “Find her before this unravels.”

  “I think my partners and I will sit this act out until you provide the funds you already owe us.” Charters threw a final dart, splitting the first one.

  “I haven’t got access to that sort of money until I inherit her portion.”

  “Then you’ll need to find a way to pay our outstanding fee without inheriting the estate. Besides, you had enough blunt to go to the Painted Lady two nights ago, where you won a tidy sum. In fact, you won a full half of what’s outstanding to me. We’ll take those winnings.” Charters leaned back against the wall beside his desk.

  “I need that money to pay my accounts.”

  “We know that you paid one of the girls at the Painted Lady to signal you when Farthingmore had weak hands. I could just as easily go to him. Tell him how you won his yearly income. He’s not known as a forgiving loser,” Charters threatened. “We don’t care what happens to you or to the girl or to your plans. All we care about is our fee. My employer insists that we don’t work for free.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  She dreamed he came for her at a ball and stole her away into the darkness. She dreamed that she lay all night in his arms, safe. She didn’t want to awaken; she didn’t want to open her eyes and find that he was gone, that the bed was her own, and that another day of nightmares had begun.

  She moved her arm to touch the cuts, now healed into raised pink bands. She had told herself for months that at least she was alive. If she were alive, there was hope. But now . . . perhaps it had been better for her to have died. Because now she had gone mad, and all her senses were complicit. The sheets felt soft, but the room smelled like tansy, rosemary, and bay. Like another sickroom.

  “Lucy.” A man’s voice. His voice. Another indication she was mad. Before, at least she had not heard voices. Just seen colors, and distortion, everywhere she’d looked.

  “Lucy. You’re safe. Open your eyes. I’m not leaving your side again.”

  “Yes, you are.” A woman’s voice, firm but kind. “Sophia needs to dress her wounds, and put salve on her scars. But you can stand in the hall.”

  “I won’t leave until she opens her eyes and sees I’m here and that she’s safe.”

  “If you were in a fairy tale, you would kiss her.” A child’s voice, young. “It’s in a story Sophie read to me. She will know you from your kiss and wake up.”

  Lucy didn’t want to be kissed, not the rough torment she had to endure every day since coming to town. The groping hands, the suffocating embraces, the stench of sweat and drink. At least her cousin was prudish enough to allow nothing further.

  She heard a chair creak. Beside her bed. How long had he sat beside her? He put his hand on hers.

  “Lucy, come back to me.” The kiss when it came was soft, then firm. His mouth opened slightly on hers, and his tongue teased her lips. Gentle, even loving. Soap, he smelled of soap. She breathed more deeply. Soap.

  She opened her eyes and looked into his eyes. He broke off the kiss and smiled. His smile. If she were mad, t
his was a heavenly madness. To have found a safe place in her mind to live when they chained her to the wall like Molly. Perhaps she would stare all night at the moon, imagining it to be his face.

  “There. She knows you’re here. Now go. Take Lily back to the nursery.” Behind him, she could see the kind auburn-haired woman she dreamed had helped her at the ball. And behind her Lady Wilmot, holding the hand of a small dark-haired girl.

  “Lucy, you remember my cousin, Ophelia Mason, and Sophia, Lady Wilmot. Remember?” He squeezed her hand in parting, but she held it fast. “And this is Lady Wilmot’s daughter, Lily.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. He leaned down. “What, darling?”

  “Am I mad? Or dead?” she whispered.

  He did not laugh. Only a sad, gentle look passed over his face. When he spoke, his voice was kinder than she’d ever heard it. “You are neither. You are safe. I will never let them harm you again. Even if I had not the power, you have met my brother, the duke. Already he helps protect you.”

  * * *

  Sophia joined Colin, Aidan, and their brothers in the drawing room.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “I will only tell you if you promise that you will do nothing without your brother’s approval.”

  “Tell me.” He glared. “Or I will go look for myself.”

  “And terrify her?” she said. “What will you do? Challenge someone to a duel, then leave her without protection?”

  “You think I would lose.”

  “I think you have yourself suffered a wound from which you have not fully recovered.”

  “It’s been four months.”

  “Yes, and you still wince when you pull yourself onto a horse. You don’t yet raise your arm to full height. Another month, two, and you will be well, but not now. You might die if you challenge someone. Your brother is a fierce man. Let him pursue this for you. You take care of her.”

  He agreed, reluctantly.

  “It’s clear she’s been malnourished, whether by choice or intention, I can’t tell. She’s clearly suspicious of food, but Judith was able to get her to eat by eating from the same plate with her. The bruises on her arms and ankles indicate she’s been bound, and I have to say, from the look of them, that’s happened repeatedly. She has cuts in both places in various stages of healing. At some point, fairly recently, she’s been beaten, but carefully. None of the bruises would show in everyday or evening dress. The scars on her arms are perhaps three months old, fully healed, but still pink and thick.