Gilding the Lady

by Nicole Byrd

  Then there was another young man waiting, and Clarissa took a quick sip of wine to sooth her dry throat, then accepted his hand and returned to the dance.

  By the time supper was announced, she was glad to have a respite, and even happier to be able to rejoin the earl.

  They sat at Lady Gabriel’s table, and although their chance for private conversation was limited, she still found his closeness almost as thrilling as on the dance floor.

  “I hope Gabriel has suffered no mischance,” she heard Gemma say to their hostess, and Clarissa noticed the empty seat at the table.

  “As do I,” Lady Gabriel agreed, her brow wrinkling. “But no doubt he has only been delayed by a sudden rain storm or a problem with his horse.”

  Matthew agreed and offered a reassuring comment as Clarissa turned back to meet Lord Whitby’s glance.

  “You are quite the triumph,” he told her. “Beautiful, graceful, and poised—undoubtably the belle of the ball.”

  Flustered, she dropped her napkin, but remembered to wait as he bent to retrieve it for her. And it gave him a pretext for pressing her hand as he returned it. Clarissa knew her cheeks must be glowing again.

  “Then you must inform Mr. Galton that you have won your wager,” she told him, keeping her tone low.

  “That puppy? I saw him dancing with you. I hope he did not dare to be annoying because if so, I will have a few words with him!”

  “Oh, no, he was most, um, complimentary,” she assured him.

  To her amusement, Lord Whitby frowned, and she thought she detected an acrid note in his voice. “Flirting with you, was he? Impertinent calfling!”

  She laughed.

  Clarissa was sorry when supper ended and their table broke up, but she took the opportunity to slip upstairs and ask Matty, who was eager to hear about the ball, if she would tuck up a straying lock.

  Matty picked up a brush and carefully adjusted her mistress’s curls.

  “Oh, I knew you’d be a success, miss. And all the other maids are so awestruck by your gown, it’s a marvel.”

  Clarissa grinned. “I’m glad they approve.”

  With her hairdo restored, she visited the necessary and was on her way back to the ballroom when a footman approached her.

  Bowing deeply, he said, “Lord Whitby asked you to meet him outside for a moment, miss, if you would.”

  What was this about? She had left the earl only a few minutes earlier, and he had said nothing about a meeting, except that he would claim another dance soon. Had something untoward occurred?

  “Of course,” she said, but the servant was already turning away. She hurried after him.

  They went down the hallway and out a side door without seeing anyone she knew, then on past the lanterns hanging on the wall of the garden. The footman unhooked the last one to carry with him to illuminate the path. Past the garden wall, Clarissa saw there was only shadowy darkness.

  “Where are we going?” she called to the footman.

  “There’s a gazebo just ahead, miss,” he answered, but he didn’t turn.

  All at once the set of his shoulders looked strangely familiar. Clarissa paused.

  “But—you—it can’t be!”

  The man wheeled. Now she saw that while he held the lantern in one hand, he had retrieved a blade, silvery in the lantern’s flickering light, which he held in the other hand. Beneath the powdered wig, his face, even shorn of the mustache he had always worn before, was recognizable at once now that she had her first good look at it.

  “Come along now, no screams—unless you wish your throat cut!”

  It was the dancing master.

  Seventeen

  Staring, she blurted, “What happened to your accent ?”

  He sounded like one of the barrow men, she thought, who called outside her window early in the morning. She had known servants, and girls at the foundling home, too, whose voices held the same intonations.

  His lip curled. “Fooled you, did I? Quite the foreign gentleman I was. Come along now, and keep your trap shut, or you’ll be the one sorry.”

  He grabbed her arm and jerked until she gasped, but although she tried to pull away, she could not evade his grip. He had always had a strong clasp, she recalled, and now there was no semblance of polite behavior. He had given up more than his accent and his gentleman’s costume.

  As he dragged her along the path, the shadows fell in laddered patterns across his face. Free now of the small moustache, its truculent expression was also unveiled. And something in her memory clicked, and Clarissa was so surprised that for a moment she went limp in his grasp.

  He paused to frown at her.

  “You’re the boy in my dream,” she said, her voice trembling. “You’re the boy who used to come to the foundling home and smuggle away the matron’s stolen foodstuffs. I saw you there. That’s how you first knew her!”

  He raised his brows, his expression almost comical beneath the powdered wig, which in her struggles against his hold had been knocked slightly askew.

  “Come a long way, ’aven’t I, love? And would have gone further without your interfering. Think you’re such a fine lady, now you ’ave money? I was going to ’ave money, too!”

  “I didn’t kill anyone to get it!” she retorted.

  He cuffed her almost casually, then pulled her along again, despite her attempts to slow him down, to somehow make him release his grip. They didn’t stop again until they reached a small stone outbuilding with a low doorway and no windows.

  The door was ajar, and from inside the structure, a lantern showed its wavering light.

  “Help!” Clarissa shrieked, kicking in vain at the man who wrestled her along and hoping for a friendly face.

  No one answered her cry.

  The tutor—she had no idea what his real name might be but she was certain now it was not Meidenne—twisted her arm painfully and pulled open the door. His blade still at the ready, he pushed her ahead of him into the building, keeping his grip on her arm and his knife at her throat.

  “Clarissa!”

  The earl gazed at her in horror.

  Clarissa tried to push back her own fear. She had thought that the earl’s request was only a plot to get her outside and leave her vulnerable to attack. But apparently, her former tutor had delivered a similar message earlier.

  “I was told that you requested my presence,” Lord Whitby said slowly. “I see that we were both misled. Is this man who I think he may be?”

  Feeling somehow to blame, she bit her lip. “Beneath the servant’s kit, this is my, ah, former dancing instructor,” she agreed.

  Lord Whitby did not look surprised.

  From the corner of her eyes, she saw her captor smirk. His knife felt sharp against her neck. When Clarissa swallowed, she winced as the point dug painfully into her skin.

  “Let her go, and I will give you what you want,” the earl offered, his tone remarkably steady.

  The man who held her gave a high-pitched laugh. “And ’ow do you know what I want, your bloody lordship? You and ’er ’ave messed up the best deal I ever thought up. Bad enough to ’ave to deal with that whining matron, but I got ’er out of the way before she could foul up me plans. But you, blimey, just wouldn’t stop, would you? Got most of Bow Street on my tail, don’t you?”

  He jerked Clarissa in emphasis as he spoke, and the knife jabbed her again. She felt a drop of blood run down her throat. Trying to control her fear, she drew a deep breath. The man still smelled of pomade, though now the scent was overlaid with the odor of sweat.

  Her lips felt stiff, but she pressed them together, refusing to allow her captor to see how terrified she was. But she suspected the earl could read the fear in her eyes, and she saw Lord Whitby’s expression tighten.

  “Just let her go. I will make it worth your while,” he repeated.

  “Not likely. So she can go and call out the dogs on me? You and ’er are staying ’ere for the big show, gov. And don’t think you’ll escape easily.”
>
  Without warning, he pushed Clarissa heavily toward the earl. She stumbled, but Whitby caught her, and she clung to him for a moment.

  When he thrust her away, she knew why, but she had to bite back a protest. The earl jumped toward the door, but not in time. The slight delay she had inadvertently caused had given her former instructor time to slam the door in their faces. She could hear a bolt slide, and then more shuffling sounds as of something being dragged. What else was he up to?

  The earl looked as if he were about to throw himself bodily against the door, but to her surprise, he paused and reached inside his jacket. From some inner pocket, he drew out a small but sharp-looking dagger.

  She gazed at it with wide eyes.

  “Our adversary has a habit of going about with weapons,” he explained. “I didn’t really expect to meet him this weekend, but nonetheless, I have recently adopted a habit of being always prepared.”

  “You did better than I,” she said. “I should have paid more attention. You didn’t know his face; I had every reason to.” Of course, the tutor had kept it out of view as much as he could, she thought while the earl went to the door and slid his blade carefully along the crack between the door and its frame.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low just in case the villain should still be within earshot. Although, surely he was making his escape and well on his way out of England by now! But they had thought that before, and look where it had gotten them—trapped in this garden shed, which might have been small but seemed all too sturdily built. It was quite empty, the air smelled musty, and even the exposed beams above them had nothing hanging from them. She wondered what it was used for? Perhaps winter storage.

  She heard the earl swear beneath his breath, and she picked up the lantern to see what he was disturbed about.

  “Don’t bring it too close!” Lord Whitby warned, his tone urgent.

  “What is it?”

  He drew back his blade, and she saw a few grains of black powder on the sleek blade. “He has piled boxes outside the door. They are filled with gunpowder; I made a small crack in one. I think he has been rifling the fireworks display. If I force the door, the impact might well cause the powder to explode.”

  “How on earth did you guess?”

  “His comment about not missing the show . . .and throughout his career, he has displayed a devious mind.”

  She imagined the stone walls flying apart, spewing stones at them, and she shuddered. “Then don’t touch the door, by all means. We must simply stay here until someone finds that we are missing,” she said. “They will notice, sooner or later.”

  It seemed a sensible suggestion. Why did he look so grim? She raised her brows in inquiry and waited. In a moment, he answered slowly.

  “If it is later, it may be too late, indeed,” the earl pointed out. “I fear that our master villain has not left our fate to chance. I suspect he has a fuse attached to the boxes.”

  “A fuse?” She found that her voice squeaked and tried to clear her throat. “I don’t understand. I fear I’ve never seen a fireworks display. I was quite looking forward to my first one.”

  He looked away for a moment. “They put the fireworks on long fuses, my dear, so that one leads to another. Think of it as a rapidly burning candle, though it is usually only wick. One firework ignites, then another, then a cascade of explosions will follow. Unless the men who set up the display are very vigilant—and they arranged it all this morning in the daylight—I’m not sure anyone will remark on what he has done.”

  “But surely they would have left someone to watch over the display?” she argued.

  The earl didn’t answer, and she had a vision of the tutor, with his wicked blade and his servant’s disguise sidling up to the workman with an offer of food or drink. Did another victim lie bleeding somewhere in the dark?

  “I see,” she said, again controlling her panic with some effort.

  “Let us call for help,” the earl suggested. “See if we can gain anyone’s, attention.”

  They shouted as loudly as possible for several minutes, but no one seemed to hear.

  “Could we pound on the door?” she suggested, when they paused to take breath.

  “With several boxes of gunpowder outside, leaning against it?” he reminded her. “I think not.”

  Sighing, Clarissa recalled that they had walked a fair ways from the house to this place, and the stone walls of the outbuilding were thick. Music still played in the ballroom, and even the kitchen and the servants’ hall belowstairs, she knew from experience, would be noisy, people chatting as they worked, pots clanging as the scullery maids washed and dried.

  When she stopped again for breath, she felt a little weak. The shed held nothing to sit on or even lean against, so she folded her legs and sat down upon the stone floor, which felt cold beneath her. The earl came to kneel beside her and tried to pry up one of the flagstones. But the stones were thick, and his knife small.

  “Can you dig a tunnel?” she asked hopefully.

  He tried to slip his knife beneath a stone but could not get it to move. “Maybe, in about two months,” he answered, his tone grim.

  After several minutes and a nicked blade, he put the weapon aside—it made a poor substitute for a spade—and groaned.

  “I was going to protect you. I would have given my life to protect you, and I have failed again.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she protested, then a sudden memory made her pause. “Although, did you not know it was me when I called for help?”

  “When?” he demanded.

  “Just before we came inside,” she told him. “When I saw the light of your lantern through the doorway.”

  He sat down beside her and dropped his face into his hands for a moment; she had never witnessed the arrogant earl looking so defeated. His voice sounded muffled, and he would not meet her eye. “I did not hear you, my dear. The cannonshot that gave me this”—he touched the scar on the edge of his face—“also took away the hearing in my left ear.”

  “Oh!” she said, filled with both sympathy and an urgent need to banish his look of despair. “I didn’t know.”

  “My stupid pride,” he told her, his voice rasping. “I hated to admit such a weakness, so no one except the men I once served with knows my deformity.”

  She thought of other times he had not heard her, and how she had assumed he was only lost in thought. Clarissa put up one hand to touch his cheek, ran her fingers lightly over the thick scar at the side of his face, then reached beneath the shaggy dark hair to touch the ear itself. It was effectively hidden from view, but beneath her gentle touch, she found it slightly misshaped. He winced, and she lowered her hand.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I am only glad you came back from Napoleon’s battles at all,” she told him. “I’m thankful you were here to make your silly bet and to stand by me when I needed you. Without you, my attempt at entering Society would have been a most miserable fiasco, and besides that, I should likely be in gaol right now accused of killing the matron. What would I have done without you?”

  “Probably better than this,” he said, shaking his head and springing once more to his feet. “I have failed you, Clarissa, and I will never forgive myself as long as I live or as short as that time may be, dammit it all. Nor would I care, if I could just get you safely away!”

  “I would care!” she protested, but he paid no heed. He paced up and down the small area of the shed.

  Bloody hell, she would not inflict guilt on another man she loved! How could she divert his thoughts?

  She shivered again and looked down at the stones beneath her. Her lovely gown was going to be ruined from the dirt and damp. Not that it mattered.

  They were really going to die.

  Surely Gemma would soon notice that they were missing, but she might assume they were enjoying a quiet tête-à-tête in an anteroom. Improper, yes, but she would hardly call anyone’s attention to their absence, for fear of
starting a scandal. By the time any of Clarissa’s family was alarmed enough to search for her in earnest, it would be too late.

  “The fireworks were to take place at midnight,” she recalled. “Do you know what time it is?”

  He shook his head. “I do not carry a pocket watch in my evening dress, but it was after ten when I left the house.”

  Bloody hell, they had not much time.

  They were going to die.

  Matthew and Gemma would be so upset. Clarissa hoped her brother wouldn’t blame himself again.

  She thought of all the things she would never get to do. She wanted marriage and babies, she wanted to see her children grow up—and she hadn’t yet learned to waltz. It was quite unfair! And she was freezing.

  “My lord,” she said, looking up at him as he paced up and down the flagstones—a sad waste of energy, although she knew he was trying to control his anger and frustration. “I’m cold.”

  “My dear, I’m sorry.” He came quickly and pulled off his evening jacket, draping it around her shoulders.

  She accepted the coat, but she gazed at him and repeated, “I’m very cold.”

  “The floor is clammy,” he agreed. “What can I do?”

  “Come and put your arms about me,” she suggested. “If we’re going to die in an hour, we can spend it more happily than this!”

  He made a sound between a laugh and a groan, but he dropped to the stone floor and put his arms about her. “Dearest Miss Fallon—”

  “I like Clarissa better,” she told him. “Dominic.” She rolled the word on her tongue and liked it exceedingly. “I have seldom call been able to you by your given name, not aloud, anyhow. Dominic,” she repeated and she reached up to touch his cheek. “If that is improper, I don’t care.”

  He caught her hand and kissed it. “This is all highly improper, you know.”

  “I know, but at this point, why should I—or we—care?” she argued.

  There was no doubt a good answer to her question, but Dominic couldn’t think of what it might be. She looked up at him, her eyes so clear and so unflinching, and she said, “Make me forget, Dominic.”