Unmasking Miss Lacey

by Isabelle Goddard

  He turned to the bed where he had flung his caped benjamin and delved into one of its roomy pockets, drawing out the piece of bloodied canvas.

  ‘Is this what you went looking for?’

  She gave a small choking sound, then jumped up and rushed to the bed. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘I have to confess that “find” is not exactly the right word. I walked into Partridge’s office, smashed his safe open and took it.’

  She looked at him aghast. ‘But will you not be in the most dreadful trouble?’

  ‘I fancy not. There was enough stolen jewellery in that safe to keep the Runner happy for months. Partridge is by now in Lewes prison and will soon stand trial for receiving stolen goods. I doubt he’ll be bothering this neighbourhood for many a long year.’

  She took a minute to absorb the momentous news, for with one stroke Jack had made things right. But she was puzzled. ‘When you found this roll of canvas, why did you take it? How did you know it was important?’

  ‘I didn’t and I don’t wish to know why it matters. I went on a hunch. You were willing to risk your entire world for something in that room and I couldn’t for the life of me see what it was. But I didn’t think Partridge was the kind of man to store a keepsake such as this unless it was likely to be useful to him. And if it was useful to him, it was useful to its true owner—Rupert, if I were to hazard a guess.’

  ‘The landlord was threatening him.’ Her expression drooped at the thought of the ruin they had narrowly avoided.

  ‘I thought that might be the case. But look at me, Lucinda—the threat is no more.’

  She did as she was asked and smiled at him through tear-filled eyes. ‘I am sorry to be such a watering pot, but I cannot believe that you have rescued me—again!’

  ‘Us,’ he said firmly, ‘I have rescued us. Unless, that is, you cannot forgive me for doubting you when you needed me most.’

  ‘I think we need to forgive each other, Jack. We have been a sorry pair!’

  ‘And once we have forgiven, what of the future?’

  Her face glowed up at him. ‘That is for us to make—together,’ she said with certainty.

  ‘Then can we begin now?’ He delved into his jacket pocket. ‘This is the best Steyning can offer, but I hope you will find it acceptable. We will buy another as soon as we get to London.’ And he slipped a band of glowing sapphires onto her finger.

  ‘It is quite beautiful.’ She held out her hand to him, caressing his cheek and admiring the clustered stones as they caught the morning light. ‘I want no other.’

  ‘Then we should tell our news to Uncle Francis. I wonder how he will like me calling him that? Currently he is fuming in the hall. He appeared desperate to bar me from the house and I had to put him aside a little roughly.’

  ‘He thinks you an immoral person, intent on seduction.’ She giggled.

  ‘More likely it is because he believes me responsible for your unhappiness. And he is right.’

  ‘But no more.’

  ‘No more, Lucinda.’

  His lips caressed her cheek, brushing away the stray tears. She lifted her mouth to his and his kiss was warm and hard and wonderful. She had thought never to feel it again, but life had turned amazingly right and she had a world of kisses ahead.

  ‘Uncle Francis will come round, you’ll see. I am sure that he still clings to his old wish that our two families be joined. And when he learns I am to become a countess, he will be overjoyed!’

  ‘Then we mustn’t disappoint.’

  In answer she nestled closer against him. His hands were warming her body through the fine muslin of her gown, skimming the curve of her waist, tracing the outline of her bodice to cup her breasts possessively. ‘As soon as I can get a special licence, we will be wed,’ he whispered into her ear.

  An unwelcome thought hit home and she broke away. ‘I will have to tell Rupert. He will be euphoric to know his possessions are safe...’ and she nodded towards the cloth bundle ‘...but I fear he will dislike the idea of my marriage.’

  ‘Then we must tempt him with something even better than a stained piece of canvas.’

  She looked questioningly at him.

  ‘I was thinking of the army. You said that was always his dream. Shall I buy him a commission? The cavalry or the dragoons, perhaps? The army will give him plenty of opportunity to exercise those high spirits of his.’

  ‘Would you really buy him a commission?’

  ‘Gladly. I think Rupert would be a great deal happier and a lot less trouble if he were settled in a military career. And I cannot be forever rescuing my wife from the Bow Street Runners!’

  ‘You are the most perfect man, Jack!’ She flung her arms around him and his lips once more found hers. This time he did not let her go until they were breathless and tumbled together on the bed.

  She tugged at his shirt, but already he was gently disentangling them. ‘The perfect man is in danger of forgetting himself. We should go and find Sir Francis and tell him the good tidings.’

  ‘Must we? I am just getting used to having you in my arms again.’

  He laughed. ‘In a few days you will have me in your arms every morning and every night. Though I’m not sure if that’s a threat or a promise.’

  ‘A promise, Jack,’ she laughed back. ‘Most decidedly a promise.’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Some Like it Wicked by Carole Mortimer

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  Chapter One

  May 1817—Highbury House, London

  ‘Do smile, Pandora; I am sure that neither Devil nor Lucifer intends to gobble you up! At least...it is to be hoped, not in any way you might find unpleasant.’

  Pandora, widowed Duchess of Wyndwood, did not join in her friend’s huskily suggestive laughter as they approached the two gentlemen Genevieve referred to so playfully. Instead she felt her heart begin to pound even more rapidly in her chest, her breasts quickly rising and falling as she took rapid, shallow breaths in an effort to calm her feelings of alarm, and the palms of her hands dampened inside the lace of her gloves.

  She did not know either gentleman personally, of course. Both men were in their early thirties whereas she was but four and twenty, and she had never been a part of the risqué crowd which surrounded them whenever they deigned to show themselves in society. Nevertheless, she had recognised them on sight as being Lord Rupert Stirling, previously Marquis of Devlin and now Duke of Stratton, and his good friend, Lord Benedict Lucas, two gentlemen who had, this past dozen years or so, become known more familiarly amongst the ton as Devil and Lucifer. So named for their outrageous exploits, both in and out of ladies’ bedchambers.

  The same two gentlemen Genevieve had moments ago suggested might be considered as likely candidates as lovers now that their year of mourning for their husbands was over...

  ‘Pandora?’

  She gave a shake of her head. ‘I do not believe I can be a party to this, Genevieve.’

  Her friend gave her arm a gently reassuring squeeze. ‘We are only going to speak to them, darling. Play
hostess for Sophia whilst she deals with the unexpected arrival of the Earl of Sherbourne.’ Genevieve glanced across the ballroom to where the lady appeared to be in low but heated conversation with the rakish Dante Carfax, a close friend of Devil and Lucifer.

  Just as the three widows were now close friends...

  It was sheer coincidence that Sophia Rowlands, Duchess of Clayborne, Genevieve Forster, Duchess of Woollerton, and Pandora Maybury, Duchess of Wyndwood, had all been widowed within weeks of each other the previous spring. The three women, previously strangers, had swiftly formed an alliance of sorts when they had emerged from their year of mourning a month ago, drawn to each other by their young and widowed state.

  But Genevieve’s suggestion a few minutes ago, that the three of them each ‘take one lover, if not several before the Season was ended’, had thrown Pandora more into a state of turmoil than anticipation.

  ‘Nevertheless—’

  ‘Our dance, I believe, your Grace?’

  Pandora had not thought she would ever be pleased to see Lord Richard Sugdon, finding that young gentleman to be unpleasant in both his studied good looks and over-familiar manner whenever they chanced to meet. But, having found it impossible to think of a suitable reason to refuse earlier when he had pressed her to accept him for the first waltz of the evening, Pandora believed she now found even his foppish company preferable to that of the more overpowering and dangerous Rupert Stirling or Benedict Lucas.

  ‘I had not forgotten, my lord.’ She gave Genevieve a brief, apologetic smile as she placed her hand lightly upon Lord Sugdon’s arm before allowing herself to be swept out on to the ballroom floor.

  * * *

  ‘Good Lord, Dante, what has put you in such a state of disarray?’ Rupert Stirling, the Duke of Stratton, enquired upon entering the library at Clayborne House later that same evening, and instantly noticing the dishevelled state of one of his two closest friends as he stood across the room. ‘Or perhaps I should not ask...’ he drawled speculatively as he detected a lady’s perfume in the air.

  ‘Perhaps you should not,’ Dante Carfax, Earl of Sherbourne, bit out. ‘Nor do I need bother in asking what—or should I say, whom—is succeeding in keeping Benedict amused?’

  ‘Probably best if you did not,’ Rupert chuckled softly.

  ‘Would you care to join me in a brandy?’ The other man held up the decanter from which he was refilling his own glass.

  ‘Why not?’ Rupert accepted as he closed the library door behind him. ‘I have long suspected that my stepmother would eventually succeed in driving me either to drink or to committing murder!’

  * * *

  Pandora—having found herself trapped in a corner of the ballroom with Lord Sugdon once their dance came to an end, and only managing to escape his company a few minutes ago when another acquaintance had engaged him in conversation—could not help now but overhear the two gentlemen’s conversation as she stood on the terrace directly outside the library.

  ‘Then let it be drink this evening,’ Dante Carfax answered his friend. ‘Especially as the Duchess has been thoughtful enough to conveniently leave a decanter of particularly fine brandy and some excellent cigars here in the library for her male guests to enjoy.’ There was the sound of glass chinking and liquid being poured.

  ‘Ah, much better.’ Devil Stirling sighed in satisfaction seconds later after he had obviously taken a much-needed swallow of the fiery alcohol.

  ‘What are the three of us even doing here this evening, Stratton?’ his companion drawled lazily as he threw wide the French doors out on to the terrace with the obvious intention of allowing the escape of the smoke from their cigars.

  ‘In view of your dishevelled state, your own reasons are obvious, I should have thought,’ the other gentleman remarked. ‘And Benedict kindly agreed to accompany me, once I told him of my need to spend an evening away from the cloying company of my dear stepmama.’

  Dante Carfax gave a hard laugh. ‘I’ll wager the fair Patricia does not enjoy being referred to as such by you.’

  ‘Hates it,’ the other man confirmed with grim satisfaction. ‘Which is the very reason I choose to do it. Constantly!’

  Devil by name and devil by nature...

  The thought came unbidden to Pandora as she remained unmoving in the shadows of the terrace, having no wish to draw the attention of the gentlemen to her presence outside by making even the slightest of noises.

  The aroma of their cigars now wafting out of the open French doors was a nostalgic reminder to Pandora of happier times in her own life. A time when she had been younger and so very innocent, with seemingly not a care in the world as she attended such balls as this one with her parents.

  Occasions when she would not have felt the need, as she had this evening, to flee out on to the terrace in order to prevent any of Sophia’s tonnish guests from seeing that Pandora had finally been reduced to humiliated tears by Lord Sugdon’s blatant and crude suggestions...

  Not that most of the ton would care if she did find herself insulted, many of society not even acknowledging her existence, or troubling themselves to speak to her, let alone caring if she constantly found herself being propositioned by those gentlemen brave enough to risk her scandalous company.

  Indeed, if it were not for the insistence of Sophia and Genevieve in having her also received at whatever social functions they chose to attend, then Pandora believed she would have found herself completely ostracised since she had ventured to return to society a month ago.

  ‘A futile exercise, as it happens,’ Rupert Stirling continued wearily, ‘now that my father’s widow is also recently arrived at the Duchess’s ball.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure that Sophia did not—’

  ‘Don’t get in a froth, Dante, I am not blaming your Sophia—’

  ‘She is not my Sophia.’

  ‘No? Then I was mistaken just now in the perfume I recognised as I entered the room?’

  There was the briefest of pauses before the other gentleman replied reluctantly, ‘No, you were not mistaken. But Sophia continues to assure me I am wasting my time pursuing her.’

  Pandora’s mind was agog with the implication of this last conversation. Sophia? And Dante Carfax? Surely not, when Sophia lost no occasion in which to criticise the rakishly handsome Earl of Sherbourne...

  ‘Would not the taking of a wife solve at least part of your own problem, Rupert, in that the Dowager Duchess would then have no choice but to leave off living openly with you in your homes, at least?’ Dante now asked.

  ‘Do not think I have not considered doing just that,’ the other man rasped.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it would no doubt solve one problem, but surely bring about another.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘In that I would then be saddled for the rest of my life with a wife I neither want nor care for!’

  ‘Then find one you do want, physically, at least. There are dozens of new beauties coming out each Season.’

  ‘At two and thirty, my taste in women does not include chits barely out of the schoolroom.’ The to-ing and fro-ing of Rupert Stirling’s voice indicated that he was pacing the library in his agitation. ‘I cannot see myself tied for life to a young woman who not only giggles and prattles, but knows nothing of what takes place in the bedchamber,’ he added disdainfully.

  ‘Perhaps you should not dismiss the existence of that innocence so lightly, Rupert.’

  ‘How so?’r />
  ‘Well, for one thing, no one could ever accuse you of a lack of finesse in the bedchamber, which would surely allow you to tutor your young and innocent wife as to your personal preferences. And secondly, innocence does have the added benefit of ensuring—hopefully—that the future heir to the Dukedom would at least be of your own loins!’

  ‘Which may not have been the case if Patricia had succeeded in giving my father his “spare”—an occurrence which would have succeeded in rendering me fearful for my very life whilst I slept,’ the Duke of Stratton stated venomously.

  Pandora was aware she no longer remained silent outside on the shadowed terrace merely to avoid detection, but was in fact now listening unashamedly to the two gentlemen’s conversation. Two gentlemen, having seen them from a distance but a short time ago, it was all too easy for Pandora to now envisage.

  Dante Carfax was tall and dark with wicked green eyes, his impeccable evening attire fitting to perfection his wide and muscled shoulders, flat abdomen and long powerful legs.

  Rupert Stirling was equally as tall, if not slightly taller than his friend, his golden locks fashionably styled to curl about his ears and fall rakishly across his intelligent brow, his black evening clothes and snowy white linen tailored to emphasise the powerful width of his shoulders, narrow waist and long and muscled legs. His eyes would no doubt be that cool and enigmatic grey set in his haughtily handsome fallen-angel face, with a narrow aristocratic nose, high cheekbones and a wickedly sensual mouth that could smile with sardonic humour or thin with the coldness of his displeasure.

  A displeasure that at present appeared to be directed at the woman his late father had married four years ago.

  Pandora had been only twenty at the time, and not long married herself, but she remembered that the whole of society had then been agog with the fact that the long-widowed seventh Duke of Stratton, a man already in his sixtieth year, had decided to take as his second wife the young woman it was strongly rumoured had been romantically involved with that gentleman’s son before he returned to his regiment to fight in Wellington’s army against Napoleon...