“Milord?”
Startled out of his memories, Lachlan stared blankly at his valet before recalling the topic at hand. The servant had unfolded the missive and read it without asking permission. “Oh. Yes. Her.”
Niles offered him a long look and then grinned, his craggy face splitting oddly as he did. “Do you mind me asking why you’re taking a girl you don’t know to one of your fancy parties? Did that lassie you were after toss you over?”
Lachlan just turned toward the stairs, clapping the valet on the shoulder. “I don’t mind you asking,” he said, and then offered nothing further.
Niles watched his master go, glanced down at the note in his hand, and headed off in search of a footman. He hoped the marquess managed to find a wife soon so they could get back to Scotland. Although the city had once been his home, London, with its noises and smells and lack of room to breathe was not at all to his liking anymore.
Eighteen
It took Lachlan less than five minutes in Lucinda Harcourt’s company to recall precisely how his cousin had described her: A complete henwit. Attractive, but no substance.
She certainly was attractive. Seated across from him in the coach beside her silent duenna, she was the picture of quiet, pale blonde sophistication. Her hair was elegantly coiffed, her gown exquisitely crafted, her beauty of the sort that soothed one’s eyes and brought a smile to one’s face. Then she opened her mouth and attempted to follow a conversational lead. Within seconds, it become evident she had the intellectual capacity of a porcelain figurine. Even when he suggested the weather was unusually balmy, she’d blinked in confusion and asked, “You mean outside?”
By the third vapid response, Lachlan simply nodded and gave up. After they arrived at the ball and she began to socialize she would surely manage to become interesting.
He hoped.
Cleo frowned and watched Charity smile and sweetly decline yet another request to dance. She was beginning to think talking her niece into an evening out in an effort to help her forget the events of the morning was a mistake. Although from all outward appearances Charity appeared to be having a marvelous time, Cleo knew her well enough to see her smile was forced and overly bright, and that it did not reach her eyes.
She sighed and peered around, hoping to spot Amanda Lloyd or some of Charity’s other young friends; standing about with an elderly aunt wasn’t going to put the sparkle back in the girl’s eyes. But she saw nobody with whom Charity had become friendly in Town, so she decided it was likely best to call it a night.
She’d just laid a hand on Charity’s arm when her eyes fell upon a couple at the top of the stairs. She sucked in a shocked breath.
Charity glanced over in surprise. “What is it, Aunt Cleo?” The older lady’s sudden pallor and stunned expression caused her to follow the direction of her stare, and she felt the blood drain from her own face. The Marquess of Asheburton was descending the ornately carved staircase, and he had a young woman on his arm.
“Who is that?” she hissed.
Startled, Cleo dragged her gaze from the unexpected arrivals, glanced at her niece and then smiled. The withdrawn young woman she’d brought to the ball was gone, replaced by vintage Charity, full of life, brimming with energy, ready to spit fire.
“Oh, that?” Cleo feigned innocence. “That is the Marquess of Asheburton.”
Charity narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.
“Oh! You meant the girl with him, of course. Silly of me. Of course you know Asheburton,” stalled Cleo. “Rather well, I believe,” she added. Slanting a glance at her niece, she noted the girl’s visible impatience and reluctantly acquiesced. “Her name is Lucinda Harcourt, and it’s her third season out. Her parents are modest landowners and have some connection with the Earl of Tallimon, who has apparently spent a pretty penny sponsoring and outfitting the girl each Season.”
“She’s really quite beautiful,” said Charity thoughtfully.
“Yes. She is.” Cleo watched her closely. “They make a rather nice couple, don’t they?”
Charity looked away. “They do, at that. Will you excuse me a moment, Aunt? I think I’ll go freshen up a bit.” She snatched a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and swept off without awaiting any response.
Cleo followed her niece’s progress, a path leading her right in front of the main staircase. She glided under the nose of Lachlan Kimball without giving the slightest indication that she knew he was there. Had she been able to do so without calling attention to herself, Cleo would have clapped her hands with pride at the girl’s performance. Instead, she watched Lachlan nearly miss the last step down into the ballroom as he caught sight of Charity’s distinctive strawberry blonde head. Cleo stifled a laugh, thunked her cane on the floor in satisfaction, and turned to go find her friends.
Charity reached the ladies retiring room, in which she found herself blissfully alone. She looked down at the glass of champagne in her hand, then tilted back her head and drank it in three long swallows. Done, she set the glass on a table and turned to face herself in the mirror. The young lady in the reflection gazed back with a serene expression, which was puzzling; apparently she felt a good deal angrier than she looked.
Charity turned, paced a few steps back, and then closed her eyes, but that was no good either. She recalled the way he’d looked while casually descending the ornate staircase, his dark good looks a perfect foil for the stunning, sophisticated blonde on his arm. Charity’s stomach clenched into a tight little knot of—
Of what?
Of nothing, she decided firmly. Resolute, she reopened her eyes, spun around, and faced her reflection again.
He had a lot of nerve, kissing and holding her the way he had just that morning, when he had to have known he’d be spending the evening with another woman entirely. Well, the wretch could just enjoy himself with whomever he pleased, she decided. And she would do precisely the same. She tossed her reflection a bright, brittle smile, and ventured from the retiring room back out into the crowd.
The next two hours flew by; Charity laughed through them. She flirted, she danced, and not once did she so much as glance in Lachlan Kimball’s direction. Cleo watched both parties in delight, although much of her focus was on Lachlan. The man quite literally resembled a thundercloud. Lucinda Harcourt clung to his arm, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was paying no attention to her, toting him from group to group, chattering away like a brainless magpie, unable to see past her own frivolous existence and note the developing storm.
The dowager glanced at Charity again, who was accepting yet another glass of champagne from one of her many admirers. Cleo watched with satisfaction for a few minutes before glancing away, but when she looked back, she gasped and nearly jumped out of her skin. The Marquess of Asheburton was standing right in front of her, without his date, his expression positively murderous. “How long, my lady, do you intend to allow this?”
Cleo straightened her shoulders and eyed him with icy regality. “Allow what, my lord?”
“Charity’s behavior.”
The dowager raised disdainful brows. “Just what business is it of yours? She appears to be having a grand time, doing exactly what all the other young ladies of her class do at such events. She’s dancing, my lord, and socializing, and enjoying a great popularity.”
“She’s drinking, Lady Egerton. She’s drinking quite a bit. It’s not normal behavior for Charity. Perhaps, as her relative and chaperone, you would have noted it if you hadn’t been so busy watching me.”
Cleo’s eyes widened and she banged her cane on the floor. “Mind the way you speak to me, young man! Given your behavior with regard to both of my nieces and the company you’ve chosen this evening, I’d say you have no leg to stand on.”
“Please forgive me if I have offended you, Lady Egerton.” He gave her a pointed look. “But given your unassailable chaperoning skills, it must have caught your notice that Anthony Iverson has been hovering in her vicinity for the past
hour.”
Startled, Cleo glanced again in Charity’s direction. Her niece was gone.
“Oh, dear,” she said, quite forgetting her ire. “Charity knows better than to associate with the likes of that man.”
“Charity has a tendency to do precisely what she should not when she’s under the influence of her rather formidable temper. I cannot imagine being under the influence of several glasses of champagne in addition will help in the least.” Lachlan swept the room with his eyes, seeking not only Charity’s bright hair and attire but Iverson. When he found neither, he laid a hand on the old lady’s shoulder. “Wait here,” he instructed. Then he strode off in the direction of the doors to the terrace.
Stepping outside, Lachlan looked to the right and the left, hoping he’d see Charity talking and laughing in one of the small groups that had moved outside to escape the crowd and the noise within. She was nowhere to be found. His eyes roved the garden, delving into each shadowy nook. It was, by the ton’s standards, a rather spare garden with open expanses of beautifully manicured lawn rolling between small, well-tended beds of foliage. There were gaslights lining a footpath of neatly spaced flagstones, making it difficult for a couple to slip away for a dark tryst.
Satisfied that Charity wasn’t out here, Lachlan turned and walked back into the ballroom. He caught Cleo’s anxious eye and shook his head slightly to indicate he hadn’t found her, but unable to shake a feeling of urgent dread, he located Lucinda and politely extracted her from gossiping with a group of her equally vapid friends. “Let’s take a turn around the room, shall we?”
Lucinda dimpled and placed her hand on his arm. “I thought you’d abandoned me, my lord,” she said, her eyes as wide and guileless as those of a china doll. Lachlan gave her a distracted smile and led her toward the steps, skirting the dance floor and keeping to the room’s perimeter, his eyes alert for any sign of his quarry.
Her fingers were tingly. Charity giggled and held them up in front of her, then thrust them toward Anthony Iverson’s face and wiggled them. “They feel like they should sparkle,” she said in a wondrous tone.
Anthony glanced over his shoulder and then smiled down disarmingly at her. “Do you think you can walk very quickly and quietly with me to that gate over there?” He pointed across a short expanse of lawn to a narrow, wrought iron entry set into the side wall of the garden.
“ ’Course I can,” said Charity cheerfully. “I can do lots of things.” She started to take a step in that direction but was brought up short by her companion.
“Not just yet,” he said. “We’re playing a game, sort of like hide and go seek. Did you ever play that when you were a little girl?”
She nodded quickly but then blinked when the action made her dizzy. She reached out and clutched his sleeve to maintain her balance. “My head feels all sparkly, too,” she said, swaying slightly.
Anthony grimaced. If he was going to get her out of here, it would have to be soon, while she could still walk. He looked toward the terrace one more time and then emerged from the shadows at the side of the house, tugging Charity along behind him. She stumbled in his wake, somehow managed to keep her footing, and giggled again.
“Shh,” he hissed.
They reached the gate, which he opened quickly, wincing at the sharp metallic clang. He wanted their absence to be noted, but needed time to get her away from the ball first. He pushed Charity ahead and then slipped out just behind her.
Charity leaned up against the garden wall, lifted her skirts slightly and looked down at her feet. They appeared to be right where they belonged, but, oddly, she couldn’t feel them. She looked at Anthony in mute appeal.
He chuckled. “You’re going to be just fine,” he said, and then bent and swept her effortlessly into his arms.
“Oh, thank you,” she said with a musical giggle, punctuated by a hiccough. “Where are we going?”
“To my coach.”
“Why are we going to your coach? Aunt Cleo will wonder where I’ve gone.” A tiny little thread of alarm rendered Charity momentarily sober, but it was dispelled when Anthony said, “I told her I would see you home.”
“Well, that was very nice of you,” she pronounced. Her eyes felt suddenly heavy, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “No reason for her to leave early if she’s not sleepy too,” she murmured into his cravat.
Yes, thought Iverson. That was very nice of me. He sneered. Certain families had recently snubbed him and given him the cut direct one too many times. He now had a plan to avenge himself on their hypocrisy, to perhaps earn the reputation he’d been unfairly given. Every breath of scandal that touched the Caldwell and Lloyd families was either ignored or brushed away because of their prominent places in Society. Not this time. Tonight he’d keep Charity away long enough to ensure her reputation was beyond redemption.
He looked down at the beautiful girl who had passed out in his arms and smiled with anticipation. While he was at it, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t sample the goods . . . and by doing so, further ruin any future chance of a noble match.
Beyond worried now, Lachlan mentally ticked off the minutes since he’d last seen either Charity or Iverson. It had been at least half an hour. Short of questioning everyone with whom she socialized during the ball, or searching the entire town house, either of which would raise eyebrows and threaten Charity’s reputation, he had no idea what to do. He’d circled the entire room and already convinced Lucinda she needed a moment in the ladies room, after which he’d carefully questioned her about the occupants, feeling slightly guilty that he was using the unsuspecting girl in such a manner. He stood now near the terrace doors and racked his brain, fighting the impulse to leave and begin a search that was sure to be fruitless. Cleo remained where he’d left her, and even across the room he could see her signs of strain.
Lucinda, who had stepped away to talk with a wildly gesturing group of young women, returned to his side. “Goodness,” she said in a breathy little voice, “Papa is always afraid I’ll do something stupid and get myself in trouble, but I never really knew what he meant until now!”
Distracted, Lachlan flicked her a glance. It was all the encouragement she needed.
“Therese Thomasson-Sinclair just told me that she saw one of those bothersome Ackerly twins sneaking across the lawn and out the gate with Anthony Iverson!” She paused to take a breath and then plunged onward, flushed with pleasure and acutely aware of the fact that she had finally managed to garner some interest from her escort. Lachlan’s former guilt evaporated when he realized she had been gleefully gossiping about the very girl whose reputation he was attempting to save. “I didn’t think much of it until Therese said it was high time one of those girls got herself in trouble since they keep marrying all the best men.” Lucinda nodded at this proffered wisdom, her blonde curls bobbing cheerfully.
“Miss Harcourt.”
She glanced up to see Lachlan watching her in a way that made her quite uncomfortable. “My lord?”
“Did Therese say when she saw them?”
“N-no,” she stammered. “I could go ask.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Lachlan. He took her arm and led her over to Cleo. “Lady Egerton, permit me to introduce Miss Lucinda Harcourt.”
Lucinda bobbed a pretty curtsy but then jumped when the older lady poked Lachlan in the chest with her cane, ignoring the introduction. “Where is my niece?”
“Miss Harcourt will explain while you take her home. After that, go tell Huntwick I’ve gone after her and will send word if I need his assistance.” Cleo opened her mouth to ask questions, but Lachlan cut her off. “Go now. There’s no time. Word is already spreading through this ballroom and will make it to others. Go.”
He spun and took a couple of steps before turning back. “I will find her, Lady Egerton,” he promised, his voice fierce.
Wordlessly she nodded and watched him go.
Nineteen
By the time Marquess of Asheburton’s coach final
ly rumbled northward out of London, it was over two hours since he’d last seen Charity and his fears ran in a thousand directions.
“Head for Scotland,” he ordered his coachman, praying that Iverson’s intent was at least that noble. “Stop at every inn along the way, even those you deem unsuitable places for me to stay. I’ll make a quick inquiry, and, if need be, we’ll continue on.”
Three times they stopped, and all three times he learned nothing. Just outside the city the condition of the roads and the darkness made it necessary to travel more slowly, which gave Lachlan far too much time to think. What if the pair had headed straight for Scotland without stopping, and he was wasting time? Or what if they’d gone in the other direction? He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. He clenched his teeth, fighting against the rage just thinking that man’s name incited. It would take every ounce of control he possessed to leave Iverson’s throat intact once he found them.
The coach slowed. Lachlan pushed the curtain aside and looked out the window. They were approaching a large inn on the outskirts of a village. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, he disembarked and swept inside. He found the innkeeper straightening chairs and wiping tables in the dining area.
“I’m looking for a couple, possibly traveling as man and wife, who may have stopped here within the past two hours,” Lachlan announced.
The man rubbed his forehead. “Didn’t see no couple walk in. Young man said his wife was sleepin’ in the coach. Cook saw him carry her in. Dressed like you, he was, all fancy like from some big party.”
“Did the young lady have hair of a rather unique shade? Somewhere between blonde and red?”
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