By the time the dance began, he had not found her, although Mrs. Marshall was dancing with Sylvester Gaunt. Torridon glanced up at the gallery, wondering if she had gone up there to greet her little sisters in secret, but there was no sign now of the children. Perhaps they had got bored, or been hauled off to bed by their governess. Or by Frances.
He turned, and something by the French window caught his eye—a flash of midnight blue as someone slipped outside. Frances.
It felt like as if someone had knocked him down and started to carve out his heart. She hadn’t refused his assignation through loyalty, let alone love for her husband. She had refused it because she was meeting someone else. He had misread everything. Again. Everything he had imagined of her secret troubles, her innate honesty—honesty!—was false.
Before he knew it, he was striding after her, murderous rage in his heart.
Chapter Six
Lady Maria Conway longed to be one of the masked dancers below. She wanted to waltz in the arms of Lieutenant Gideon Heath, although she couldn’t help feeling it would be even more romantic to be courted by a mysterious stranger whose identity she could not guess. On the other hand, the lieutenant looked very dashing in his black mask and domino… though, somewhat ill-naturedly, she didn’t like to see him enjoying himself quite so much. Perhaps he was merely as excited as she about their assignation, and he could hardly lean against the wall and scowl at everyone like Frances’s husband. Where was Frances, when Torridon was here?
Actually, now that she thought about it, she would rather like Gideon to adopt a pose similar to Torridon’s, and simply stare longingly up at her…
“Such a stupid rule,” she said discontentedly to her younger sisters as they skulked behind the orchestra. “Just because I am not ‘out,’ I cannot attend our own ball.”
“Frances and Serena didn’t until they were seventeen,” Alice pointed out. “And Gervaise was nineteen.”
“Age does not matter,” Maria said, but absently, for below, at last, Lieutenant Heath looked up and caught her eye and her breath. Subtly, he leaned his head toward the ballroom door, and her heart soared. She turned to her sisters. “Keep watch here while I check the way is clear. Once I come back, we can sneak outside and see how close we can come to the terrace.”
“I think I should go with you,” Alice pronounced, just as though she suspected something.
“Oh no, you must look after Helen, for you know we are not meant to be here either. I won’t be long.”
She slipped out of the gallery and ran along the passage and upstairs to her new bedchamber. She no longer had to sleep in the nursery with Alice and Helen, which gave her a great deal more privacy.
From the back of her drawer she pulled out Gideon’s gift—a pink embroidered mask and matching domino. Hastily, she tied on the mask and swung the cloak around her. She already knew the disguise was not enough for the ball itself. She could not pin up her own hair with enough expertise, and she could not even lift her arm without revealing that beneath the cloak she wore only a dull, everyday gown suitable only for a schoolroom miss. But when she drew up the hood, it was certainly good enough to hide her from the few servants and guests she might encounter straying from the ballroom.
She hurried out of her chamber once more and flitted back downstairs to the row of reception rooms that ran between the ballroom and the entrance hall. As she had suspected, they were quiet at this time, since all the guests had arrived by now and it was nowhere near time for them to leave.
She lurked in the blue salon, her heart beating hard until the familiar red-coated figure strolled into view. His black cloak hung rakishly off one shoulder, revealing his fine regimental uniform, and he still wore his black mask.
“Gideon,” she hissed.
He grinned and swerved out of the light into the dim part of the room where she waited. She threw herself into his arms, which closed about her at once. She smelled the wine on his breath as he kissed her, which wasn’t as pleasant as she had hoped, but she was still too euphoric to object.
“I can’t believe we’ve managed to meet here,” she crowed. “Right under the noses of my mother and brother and sisters!”
He grinned. “You are a naughty little puss.”
It wasn’t quite how she wanted him to think of her, but she let it go. He didn’t seem to be quite himself, for his eyes held a strange glitter, almost like a fever, and he spoke a little oddly, too. But he waltzed her around the room, quite out of time with the country dance being played in the ballroom, and made her laugh, especially when he bumped into the arm chair by the fireplace.
“I can’t stay long,” she said regretfully, “Alice and Helen will come looking for me if I don’t go back directly. But we’re going to sneak outside, soon, so I might see you on the terrace… if I can swear them to secrecy.”
“I’ll be there,” Gideon said, letting her go to extract a flask from inside his coat. He took a sizeable swig.
“Gideon, are you foxed?” she asked with more interest than condemnation.
He grinned again. “Devil a bit. I’d offer you a sip, but I seem to have finished it. Give me another kiss.”
“I can’t,” she murmured, backing off as her keen ears picked up distant childish voices. “My sisters are coming. Go back, go back.”
“Maria,” he expostulated, following. But she fled in the direction of the voices. Behind her, he laughed, and she was actually relieved that his footsteps moved away from her, back toward the ballroom.
She wasn’t sure she cared for him foxed. Or perhaps she was just feeling guilty about lying to her sisters. Maybe she should take them into her confidence…
*
Frances had noticed almost as soon as the children had vanished from the gallery. She doubted that either their mother or their governess—if they even had a governess these days—had dragged them off. Which meant they were probably up to mischief. They did appear to be following a similar path as she and Serena had years earlier. And so, Frances peeped frequently out through the French window to see if they had strayed into the gardens or onto the terrace. She and Serena had done so once during a spring ball when she was about ten years old. They had giggled all week because they had seen two people kissing who were not even married, or at least not to each other.
“Well?” Ariadne inquired, falling into step beside Frances as she made her way toward the window once more. “Anything to report?”
“I passed a glass of champagne to my mother, and admired Serena’s gown. Both of them smiled at me without seeing me. Neither the Wickendens nor Dax, nor any of our neighbors, appear to have recognized me either. What about you?”
“Nothing definite, though I caught your brother looking at me once. He might be trying to work out how he knows me. You might yet win.”
“I suspect it will be another stalemate. I don’t know whether we should feel piqued or pat ourselves on the back for cleverness.”
Ariadne laughed. “Oh, the latter, definitely the latter.”
As Ari glided away again, Frances glanced out of the French window. And yes, there they were, three figures in the torchlight, flitting up the steps from the formal garden to the terrace. She would have let them catch whichever couple was brave enough to face the damp for love, except that the far end of the terrace was quite blatantly occupied by four young men who seemed to have given up on glasses and were drinking straight from wine bottles. Gervaise’s wine bottles.
Go back, she willed her sisters. Run back around the house and inside…
But although they must have heard the drunken laughter, they did not perceive the danger. They stood there at top of the steps from the garden, the two younger ones behind Maria, who was laughing breathlessly. Lit by the torchlight from the covered terrace, with only a few raindrops glistening on their hair, they were so beautiful and appealing that Frances’s heart swelled.
Maria, saw the men first. Her smile faltered. She looked poised to run. But she didn’t.
>
Frances whisked herself outside, just as one of the men said, “By George, what have we here? What’s your name, my pretty?”
“There’s three of them,” another pointed out, slurring. “Almost one for each of us.” They lurched toward the girls, but Frances was closer, quicker, and steadier on her feet. Tears had started to Maria’s eyes, and Frances wanted to hug her, for she suddenly understood. One of the drunks was surely the same officer who had asked her to dance a little too forcefully earlier in the evening. With dismay, she realized he must be the soldier she had seen Frances with that first day. If Maria fancied herself in love with the idiot, the disappointment must have been immense.
For now, all Frances could do was protect them all. Standing in front of her sisters, she murmured. “Run back the way you came or the countess will see you. Now.”
As she had expected, the threat of their mother’s ire trumped both curiosity and bravery. In truth, the younger ones probably imagined the men’s only threat was telling their mother they were here. But Maria would have seen already that her admirer had feet of clay—which was probably a good thing.
The girls fled back into the darkness. Helen’s whispered, “Don’t tell!” came back to her on the breeze.
The four men now standing between her and the ballroom, looked baffled. The officer was frowning, gazing owlishly in the direction where Maria had once stood.
“For a moment, there were four of them,” one man said, scratching his head. “Which was just right.” He peered owlishly beyond Frances.
“She frightened the other fillies away,” slurred another, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Those fillies are children,” Frances said with contempt. “Moreover, they are the sisters of your host. I suggest you sober up and go home before Lord Braithwaite discovers your disrespect.”
The first man giggled. “She scared them off to have the pick of us herself.”
“Can’t assume that, old man,” the officer said with a shade of unease. “Though I have to say she’s a damned fine woman.”
“I hear perfectly, too,” Frances said wryly. “Excuse me, gentlemen, you are blocking my way.”
She stepped forward in the belief that they would instinctively move aside. But whether their reactions were too slow, or the drink had already made them too insolent, they all stayed where they were and she now found herself far too close to four young bucks, convinced by alcohol that they were irresistible to the opposite sex. Combined with the freedom accorded by their masks, and the pack animal instincts already to the fore, insult of some kind seemed inevitable.
But she was the Countess of Torridon, the daughter of generations of earls, and she refused to be intimidated.
“I believe I asked you to stand aside,” she said coldly.
She tried to step around them, only the man with the bottle moved to block her. She had a sudden horror that they would encircle her like wolves and tear her apart one way or another. Well, they would not get off easily, for Gervaise had once told her, after an alarming incident with an ungentlemanly rake in London, how best to disable a man.
“Cretin,” she uttered when he lifted his hand, and poised her knee to damage him.
Abruptly, the man’s reaching arm was knocked up. A large hand landed on his chest and shoved hard. He staggered backward into his fellows looking more astonished than alarmed.
“They are all miserable cretins,” snapped her savior, a man with a strange accent wearing a scarlet domino and a black mask. The Russian stood beside her, lending her fresh courage, along with an unlikely sense of safety. “Perhaps you would care to go inside, madam, while I teach them some manners.”
“I shall be pleased to accompany you inside, sir,” she said at once. Her aim was to prevent physical violence, but it seemed her rescuer had other ideas.
“Then step back,” he said with a hint of grimness, “for my lessons tend to be large.”
For some reason she wanted to laugh—hysteria, no doubt—but as she obeyed, the drunken officer took exception to her rescuer.
“Manners?” he repeated, affronted. “I have no need to be taught manners by some Johnny Foreigner! I demand an apology, sir, or satisfaction!”
The Johnny Foreigner punched him in the jaw, hard enough to send him staggering into his nearest friend. They both fell, sprawling on the damp terrace.
“Thank you, that was most satisfying,” Frances’s rescuer said with rather frightening pleasure as he turned on the other two, kicking the nearest in the rear. Frances found it quite satisfying, too, since she suspected the struck officer of meeting Maria clandestinely.
“Be gone!” the Russian roared. “Braithwaite’s men are already looking for you.”
With that, he spun around as though he’d done no more than set a chair for someone, and offered Frances his arm. Her fingers shook slightly as she placed them on his sleeve and walked around the struggling, sprawling bodies toward the French door. He had obviously closed it on his way out, perhaps to prevent the noise of a fight reaching the ballroom.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You must think me very foolish to have gone out there.”
His arm was stiff under her fingers, his body tense. She thought he was angry with her as much as with the drunks he had dealt with so summarily. But he didn’t reply, for as he opened the French door, Serena all but bumped into them, looking frantic.
“Is anyone else out there?” Serena demanded. “I’m sure I heard shouting. I’ve lost my young sisters and they’re not in their beds!”
“I suspect they will be by now,” Frances said, remembering to speak in the soft, Scottish voice she had been using to people she knew. “I sent them inside…”
Her rescuer’s gaze seemed to burn into her face. Perhaps he had suspected her of another assignation and was now mortified—as he should have been.
As Serena hurried off, Frances said, “I am a silly woman, but not quite stupid.”
“It is I who am stupid,” he said ruefully, leading her into an alcove. “You are kind and brave.” His lips quirked beneath the mask. “Though I had not realized you were Scottish.”
She sank onto one of the chairs. “Only by marriage. I’m hiding from the Braithwaites and all who know them.”
He drew the curtain, isolating them from the ballroom. “Why?”
Laughter caught in her throat. “It’s a long story. And perhaps I am stupid after all.”
“Stupid enough to let me take you into supper?”
He walked toward her, large, lithe, almost predatory. For some reason, her heartbeat quickened, not with fear or revulsion, but with excitement. She looked into his eyes as he crouched beside her chair, and again she felt that odd sense of drowning in familiarity, in a world where she truly wanted to be. Desire seeped into her bones, warm and thrilling. She wished he was Alan.
“Our carriage is ordered for midnight,” she murmured. “Which is, perhaps, for the best.”
“Why?” he asked again.
From some instinct she couldn’t prevent, she lifted her hand and touched his cheek. Her fingertips glided from the silk of his mask to the warm, slightly rough skin of his jaw. Memory—or was it longing?—flooded her.
“Because I am grateful to you,” she whispered, “and a little upset.”
She let her hand fall, but he caught it in his.
“All the more reason to stay with me a little longer.” He dropped a warm kiss in her palm.
Although she did not draw her hand free, she shook her head. “No. These things make me vulnerable,” she said candidly. “And I think you know you already intrigue me too much.”
“Too much for what?” he asked softly.
“Comfort. Which is why I have to go.” She stood abruptly, but he rose with her, still holding her hand. and suddenly his lips were too close. A masked stranger she would never see again. One sweet, wicked kiss. Where would be the harm?
His breath hitched and quickened. His lips parted, descending closer yet.
“Thank you,” she whispered and slid free.
Her hand on the curtain, she turned back to face him. He stood watching her, his face unreadable behind the mask.
“I won’t forget what you did.” She slipped around the curtain and walked quickly away, her heart thudding. She didn’t know whether she felt more proud or regretful.
People were gathering and walking into supper. Across the ballroom, Ariadne waved to her and gestured toward the stairs.
It was time to go. Past time. Serena would look after Maria and the younger girls. The foreign officer, for whom she felt such an infinity was, in fact, a greater danger than the imbeciles on the terrace. He was temptation, even to a woman who loved her husband.
But she hated the sense of loss as she left him behind and hurried upstairs with Ariadne. It was as if her stupid emotions were already finding a replacement for Alan, as if she had already lost him. She refused to believe that. The eccentric stranger had been amusing, protective, and thoroughly capable. But he was not Alan.
The hired carriage was waiting for them at the front door. She and Ariadne climbed in and it set off.
“Another draw?” Ariadne asked her.
Frances smiled wearily. “Sadly, yes.”
“Then we must find some other way to find a winner. Perhaps we should just both swagger about without disguises of any kind and see who calls one of us by the correct name first.”
Frances tried to laugh, but was afraid she would cry instead. “I must be very tired,” she whispered and closed her eyes. She wanted to see her baby. She wanted to go home to her husband.
*
Of course, Ariadne tried to talk her into staying. She had several amusing schemes, some of which even made Frances laugh as she took Jamie from Lawson. Apparently, Jamie had wakened more than an hour ago, crying inconsolably. Frances walked with him to her own chamber, saying, “I’ll sleep on it, Ari, as should you. But I think I’m bored with this game.”
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 33