The Lady Unmasked

by Ava Stone

  But now he knew the truth, and she doubted Lord Quentin would ever speak to her again.

  Oh! Lila wanted to crawl into a hole and die. If her heart had been ripped from of her chest it would hurt less than it did right now. If only she could rush home, and dissolve into a puddle of tears in the safety of her own bed and never have to leave it for the rest of her days. But she couldn’t rush home. She had absolutely no idea where her sister or her cousin had disappeared to and they had a plan to meet and return home together. She couldn’t go without them, they wouldn’t know she was gone, and then they’d search for her and she’d be nowhere to be found.

  So she had to stay at Marisdùn, where everyone was laughing and dancing and having a wonderful time…and where her heart had been shattered into a million pieces that she’d never find if she spent the rest of her life looking.

  Lila started for the castle’s garden door. Everyone seemed to be out of doors, but inside, there had to plenty of places for her hide until it was time to return home with Tilly and Anna. At least she could remove her mask if there was no one around to see her.

  She slid the damp half-mask from her face and crossed the threshold into the castle. Her nose scrunched up instantly. There was an odd odor about, almost as though rotten eggs permeated the air. She covered her mouth and coughed, turning around to escape back outside to where the air was much fresher, even if the grounds were covered in happy revelers she’d prefer to avoid.

  “Pardon me.” A tall man stood in her path, blocking her exit.

  Drat. There wasn’t enough room for two of them and he didn’t seem inclined to move from his position. “Sorry.” Lila pressed herself against the castle wall, so the man could pass and she could make her escape.

  He frowned slightly at her and lifted a handkerchief out to her. “Are you all right?”

  She must look a fright. So she took his offered handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

  “My pleasure,” he said smoothly. “Nothing I hate more in the world than to see tears in the eyes of a beautiful girl.” Then he looked her up and down and smiled rather rakishly. “I don’t suppose you know the way to the dungeons, do you?”

  She had been to the dungeons before, actually; but she wasn’t in a hurry to head there with some man she didn’t know, even if he had lent her a handkerchief. “I’m certain Mrs. Small can direct you,” she evaded.

  “Yes, I’m certain she can,” he returned. “But I have the feeling you’ll disappear on me if I let you walk away and that would be a tragedy.”

  Oh, the last thing she wanted to do was talk to anyone in her present state. “I don’t believe I’ll be the best company, sir. But do enjoy—”

  “Kilworth,” he said, smiling once more. “The Earl of Kilworth, and you are…?”

  Kilworth? This was the man who’d given Lady Hope those earbobs? This was the man who’d chased the girl through the Serpentine and whom the lady was certain loved her? The man flirting quite shamelessly with Lila, or trying to? She hadn’t given him even an ounce worth of encouragement. “A friend of Lady Hope’s,” she said rather waspishly.

  His smile only widened. “How good to have friends in common, Miss…”

  “Do excuse me, sir,” she said, and pushed past him, back into the garden and around a hedgerow. Heavens, what a horrid man! What in the world did Lady Hope see in him?

  Quent truly should have had a better plan than just racing to the vicarage atop Falacer in the dead of night, ready to swear his undying devotion to Lila Southward. For one thing, he had no idea which window was hers, and therefore he had no idea which window he should ping pebbles at or stand beneath.

  But even with no plan, he had to come, he had to see her. Once he realized that he was quite in love with her, and wanted to spend his life with her, he didn’t want to wait a second longer to tell her. And he desperately hoped that she felt the same for him. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t.

  He suspected she cared for him. There had always been something between them, even that first day along the road to Ravenglass when he’d carried her back to the vicarage in his arms. He’d felt it then and he was certain she had too. If he hadn’t been so afraid of losing his freedom, he’d have clearly seen what had been right in front of him the entire time – the most wonderful girl he’d ever known, ever met, ever spotted from afar. All that nonsense about his angel had just been…Well, it was a way to distract himself, a way to cling to his freedom without him thinking about it. If he was trying desperately to find some mysterious girl, then he wouldn’t have time to even think about Lila or what her presence did to him.

  Even his sisters had noticed his feelings for Lila upon first meeting the girl. But he’d been too stubborn to pay attention to them on the subject. And all because of a mystery woman whose only purpose had been to distract him from what he really, truly wanted for the rest of his life.

  But what if all that nonsense about his angel had driven Lila away? She’d been hurt. He’d seen it with his own eyes that afternoon. He’d hurt her and he really ought to kick himself for having done so. All he could do now was hope she could forgive him and that somewhere in her heart she loved him even a fraction of how much he loved her.

  Only one way to find out. He had no plan, and no idea the best way to go about this. But being straightforward and honest was the best place to start, at least it seemed so at the moment.

  Quent dismounted from his horse and strode straight to the front door of the vicarage. He knocked loudly, but there wasn’t even the slightest stir from inside. So he pounded even harder, and yelled, “Lila! Lila, please open the door!”

  After a moment, he heard a creak come from inside and breathed a sigh of relief. Someone was awake. Thank God.

  “Lila!” he called again. “It’s Quentin Post, and—”

  The front door opened and a portly woman in a mobcap and a shawl blinked up at him. “What in the world?” the woman grumbled.

  “I need to speak with Lila,” Quent said evenly, his voice strained a bit from all of his yelling.

  “Then you can come back in the morning,” she said and was just about to shut the door when—

  “What’s going on?” The vicar’s angry voice emanated from the staircase behind the portly servant.

  The look the woman cast Quent wished him straight to the devil. “Someone’s lost, I’m sure, Mr. Southward. I’ve sent him on his way.”

  But Quent had no intention of going anywhere, not when he wanted the rest of his life to start as soon as it possibly could. “Mr. Southward!” he called. “I really must speak with you and with Lila.”

  Angry footsteps sounded from the staircase and a half-moment later, the strict vicar stood in the doorway, scowling at Quent. “My lord, you are aware of the late hour, are you not?”

  How could he not be? Quent nodded. “And I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but…Well, I want to ask you for Lila’s hand and—”

  “And you must ask for it in the middle of the night?” The man’s scowl darkened as he spoke.

  It sounded foolish when said that way, but it was the truth. “I don’t want to wait a moment longer than necessary, sir. I am quite in love with her and—”

  “And you are quite inappropriate, Lord Quentin. The last fellow I would ever let my daughter marry is you. Now, I’m certain your hedonistic masquerade is in want of your attention. Do have a good night.”

  And then the man slammed the door right in Quent’s face.

  He stood there, alone on the stoop for a moment. That hadn’t gone well at all. He probably, in retrospect, should have had more of a plan than simply showing up on her doorstep in the middle of the night and yelling her name.

  “Lila!” Mr. Southward’s furious voice called from inside the vicarage and Quent winced at the sound. “Matilda!”

  Oh, damn it all! Quent couldn’t let the vicar berate his daughters, not when they hadn’t done anything wrong. He knocked on the door again, hoping to all
eviate whatever trouble he’d caused.

  The portly woman opened the door once more, frowning at him as though he was last person in the world she ever wanted to see. “Haven’t you done enough this evening?” she complained.

  “I didn’t mean to get them into trouble,” Quent said. “I just want to help, if—”

  “Anna!” Mr. Southward’s voice rose an octave and boomed off the walls. “Where are they?”

  The servant gasped and Quent blinked into the darkened vicarage. “Where are they?” he echoed.

  “All three of them gone from their beds!” He sounded more than enraged, stomping down the steps once more. Then the vicar stopped in the doorway and glared at Quent. “This is all your doing.”

  “My doing?” There were a great many things that might be Quent’s fault but he hadn’t removed even one Southward girl from her bed, let alone three of them.

  “My daughters and niece would have never slipped out in the dead of night until you and your friends arrived. If ever there was a blight, a bad influence in Ravenglass, Lord Quentin, it is you.”

  Quent let the insult slide past him, he was much more concerned with the first part of the vicar’s words. “All three girls are missing?”

  The fury in Mr. Southward’s eyes would have burned him in his spot if the man had the power to do so, Quent had no doubt. “There’s only one place they can be.”

  At Quent’s masquerade.

  Oh, dear God. Lila was back at Marisdùn and… Quent had alerted her father to that fact. That was the worst possible thing he could have done. “I’ll find them,” he promised.

  “You’ll do no such thing. You will stay away from my girls from now until the end of time.”

  And the vicar meant to enforce that, Quent could see it on the man’s face. So he’d just have to find Lila before her father did. He could pour his heart out to her, beg her to have him and suggest they head for the Scottish border. They weren’t terribly far, as it was. She could be his wife in the morning and then there would be nothing the sanctimonious Vicar Southward could do about the situation.

  And Quent had the advantage on the man since he was already fully dressed and heading directly for his racehorse.

  Fifteen

  “Lila?” Callie’s voice from the opening in the hedgerow completely caught Lila by surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? Making a complete mess out of her life was the answer to that, but Lila couldn’t say those words, not even to her oldest and dearest friend. “You haven’t seen Anna or Tilly, have you?” If she could find even one of them, she could return home on her own.

  Callie shook her head as she rounded the hedge with one of Lord Quentin’s sisters following in her wake. “Hope and I were just heading to a retiring room when we heard you crying…” Then her friend quickened her pace until she was right before Lila. “Why are you crying? Are you all right?”

  Lila wasn’t certain she’d ever be all right, not for the rest of her days. “I just want to go home, and I—”

  “I can leave you two to talk,” Lady Hope interrupted. “I can find the retiring room on my own and meet you back here.”

  Callie’s gaze shifted from Lila to her sister-in-law and she frowned. “I promised Braden—”

  The girl shook her head innocently. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

  Callie heaved a sigh. “Right back?”

  Lady Hope made an X over her heart with her finger. “Promise.”

  “All right,” Callie agreed. “But right back. If Braden comes looking for you—”

  “You’ll never even know I was gone,” the girl vowed, then she lifted the edge of her skirts and made a beeline for the castle.

  Normally, Lila would have asked about the strange interaction, but as it was, she was completely miserable and was focused on her own broken heart instead.

  “What’s wrong, dearest?” Callie asked, dropping onto the bench beside Lila.

  Lila shrugged as she dabbed at her eyes with Lord Kilworth’s handkerchief. “Just a broken heart, but I’m sure it’ll mend.” In a hundred years or so. Perhaps.

  Callie’s brow furrowed in concern. “A broken heart? Who broke your heart? Tell me now.”

  Lila swallowed a sob. There was no way in the world she was going to tell Callie about Lord Quentin. The man was her brother now. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Well, it matters to me.” Callie huffed slightly. “You are the most wonderful girl in all the world and—”

  “You are a bit partial.”

  “Of course I’m partial.” Her friend tipped her head back regally, as though that bit meant very little. “I know you better than anyone, which is how I know you are the most wonderful girl in the world, and whoever this fellow is, he’s a complete idiot.”

  But Lord Quentin wasn’t that. He had every right to be furious with Lila. No, she hadn’t set out to dupe him, but she hadn’t told him the truth when she had the chance either. “It’s not his fault.” And it wasn’t his fault he didn’t love her, just as it had never been Lila’s fault that she didn’t love Sir Cyrus. But being on the other side of that love was more than heartbreaking.

  “If you’d just—”

  A heart wrenching scream emanated from the castle and drowned out whatever Callie meant to say.

  “What in the world?” Lila touched a hand to her heart as she and her friend both bolted off the garden bench.

  “That sounds like Hope,” Callie said, panic lacing her voice as she raced towards the edge of the hedgerow.

  Oh, heavens! Had something happened to the lady? Lila followed her friend around hedge and into the castle through the garden door. The stunned housekeeper stood in the corridor looking as though she’d just lost ten years off her life.

  “Mrs. Small,” Callie began. “Do you know where Lady Hope is?”

  “She asked after Lord Kilworth, and I told her he was in the blue parlor looking over some of the treasure from the priest hole.”

  Callie’s teeth were clenched when she replied, “And which way to the blue parlor?”

  But Lila knew the way. She’d visited Marisdùn many times throughout her life when old Mr. Routledge had resided in the castle. “Follow me,” she said, and pushed past the housekeeper.

  “Braden will wring her neck,” Callie grumbled as she followed in Lila’s wake. “Unless we get there first.”

  And though his lordship might want to do that very thing, Lila didn’t imagine it would do any good. If Lady Hope hadn’t seen by now the sort of fellow Lord Kilworth was, having her neck wrung wouldn’t change anything.

  They quickly turned down a corridor to the right and…Was that Mr. Thorn? Carrying a lifeless blonde in his arms? A lifeless blonde that looked quite a bit like one of the triplets.

  “Thorn!” Callie called to him. “What happened?”

  He shook his head as though he wasn’t sure how to even answer that question. “Kilworth is dead,” he finally said. “I thought it best to put her in the next room for now.”

  Dead? Lila’s heart nearly stopped. The man had been whole and hale not long ago.

  She and Callie increased their pace, rushing until they were right before Mr. Thorn. “Is she all right?” Callie breathed, reaching out a hand to her lifeless sister-in-law.

  “Fainted,” the gentleman returned. “I think it was quite a shock to see him like that.”

  To see him like what? Lila placed a hand to her heart. “What happened?”

  He shook his head once again, looking just as bewildered as he had the first time they’d asked that question. “I actually have no idea.” Then he stepped into the yellow salon across the corridor from the blue parlor and placed Lady Hope on the closest settee.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Callie said, “But do find Braden and Quent, David.”

  Just the sound of Lord Quentin’s name twisted Lila’s heart. She did not relish seeing his lordship, but she couldn’t abandon Callie at
a time like this either.

  “Your cousin is across the hall,” Mr. Thorn said, completely taking Lila by surprise.

  “Anna?”

  “Mmm.” He nodded. “We were…talking when we heard the scream.”

  Lila glanced at Callie and said, “I’ll be back in a moment.” And then she strode across the hall and found her cousin staring down at a man, lying in the middle of the floor, with a white shock of hair.

  That was Lord Kilworth?

  Lila gaped at the lifeless man who looked as though he’d aged fifty years in the last hour. How was that even possible?

  “Oh, Lila!” Anna breathed out. “Isn’t this awful?”

  It was, indeed, awful. But all Lila could say was, “What happened to his hair?”

  Sixteen

  Quent’s heart was pounding and his breathing was labored as he handed Falacer’s reins to one of the stable lads. Even though he had a head start on Vicar Southward, the man was sure to be right on his tail. And Quent had to find Lila before her father arrived. He had to find her and tell her how quite in love with her he was, and he had to talk her into running for the Scottish border before the vicar could catch up to them.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do all of that in so short a time, especially as he had no idea where Lila was at Marisdùn or even what sort of costume she might be wearing. Damn it all! Why hadn’t she told him she was planning on attending the masquerade?

  Quent started for the grounds where the musicians were playing and masked couples were dancing. Was she part of this merriment? Laughing and enjoying herself with no idea that her father was on his way to the castle?

  Panic twisted Quent’s heart. How would he ever find her in this crush? If only he knew what she was wearing. If only…

  “Quent!” Thorn’s voice struck him even over the din.

  He turned in the direction of the sound and caught sight of his friend, heading straight for him. “You all right?” Quent asked, as he didn’t think he’d ever seen David Thorn look quite so distressed.