by Nicole Byrd
She wanted to stay inside his arms; she wanted the music to never end. Cinderella had vanquished her curse, the magic was real, and Gemma longed to dance until the darkness outside the tall windows lightened to dawn. But although the violins trilled and the flutes lilted, the notes faded too soon. They were forced to step apart, make their bow and curtsy, and she had to release his hand.
She found she could wish for more, after all.
There were people around her, wanting to chat, to claim her attention, but Gemma ignored them. She smiled up at the captain, noticing no one else until Louisa came to fetch her.
Louisa exclaimed, “Captain Fallon, you are here! I am so glad. You must come and dine with us. I know our hostess would wish you to join our table.”
Gemma threw her friend a look of gratitude. They went in to supper, she with her hand still on the captain’s arm, feeling the firm muscle beneath his evening jacket, her breath still coming a little too fast.
And food was the least of what she hungered for.
The supper was excellent, although later Gemma could not remember what she had eaten. Sally Forsythe chattered on and made them all laugh, while her quiet, stolid husband did his part as host, making sure their plates were continually replenished, and their glasses filled high with champagne.
Gemma found she hardly needed the sparkling wine. She was heady with sheer exhilaration. She had found a family, and her brother seemed determined to be all that any sister could ask for. With Captain Fallon on one side, and Gabriel on the other, she felt as if she might overflow with gratitude.
Gemma told Gabriel about Captain Fallon’s search for his missing sister.
“I went first to Clapgate, a village in Hertfordshire,” the captain explained.
Across the table, Louisa dropped her fork. It clanged as it hit the china plate, and she blushed. “Excuse me,” she murmured.
Grinning, Colin picked it up for her. Still pink, Louisa refused to meet her husband’s mischievous gaze.
“And then to the west and—and other places—but without finding any trace of her,” Matthew went on.
Gabriel listened to the tale and offered advice about the search.
As the men talked in low tones, Psyche remarked to Gemma, “We shall have to plan a genuine coming-out ball for you, Gemma. If you give us the time, at least.”
Not following her sister-in-law’s thought, Gemma blinked before she realized that Psyche had cast a wry glance at Captain Fallon. If she did not marry before a ball could be organized, Psyche meant.
Were her feelings so obvious? Gemma blushed and hoped that Matthew had not heard the remark. In fact, a servant had leaned over to speak to him, and the captain was nodding and then speaking to Mr. Forsythe.
As soon as the meal was completed, Matthew drew Gemma aside. “I hope we may have another dance presently,” he suggested. “But the agents I hired to watch the ports and the ships leaving England have sent me more passenger lists from Dover. Our host has kindly offered me the use of his study so I can go over them at once. I would not distract from the party, but tomorrow will be five days since the solicitor’s threat, and I feel the weight of the passing hours heavily upon me.”
Gemma nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I understand.”
So Captain Fallon withdrew. Gemma returned with the others to the ballroom and found herself with more than enough young men eager to claim her hand for a dance.
But although she went through the motions, smiling politely and enjoying the music and the brightly lit room filled with elegant people, without Matthew Fallon the ball had lost its sparkle.
Louisa and Colin seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Gemma found time to talk with Psyche, and with Gabriel, who danced with her again. And her heart was filled with happiness, except—except for her awareness of the shadow in Matthew’s eyes and the knowledge that somewhere, another lost sister still waited to be found.
After several dances, Gemma told herself that even poring over lists of names and ship’s ports of call, surely, the captain might use some refreshment. So when one of the footmen passed by with a silver tray, she accepted a glass of wine and went to locate the study. She could have sent a servant with the wine, of course, but she wanted to steal a few minutes with Matthew.
Another footman directed her to the right door, and she knocked lightly, then turned the knob. Inside she found Matthew Fallon sitting behind a large desk. He had already unsealed three packets, she saw, and lists of names covered the polished wood top. The look of despair on his face cut her to the heart.
She brought him the glass. “I thought perhaps you might enjoy some wine.”
“Thank you,” he said. He took a sip and tried to smile, but although his lips lifted, his expression was more of a grimace.
“You’ve found nothing?” she asked, wanting to weep for him.
He shook his head. “I have one more ship’s list to read. And there are more lists coming from Plymouth. I don’t know how to judge what I am looking for, except I told my agents to look particularly for a young lady of about eighteen, no matter what name is given. There are two here about the right age, but the description does not seem to match that of my sister.”
He rubbed his hand across his face. “Mind you, since I have not seen her in years, I could be wrong about that, too. I am going to fail her, Gemma, and if what that villain said is true and I miss the last chance to find her, I will never forgive myself.”
Despite the bleakness of his tone, her heart leaped at the ease with which he used her name. She stepped closer to look over his shoulders as he unsealed the last packet of papers.
He drew a deep breath and scanned the columns: lists of merchants and bankers, families traveling on holiday, young men going abroad for education or adventure. Gemma glanced over the names, too, wondering about all these people coming and going, and how on earth they would ever detect one missing girl among so many.
Matthew finished the first sheet and tossed it to the desk, then picked up the next. And suddenly, he froze.
“What?” Gemma demanded. “You saw something? A girl of Clarissa’s description?”
“No, but—I know that name. What—” He grabbed the first sheet and ran his finger down the list. “There! P. Nebbleston, of Clapgate.”
“Clapgate?” Gemma stared down at the list. “Is a young woman listed in his party?”
Matthew inspected the list as if he might, by sheer force of will, force the desired words to appear. “No, he is traveling with his son, a lad of ten, that is all. But—but I have a feeling that there is something here I must investigate. It is a remarkable coincidence that he should turn up leaving England, after Temming’s threat.”
He read quickly through the rest of the ship’s passengers, without finding more, but Gemma saw that he had made up his mind.
“I must leave at once. I can barely get to Dover in time for this ship’s departure even if I ride hard through much of the night. I regret I cannot stay for the end of your ball, Miss—Lady Gemma.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. This is more important.”
“It may well be a wild goose chase,” he told her, “but still—”
“You must follow your instinct,” she told him, happy to see some hope return to his gray eyes.
“I will not even take time to go back to the hotel to change,” he told her. “I will look a sight tomorrow morning in my evening dress, but compared to Clarissa’s fate, it doesn’t matter. However, I don’t think I can ride in these damned dancing shoes. I wonder if I might borrow some boots from our host? Do you know where Mr. Forsythe has gone amid this mob?”
“I saw them before I left the ballroom. I’ll guide you,” she agreed quickly. She led him back to the large room where, fortunately, the Forsythes were just coming off the dance floor.
However, one glance at Mr. Forsythe’s short, wide foot showed how impossible it would be to fit Captain Fallon’s longer one into one of the older man’s boots.
Gabriel stood nearby, however, and his feet looked much more of a size. And the Sinclair residence was only a few blocks away, unlike the captain’s hotel. “I will send a servant for boots at once,” Gabriel told them when the situation had been explained, “and the rest of my riding kit, though it may not fit perfectly. Also, I will have my best mount prepared for you. You’ll make better time on horseback than in a carriage.”
While Matthew expressed his thanks, Gemma listened, and an idea dawned inside her. For a moment, she thought of all the potential drawbacks, but somehow, she knew this instinct was true. So while the men talked, she took their hostess aside. “Sally,” she said. “You mentioned over supper that you sometimes ride in the park. Do you possibly have a riding outfit I could borrow?”
Sally’s eyes widened at the strange request, then she nodded. “You’re a bit taller and a bit slimmer than I, but if we belt it tightly, it would do. But it will be terribly improper, you know.”
“I know,” Gemma agreed. “But I must.”
Sally smiled. “I will send a servant out to tell the groom to saddle my mount. He’s a sedate gelding, but he has bottom. He will keep up with the captain, especially with such a light load as you on his back. I fear I would not last ten miles, but if you are a good rider, it might be done. Now come along.”
They slipped away and up the stairs to Sally’s dressing room, where, with the help of Sally’s maid, Gemma changed quickly into the riding outfit. As irony would have it, it was a navy blue, trimmed with red piping. A hat with a light veil was the final touch, and Gemma tied its strings firmly beneath her chin and pushed the veil back. “Tell Louisa where I’ve gone,” she told Sally. “She will understand. And don’t tell Gabriel just yet, if you can help it. He might try to act like a very proper brother and forbid me to go!”
Sally giggled and showed her a back staircase, which let Gemma slip out of the house without meeting any of the other guests.
In the stable she was in time to find Matthew, now clad in his borrowed riding boots and riding breeches, and mounting a tall black horse. And a groom was bringing up another steed, Gemma was glad to see, a reddish-brown animal with a lady’s saddle on its back.
Matthew looked at her change of clothes and shook his head. “No, impossible, even if time were not so short.”
“Captain Fallon, I am coming with you.” Gemma motioned to the groom to help her up and prayed that this horse—how could it seem so tall?—was as placid as Sally had promised.
He stared as she was thrown up and hooked her knee around the pummel. “Such a course is unthinkable. You would have to have a chaperone—what about your friend?”
“Louisa doesn’t ride,” Gemma told him as she settled into the saddle.
“Lady Gabriel?”
Gemma shook her head. She had considered that, herself, but she was afraid her formidable new sister-in-law would simply forbid her to go. “You said yourself, there’s no time. And there’s too much at stake to worry about what is proper,” she told him. “Matthew, if you find your sister, you may need a woman there—she may need a woman’s aid. She is a woman herself by now, you know, not a child any longer. And we don’t know how or in what condition—well, I just think I should be there.”
“But you are risking your reputation—your good name, just when you have been established in Society,” he pointed out. “This is not a little thing, Gemma, to ride off alone with a man. Your brother might very well call me out!”
“He will understand,” Gemma said, and was somehow sure it was true. She still felt touched by the magic of the evening, invincible in some inexplicable way. “It is for your sister.”
Gabriel would not cast off the sibling he had just acknowledged, or at least, she believed it to be so. As for the rest of Society—she had never had their approval before, and, unlike Louisa, social success had been the least of her concerns. It was a family, an identity, she had longed for, not just a social presence. And as much as she valued—cherished—her brother’s presence in her life, her family-to-be, her future, lay even more with Matthew. She knew it, though she was not totally sure if he had realized it yet.
She picked up the reins, and the captain watched her with a critical eye. “Do you know how to ride?”
“I had lessons at school,” she told him, her tone dignified. And indeed she had. She remembered both of them distinctly, sedate walks through a local park, half a dozen girls in line on plodding steeds. Fixing her knee around the horn, Gemma prayed she would not fall off this beast. She felt a hundred leagues away from the ground. Matthew was correct, of course. On the face of it, this was insane. But this journey was for Matthew, for his happiness, for his sister, so her choice was not merely a capricious whim.
And if Matthew could have his hunches, so could she, and she felt in every ounce of her being that it was imperative that she be at his side when he reached the port.
He hesitated only for a moment. Turning to the groom, Matthew said, “Do you have another horse ready?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Forsythe’s mount. I saddled them both, just in case, not sure why they was sending down for her horse at this hour.”
“Good, you will accompany us in case this lady needs an escort home,” Matthew commanded, for all the world as if he still stood on the deck of his ship.
In case she couldn’t keep up, he meant. Gemma vowed to herself that she would ride this animal to hell and back, if need be, and she would not slow them down.
“Come, we cannot lose a moment more of the moonlight,” he told them. He turned his borrowed steed, which stamped and snorted and then settled beneath the captain’s skilled hand, and trotted out toward the street.
Gemma nudged her own mount with her foot and was relieved that the animal followed the first horse without further urging and did not show up its rider’s ignorance before they had even left the stable yard. The groom, who looked as if he thought them both mad, followed her without a word.
Eighteen
They trotted through the streets of London, which still bustled with carts and carriages and hackneys, though the avenues were not as crowded as during daylight hours. Too soon, they left the lighted avenues of the west end behind, and the lanes became narrower and darker. And then they put the city itself behind them and rode across the heath, with only dappled moonlight showing them the way.
Sometimes the moon emerged with a clear silver light, and the captain urged his mount into a canter. Gemma had no choice except to urge her horse to increase its speed, too, and hang on for dear life, glad that she rode a few paces behind Matthew and he could not see her face, where fear might have been too easily revealed. Fortunately, her steed seemed to be a natural follower, and it did whatever the captain’s horse did, trotted through darker patches, walked when the footing was uncertain, speeding up again when the conditions of the road and the illumination of the pale moonlight allowed.
It was a curious sensation to have a living beast beneath her, and at first it was quite pleasant to feel the powerful animal move smoothly, to feel the warmth of its coat and to pat its coarse hair. But the position in which a lady had to ride felt so unnatural, perhaps because Gemma had had little practice, that after a time, she thought her legs had gone quite numb, and she feared that she might fall off from sheer lack of sensation. Her knee cramped, then her thighs and her back, and she shifted her position a little from time to time, trying not to lose her balance.
If she fell off, she would put the captain in a terrible position, torn between the race to find his sister and the need to tend an irrational female who had insisted, against all reason, on coming along.
Was he angry at her? It was impossible to talk as they trotted or cantered, and he looked so intent that even when the horses picked their way through a patch of muddy ground, she hesitated to catch his attention.
The groom rode just behind them, and he was silent, too, of course, so all that could be heard was the steady pounding of horses’ hooves. Several ti
mes she noted the hoots of an owl, and once a nightingale sang, invisible in the darkness, its presence made clear only by lyrical notes that seemed to express an aching sadness.
Gemma stopped worrying about herself, or even about Captain Fallon’s mood. It was Clarissa whom they had to think of, and Gemma was still sure that she was meant to come along to help in Clarissa’s rescue. Whether it was an irrational whim, arising from her strong identification with the other girl’s plight, or not, she had chosen her role and she would see it through.
By the time the moon was setting and the darkness became too dense, the horses were beginning to tire, as well. They had pushed their steeds and themselves hard, but Matthew’s impatience and sense of urgency could not be debated. Indeed, Gemma felt he was most likely correct in his assumption of a desperate need for haste.
The darker hours caught them in the countryside, with no convenient inn nearby to shelter them for a few hours. Gemma remembered her journey back from Brighton, when finding lodging had seemed simple. But then she had had a coachman who knew his way. This was a different road, unfamiliar to all of them.
“I have traveled this way, but not in several years,” Matthew spoke finally out of the darkness. She could just make out the darker shape of him on his great black horse. “I thought we might be coming up to a village, but it’s too dark now to continue.”