by Candace Camp
On any other night, she would have enjoyed the role, too, exclaiming over the extravagance of everything and vowing that she could have bought this or that more cheaply, but tonight she could think of nothing but Gabriel’s meeting with Hannah. Even as she stood, talking and laughing with the others over their character roles, sipping at her warm cup of mulled wine, her nerves were stretched to their fullest, waiting for what would happen.
A ripple of excitement ran around the room, and Thea turned to see that Lord Rawdon had entered. Even wearing a mask, Rawdon’s pale hair and eyes immediately gave away his identity. The tall stranger drew everyone’s attention, and a low buzz started, building as whispers passed from guest to guest. Thea sensed Ian and his wife stiffen at the man’s entrance, and after Rawdon paid his respects to the hostess and headed in Gabriel’s direction, both Lord and Lady Wofford drew back a little. Myles cast a wary glance at Gabriel, but it was soon replaced by surprise as Gabriel stood calmly beside Thea, awaiting Lord Rawdon’s approach.
Rawdon stopped and bowed slightly to their group. “Miss Bainbridge. Lord Morecombe.”
Myles’s eyes widened further when Gabriel returned a polite greeting and bow. “Lord Rawdon.”
“Myles.” Rawdon’s firm mouth lifted slightly as he turned to the other man.
“Alec,” Myles replied with unflappable aplomb. “Thought you’d left.”
“I returned.”
“You would not wish to miss Mrs. Howard’s Twelfth Night.”
“Naturally.”
The greetings between Rawdon and the Woffords were chillier but polite. Ian cast Gabriel a questioning glance, but said nothing to him. For a long, awkward moment, silence reigned, but they were saved by the musical quartet striking up a dance in the other room. With relief, Ian turned to his wife and requested a dance, and the couple left.
“Does anyone want to explain what is happening here?” Myles asked after a moment, looking from one man to the other.
“Let us just say that Gabriel and I have reached an agreement,” Rawdon told him.
Like Gabriel and the other men, the Earl wore a plain black loo mask, which gave him a rather wolfish look, in Thea’s opinion. On the other hand, Gabriel … Thea looked up at him and realized, with an underlying dark ripple of desire, that Gabriel resembled nothing so much as a pirate in his mask. A smile curved her lips as she imagined him in a shirt with billowing, full sleeves, a rakish scarf tied round his head.
Myles, receiving little satisfaction for his curiosity from his friends, invited Thea to dance. Though she would have liked to stay while the men hunted for the maid Hannah, she knew that she was able to contribute little to the endeavor, since she had no idea what the woman looked like. So she accepted Myles’s invitation with a smile. Fortunately, the dance was an active country dance rather than a waltz, so there was little chance for Myles to ply her with questions about Gabriel and Rawdon. Obviously, Gabriel had not told Myles about Rawdon or Gabriel’s plan to talk to Jocelyn’s maid tonight, and she could not help but wonder why, but she did not want to let slip anything that Gabriel wished to keep hidden.
After their dance, Thea went out into the wide central hallway of the house, where she found Lord Rawdon, arms crossed, gazing down the hallway toward the front of the house, where Damaris stood talking to two of her guests.
“Having any luck?”
“Not a bit,” Rawdon replied. “The fact that everyone is wearing masks makes it rather difficult.” He nodded toward Damaris. “Our hostess—Mrs. Howard. Do you know her well?”
“She moved here a few months ago. We are friends.”
“She gave me the character Lord Frost.” He cocked an eyebrow at Thea, and the ghost of a smile curved his mouth. “Purposeful, do you think?”
Thea chuckled. “Mrs. Howard has a mischievous sense of humor.”
“Mm.” He was silent for a moment, then said, not looking at her, “I am curious, Miss Bainbridge. Why did you invite me that day to your Christmas feast? We had, ah, less than a harmonious introduction.”
Thea glanced up at him, then away, and said quietly, “I understand feeling … lonely.”
He glanced at her, startled, but before he could speak, Gabriel joined them.
“I have seen no sign of her,” Gabriel said. “You?”
“None.”
“I am beginning to think that it is a wild-goose chase. I can understand that Hannah felt safer meeting here, with everyone in disguise, but it’s bloody inconvenient. How am I supposed to find her?”
“I suspect that she will find you,” Thea told him.
“I am wearing a mask, just like everyone else.”
Thea gave him a speaking look. “You do not look like the local men. None of you do.”
“None of us do what?” Myles asked, coming up beside them.
“Look ordinary,” Thea said.
“Is that a polite way of saying we look like popinjays? I think my attire is quite unexceptionable tonight.” Myles looked down at his bottle-green jacket, then turned his eye toward Gabriel and Rawdon. “Not somber like some, of course. Gentlemen, has no one ever told you that black breeches and jacket are not required dress for a ball?”
“It’s easier,” Rawdon replied.
“Particularly if one happens to be color-blind.” Myles glanced around, then narrowed his eyes as he glanced toward another group of guests, who were accepting drinks from a black-and-white-clad maid. “I say … that girl looks familiar.”
“Who?” Gabriel straightened and glanced around. “The girl in green? That’s one of the Squire’s daughters.”
“No, not her. The maid behind her. Wait, she’ll turn around again. She looks like …”
“Hannah!” Gabriel and Rawdon said almost in unison.
Thea looked at the maid. “Of course! I saw her here; she’s one of the new servants Damaris hired to prepare for the party. But I didn’t see her face that day, Gabriel, so I had no idea she was the one you were looking for. What better place to hide than in plain sight, among a bunch of servants?”
“I never thought of looking here for her. Under our noses the entire time.”
“And her note—she must have slipped it in with my dress that day, and it fell out when Lolly took the dress out of the box.”
“Who are you—you mean Jocelyn’s maid?” Myles asked, looking confused. “What the devil is she doing here?”
“That is what I’m about to find out.” Gabriel started toward the maid, with the others on his heels.
At that moment Ian came out of the room on the other side of the hall. Without glancing around, he seized Hannah’s arm and whisked her away with him around the corner and into the long gallery.
“Ian!” Gabriel halted. His face turned white, then flushed, and he ran after them.
Some of the other guests turned to stare as Thea and the others hurried after Gabriel. Thea cast a pleading look at Damaris as she went, and Damaris moved in quickly behind them to get the other guests’ attention, clapping her hands and suggesting that they all move into the other room for refreshments.
Gabriel opened the first door along the long hall and startled the people inside, who were gathered at tables, playing cards. With a bow and a muttered apology, he withdrew and started down the hall to the next room. It, too, was empty, but as they neared the next door, they could hear a man’s voice inside, shouting.
“… until you tell me? Where the bloody hell is Jocelyn?”
Gabriel flung the door open and charged inside. Thea, Myles, and Rawdon rushed in behind him. Ian whirled and gaped at them. His eyes widened with a sudden, horrified realization.
“You!” Gabriel spit. “All along it was you who seduced my sister!”
“No! No, I swear!” Ian glanced around frantically. “Gabe! Myles! Please, I saw Hannah, and I was trying to find out where Jocelyn is. For you! I was questioning her for you!”
“Not bleedin’ likely!” Hannah screeched, jerking out of his grasp. “It was you what seduced my lady.
It was you what told her you loved her and pined for her and cried great crocodile tears because you had to marry Miss Pot o’ Gold! I tried to warn her about you, but she wouldn’t listen! She was so bleedin’ in love with you she couldn’t see what you really was. An’ you broke her heart, you did, when you sent her packin’ like that. Treated her like she was nothin’. Just some trollop.”
“Gabriel, no, don’t believe her!” Ian cried, but with a roar Gabriel was already charging him.
He slammed into the other man and they crashed to the floor. Gabriel’s fist smacked into Ian’s face, splitting his lip.
“Gabriel!” Thea turned to Myles, then Rawdon. “Do something!”
“What would you suggest?” Lord Rawdon asked politely.
“Stop him! He’ll kill him.”
“Oh, I’ll stop him before he goes that far,” Rawdon said, his eyes glinting. He pushed his mask up onto his forehead.
“Myles!” Thea turned a stern look on him. “Help me!” She ran over and began to tug at Gabriel.
Myles joined her, and with a sigh Rawdon did, too, grabbing both Gabriel’s arms and dragging him to his feet. Gabriel stopped struggling, though his hard gaze never left Ian’s face. “It’s all right. I won’t hit him again. Not just yet.”
He shot his cuffs and straightened his jacket as Myles stepped over to Ian and shoved his snowy-white handkerchief into the other man’s hand. Ian cast a glance toward the doorway, and Rawdon casually stepped in between Ian and the door. Ian slumped and brought the handkerchief up to his face, dabbing at the blood that trickled from his lip and nose.
“You’ve been lying to me all this time,” Gabriel said, his voice low and hard. “You fed me lies about Alec to protect your own cowardly—”
“No! I swear to you! I didn’t lie about Rawdon. I heard all those stories. He did attack Miss Fortner.” At a low, growling noise from Rawdon, Ian edged closer to Myles. “I’m telling you the truth. Yes, all right, I was jealous of Rawdon—hell, he was going to marry the woman I loved! But I believed everything I told you. The stories were true: I heard them. I—” Ian glanced at Rawdon and swallowed, then looked at Gabriel and Myles.
“Where is Jocelyn?” Gabriel asked. “What did you do to her? Where did you send her?”
“I did nothing! I swear it!” Ian waved his hands wildly. “Please, you must believe me. It’s true: I loved Jocelyn. I tried not to, but I could not help myself. She was so beautiful and fresh, so full of vivacity.”
“Which you promptly drained from her!” Gabriel glared. “A man who loved her would have come to me and asked for her hand, the way Rawdon did. My God, I trusted you! And all the while, you were dishonoring my sister!”
“I wanted to marry Jocelyn! I did! If I had known she was carrying my child, I would have married her. I swear to you. But she didn’t tell me. I didn’t know. That must have been why she accepted Rawdon’s proposal. I tried to talk to her after that, but she just cried and sent me away. She said she had to do it. I never heard from her after that. I was in despair.”
“I ought to break your bloody neck.”
“Gabriel, I promise you—I knew nothing about her leaving. I was as lost and confused as you were. I assumed—” Ian stopped and again cast an uneasy glance at Lord Rawdon, looming on one side of him. “I thought that Rawdon must have found out about Jocelyn and me. That he threatened her, sent her away somewhere to avoid the scandal. I thought …” Ian’s voice dropped. “I thought he had killed her to keep her from shaming him and his name.”
“Not everyone thinks like a coward as you do,” Rawdon told him.
Ian did not look at him, only at Gabriel. “I don’t know where Jocelyn went or why. And I know nothing about her coming back here or about that baby. I don’t even know if it’s mine.”
“I remember now,” Myles said suddenly, straightening. “You had blond hair when you were a child, didn’t you, Ian? It just got darker as you got older. Blue eyes like Matthew’s.”
“We don’t know that,” Ian said in a cajoling tone. “That is why I was talking to Hannah. I was trying to find out where Jocelyn was and—”
“Oh! So this is where everyone is!” said a bright female voice from the doorway.
“Sweet Lord,” Myles muttered under his breath as they all turned to find Emily standing at the edge of the room, smiling at them.
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth in consternation. “Ian! Dearest, what happened?” Lines formed between her brows and she looked from one man to another. “What is going on here?”
“Um …” The men glanced at each other.
Thea, turning her gaze from Ian to Gabriel, stiffened, gasping, “Gabriel! She’s gone. The maid is gone!”
“The maid?” Emily asked. “What maid?”
“The devil take it!” Gabriel whirled and looked around the empty room. “Now we’ve lost her.” He spared one short, hard glance for Ian. “I want you out of my house tonight. I don’t want to see your face again. Ever.” He turned. “Excuse me, Lady Wofford.”
Gabriel hurried out of the room, with Myles and Rawdon right after him, leaving a stunned Lady Wofford with her husband. Thea followed at a more sedate pace. As she strode back toward the party, Thea heard a sharp cry of “No!” from Emily, followed by a crash of something breakable and the sharp staccato of a woman’s heels. Apparently her cousin had gotten little succor from his wife.
Thea turned into the wide central hallway of the house and glanced about, debating where to search for the missing maid. She could see the three men had spread out through the rooms of guests, looking for the maid.
It did not seem to Thea, however, that the girl would try to hide among the guests. Hannah’s instinct, surely, would be to flee. She might fear that Ian would come after her again even though she had already revealed his secrets. Thea was unsure why the maid had not simply come to Gabriel from the beginning, but her pattern so far was to run and hide. And that, Thea thought, meant running out into the night.
Hurrying into the small cloakroom, she grabbed up her own cloak and headed toward the back of the house. Her hope was that Hannah would not have simply fled into the cold, but would first have gone upstairs to her room to get her coat—and probably the rest of her things, as well. Instinct, Thea surmised, would send the maid up to and back down from her room by way of the servants’ stairs in the rear, and she would exit by one of the rear doors.
Thea slipped down the back hallway behind one of the servants carrying a tray. At the end of the hallway, where the servant turned left into the kitchen, was a short hall leading to the back staircase. At the base of it was a door to the outside. Just as Thea reached the hallway, she saw a woman in a cloak slipping out the back door. Excitement surged in Thea.
Turning, she grabbed a servant who was walking toward her with a full tray. “Quick, fetch Lord Morecombe! Quickly! It’s terribly important! Tell him she’s gone outside!”
Not waiting to see if the servant obeyed her, Thea darted out the door after Hannah. Fortunately, torches had been planted festively at intervals all around the house, so that the evening was not completely dark. Thea saw the maid slip around the corner of the house ahead of her, and she took off running after her. She did not want to yell and thus spur the girl into running faster.
But Hannah was well in front of her, almost to the front of the house by the time Thea rounded the corner after her. Hannah was hurrying, almost trotting now as she reached the front garden and started up the path to the street. Just as Hannah reached the road, a man stepped out of the shrubbery and grabbed the girl from behind, clamping his hand over her mouth before she could scream.
“No! Let go of her!” Thea shouted, and started toward them. “Gabriel! Help! Help!”
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Thea saw a flicker of movement. Startled, she half-turned just as a heavy stick crashed down on her, knocking her to the ground.
Nineteen
Because Thea had turned, the stick slammed into her sho
ulder rather than her head, so even though the blow threw her to the earth, it did not knock her out. Thea hit the ground and rolled, twisting back to grab at her attacker. Thea was shocked to realize that she was reaching for a woman’s skirts rather than a man’s ankles, but she did not stop to think about it, just latched onto the woman’s legs through the skirts and pulled as hard as she could. The woman hit her again and again with the stick, her blows landing with thuds on Thea’s back, but Thea held on grimly, crawling forward to wrap her arms more tightly around her attacker’s legs.
The woman let out a high shriek and began to kick and pull away from Thea in a panic. It was her undoing, for she fell heavily to the ground. She tried to crawl away, but Thea sprang forward and gripped her by the shoulders, wrestling her around. The woman let out another shriek and whirled, striking out wildly, and for the first time Thea saw her face.
“Lady Wofford!” Thea was so stunned that her grip loosened, and Emily’s hand connected with Thea’s face, landing a sharp, hard slap.
Thea responded by doubling up her fist and punching the other woman on the jaw. As she pulled back her fist to hit her again, a man’s arm went around her and lifted her from the ground.
“There now, my love,” Gabriel’s amused voice said in her ear. “That was a splendid facer you planted, but no need to continue the mill. Everything is all right. It’s over.”
“Gabriel! The maid! Hannah! He—” Thea pointed toward the street where the man had grabbed the fleeing maid.
“Don’t worry. We have them.”
Thea relaxed as she saw that Lord Rawdon had a firm grip on the man who had attacked Hannah, while Damaris and her housekeeper were on either side of the maid, leading her back into the house.
Myles hauled the still-struggling Lady Wofford to her feet. She let loose a string of curses that made Myles’s brows rise. “You stupid, insufferable hussy!” she screamed at Thea. “You interfering old tabby! I ought to tear every hair from your head!” She jerked against Myles’s restraining arms. “Let me go, you fool!”
“Not just yet, my lady,” Gabriel said grimly. “No one is leaving until we get this straightened out.”