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Where is she!
She’d have to stop crying, or else she wouldn’t be able to see anything. She had to stop thinking about what had just happened … what could have happened. That man! So wickedly handsome, so dangerous in his black and gold.
What had she done?
Had she lost her mind?
The things he’d said! And she’d listened, fascinated by the words, shamelessly intrigued by his touch … and her reaction to both.
Regina clutched at her suddenly queasy stomach, wishing back the sweet, honeyed drink she’d downed earlier almost as if it had been water, for it had been so hot and stuffy and even rather smelly in this horrible ballroom. What had been in that cup? Nothing too terrible, surely. It was only honey….
She fought down the urge to cup her hands to her mouth and loudly call out Miranda’s name, knowing she could not cause a scene, draw attention to either one of them. They would both be ruined if anyone knew they had attended this clearly unsuitable ball.
Why, there were people kissing people everywhere she turned. Giggling and touching each other in lewd ways as they passed by each other in the dance. It hadn’t been like this when they’d first arrived, but now it was. As if every tick of the clock served to strip away another fetter of society, leaving only the baseness beneath.
“Here now, my pretty, hold there while I take a look at you.” A large man wearing the costume of a highwayman, complete with a brace of pistols tucked in the sash around his waist, had grabbed her arm and showed no signs of letting go. “I’ve come for all your valuables. Pass them over, starting with a kiss from your fair lips.”
Never threaten before striking, but merely strike, or you may never get the chance. Regina plunged the hat pin into the fleshy back of the man’s hand and ran off when he yowled in pain and immediately let her go.
She wasn’t sure which level of Dante’s Inferno she was in, but she needed to get out. Now.
She looked behind her, terrified that the man who called himself Robin Goodfellow might be following her, but he wasn’t there. Nobody she knew was there, not that she knew him.
If only she could find Miranda!
At last, she made her way through the maze of screens and plants and couches to the main entrance and the small antechamber where a few maids and such were seated, ready to assist their mistresses if necessary.
“Oh, Miss Regina, you’re here! Thank the Lord!” Doris Ann clasped Regina’s hands in hers, squeezing them so hard it was painful. “She’s gone. My Miss Miranda is gone!”
Regina tugged her hands free, not without effort, and tried to calm the maid. “Nonsense, Doris Ann. She’s misplaced, that’s all, and most probably on purpose. When did you last see her?”
“But I never did,” Doris Ann said, sniffling. “Not since we first got here. It’s nearly midnight, and you said one hour, Miss Regina, and it has been nearer to two. And she promised me. She promised she would listen to you, if you’d only come with her. I thought you both were gone, seeing as how you didn’t want to come in the first place, but now you’re here, and she isn’t, and I thought for certain she’d be with you and—”
“All right, all right, let’s be calm, Doris Ann,” Regina said soothingly. “I’m aware that we have been here well over the agreed upon hour, but if I was … detained, then surely it must be the same with Miss Miranda.”
“I popped my head in there when no one was looking, and there’s strange and wicked goings-on in there, Miss Regina. I heard two of the other maids talking, you understand. You should neither of you have come here.”
“And we’ll be leaving the moment we find Miss Miranda, I assure you. Now, this is what we’ll do. We’ll go inside the ballroom and look for her. You go to the left, and I will go to the right, and— Doris Ann! Don’t you dare shake your head no to me.”
“I tain’t going in there. There’s wicked goings-on in there.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that. But your Miss Miranda is in there somewhere.” Or out in the gardens somewhere. “You do love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, Miss Regina. But there’s wicked—”
“Do you wish to tell Miss Miranda’s parents you were a part of this? That you helped Miss Miranda find the dominos and masks, that you knew what was going to happen tonight and did nothing to stop it? That you came home without her?”
Doris Ann licked her thin lips. “I am to go to the left, you said?”
Regina breathed a sigh of relief. At least she would have help. “Yes, to the left. And if you find her, bring her right back here. Grab on to her if you have to, and don’t let go until she’s back here. Do you understand?”
Doris Ann nodded, looking fearfully toward the ballroom. “Oh, laws. They’re taking off their masks, Miss Regina. Weren’t you and Miss Miranda to be long gone before they took off their masks?”
“Oh, God …”
How could she go back into the ballroom now that people were removing their masks? They would wonder why she kept hers on, and with everyone behaving so badly, it was even possible some forward person would try to remove hers for her.
But she had to find Miranda. Even if it was just so that she could wring her neck.
“Is there a problem?”
Regina recognized the voice and realized that the man who called himself Robin Goodfellow had found her, was even now standing directly behind her.
“No. Thank you.” She kept her back to him. Had he taken off his mask? If he had, was he as handsome as she’d thought him? Would he still be laughing at her? Would he expect her to take off her own mask? Had he really meant what he said when he’d been kissing her, speaking to her in French while he thought she didn’t understand? Could she ever look at him after she’d heard what he’d said, knowing that she knew that he knew that she’d understood him?
“All right, then. I’ll leave you to it, whatever it is.”
No! Don’t leave!
“Mr. Goodfellow—wait.” Regina bit her lip for courage and then turned to face him, ridiculously relieved that he still wore his mask. “I … I seem to have misplaced my companion.”
“Ah. So she—or he—disappeared while you were otherwise occupied?”
“Don’t be any more obnoxious than you can help, if you please,” Regina said irritably. “You know that I’m not who—what—you supposed, and not without reason, because I know I was behaving badly, so I do not fault you for that, and I will apologize for … for leading you on or whatever you think it was I may have been doing— Doris Ann, stop crying! But it is of extreme importance that I find my cous—my companion, and that she and I leave this place at once.”
He jerked his head back slightly. “E-gods, you mean there are two of you? And yet not with a whole brain between you. All right, please allow me to offer my assistance. How is she dressed?”
Regina clasped her hands together in front of her, trying to keep them from shaking. This was serious. Miranda could be anywhere, doing anything. Just look at what she had done, and she’d never considered herself to be half so stupid as Miranda!
She quickly described her cousin and what she was wearing.
Robin Goodfellow—really, how could she think of him as any sort of help when he’d told her such a ridiculous name—shook his head. “No, sorry. I pride myself on being more than mildly observant, or I did until about a quarter hour ago, but I don’t recall any petite blonde dressed in an emerald-green domino. Or wearing such a singular mask. Perhaps we should try the gardens?”
“She wouldn’t be so foolhardy as to— Oh, never mind,” Regina said as Robin Goodfellow grinned at her in a way that had her palm itching to slap his face. Even wearing that very strange and intriguing mask, she knew that the fellow thought life was one huge lark. Maddening, that’s what he was—but her options weren’t all that thick on the ground at the moment, and Doris Ann could hardly be counted as one of them. She had no choice. “Yes, let’s try the gardens. Doris Ann, you stay here while I go with Mr. Goodfellow, and if she returns here while we’re gone, you have my permission to sit on her!”
Robin Goodfellow took Regina’s hand and led her back into the ballroom, where at least half of the candles had been snuffed out and, although the orchestra played on, no one was now dancing along with the tune.
“It will be nearly impossible to locate her in the dark like this,” she complained. “Why on earth would they have removed half of the— Oh!”
She quickly squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face against Robin Goodfellow’s shoulder, although the memory of what she’d seen had probably already been burned into the back of her eyes for all time. Had the woman no shame? Clearly not. Not if she allowed herself to be leaned forward over the rear of a couch while her full skirts were lifted and the man standing behind her was grunting and pushing himself at her like some barnyard animal, his breeches at his ankles. Three other now unmasked men were standing about, glasses in hand, watching, raucously cheering him on, clearly awaiting their turn.
“What appears to be the— Ah, so you saw that, did you?”
“No. Look away,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.
“Well, at least he’s dressed as a goat. And they’ve formed a queue, assuring the strumpet of a profitable evening,” he said. “And now, young lady, you know why your mama warned you never to accept an invitation to a masquerade ball. Especially one hosted by the infamous, not to mention lascivious, Lady Fortesque.”
Regina raised her head, fighting the bizarre impulse to look behind her once more, because she couldn’t possibly have seen what she’d just seen. “I highly doubt she would have thought that was because I would see my own father in the queue. Please, I can’t stay here.”
Robin Goodfellow stood his ground as she tried to drag him away. “Your father? Which one is he? No, never mind. Let me at least hazard a guess here. You don’t wish for me to totter on over there, tap him on the shoulder and ask him for his assistance. That could be awkward.”
Regina’s bottom lip trembled, and she knew she was either going to laugh or dissolve into strong hysterics. She was losing her mind, that’s what was happening. “Please.”
“My most profound apologies. But now, at least I don’t think you’ll faint, will you? I’d take you back to your maid, but I need you to help me identify your cousin, should we find her.”
“I know,” Regina said, wondering how much good she would be in the search as she refused to raise her gaze above the shoe tops of the other guests. “Just please don’t leave me.”
He took her hand once more. “I won’t,” he said, and she believed him.
A half hour later, following a sometimes embarrassing, if oddly educational, search of the gardens, they returned to the anteroom carrying an emerald-green silk domino and the remains of a half mask missing some of its green glass stones.
Regina could barely put one foot in front of the other. They’d found the—dear Lord, Robin Goodfellow had called what they’d found evidence—at the very back of the gardens, near a gate that led to an alleyway, and he’d noted that there looked to be signs of a small struggle.
In any event, in any case, Miranda was gone.
Regina plunked herself down in the chair beside a terrified Doris Ann, put her masked face in her hands and at last gave in to despair.
Her cousin was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Abducted.
“Stay here,” Robin Goodfellow told her and then placed his hand on her shoulder and waited until she managed to nod that she’d heard him. “I’ll take this domino and mask with me and show them around to the servants. There has to be someone who remembers seeing your cousin earlier in the evening. Maybe that someone remembers who she was with at that time.”
“Miss Regina?”
Regina raised her head and carefully eased the mask away from her face enough to wipe at her wet cheeks. “We’ll find her, Doris Ann.”
“Yes, Miss. But if we don’t?”
Regina’s entire body sagged at the question.
She would have to tell Mama, who would cry and bring up Grandmother Hackett again. Papa would be livid that she might have destroyed his dream to marry her to a nobleman. They’d have to tell Aunt Claire and Uncle Seth. They’d be aghast, terrified.
And everyone would blame her.
Not that such a minor thing mattered. What mattered was that Miranda was gone, God only knew where and to what purpose.
Regina picked up a green glass stone that had fallen into her lap.
And she hadn’t gone voluntarily.
She squeezed her hand around the stone and closed her eyes, began to pray.
“Regina?”
She looked up at the sound of her name, frowning before she remembered that Robin Goodfellow must have heard Doris Ann refer to her as such. She quickly got to her feet. “You’ve learned something?”
“A little. We need to go now.”
“Go? But I can’t leave. What if Miranda comes back? She’d need me to be here.”
“She won’t be coming back.” He signaled for Doris Ann to come with them and led them outside to the street, where a strange coach awaited, a footman holding open the door, the steps down and waiting. “On my honor, such as it is, after a very brief stop at my residence for a change of shirt and cravat, I am taking you directly home, wherever that is. I will accompany you inside and speak with your mother and whomever else you wish me to speak with, telling them whatever story the two of us manage to conjure up on the way. I’ve already worked out the broad strokes, but I will leave it to you to fill in the details.”
“But … but we have to tell them the truth.”
“Only as a last resort and only if you make a botch of the lie. Remember, your father was in attendance tonight. I doubt he’d be best pleased to know his daughter had been here, as well,” he said, handing her up into the coach. “How trustworthy is the maid?”
“Doris Ann?” Regina’s mind was whirling. He had just said he was driving her to his residence? So that he might change out of his shirt? Was she being abducted now? “Doris Ann will not be questioned. She’s only the maid.”
“And lucky for her that she is. Aren’t you, Doris Ann?”
The maid bobbed her head in agreement.
“And she won’t say a word to anyone, or else she will be escorted out onto the street without a reference, if not tossed into gaol. Will you, Doris Ann?”
The maid shook her head so violently her mobcap flew off.
“Good. I located the coachman and groom without much difficulty, and they have been persuaded to believe they have been beset by a band of cutthroats who dragged your cousin off at pistol point before disabling the coach, which is why it will not return to your cousin’s domicile until morning. Damned uncivilized place, London, even in the finest neighborhoods at times. I’m surprised anyone is safe. Related to the Earl of Mentmore, are you?”
Regina’s head was spinning. “How … how …”
“The crest on the door. Only an idiot would arrive at Lady Fortesque’s ball in such an easily recognizable coach. How do you think I located the correct coach so easily? You’re not very proficient at intrigue, are you?”
“But you are?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I am, luckily for you. And now that we’re settled on that head, my coachman has been instructed to drive straight to the mews behind my residence, where you will remain with the coach while I nip inside to rid myself of this betraying costume. You have between now and the time I return to come up with any missing details sufficient to the problem. I suggest you think in terms of where you were, why you were farther afield from wherever you should have been, why you have no chaperone and why you weren’t taken, as well.”
“I … I stabbed the man who had hold of me. With my hat pin, the one Mama says all chaste young ladies always carry with them. And … and he let me go.”
“Very good, for a beginning,” Robin Goodfellow complimented as the coach pulled into a narrow alleyway and stopped just outside a stable. “Perhaps even too good. You’ve the makings of a commendable liar, Regina.”
“Yes, I know. It’s in my blood,” she said forlornly as he opened the door and jumped out, even before the coach had come to a complete halt.
While Doris Ann sat sniffling, Regina did her best to concentrate on the fib—the great, big, whopping lie—she would tell her mother. Except that her mother had been left alone with her “company,” and even if the wine had been watered, by this time of night she would be of no help to Regina or to anybody.
And her father? Regina felt her stomach turn over inside her. No, her father wouldn’t be at home when she arrived in any case. How she loathed the man. He was as base and as common and as uncouth as … as any man who would sink to attending such a licentious ball.
She reminded herself that Robin Goodfellow had been there.
This did nothing to lighten her mood, which was rapidly descending into the very depths of desolation.
Yet Miranda’s brother had received an invitation. There were bound to have been other men, supposed gentlemen of the ton, in attendance.
Were all men so base?
It really was too bad she had no desire to enter a nunnery….
“Miss Regina? How can we go home without Miss Miranda? Her mama will be that upset, and his lordship will go spare, he really will.”
Regina reached up and at last untied her mask, tossing it out of the dropped-down coach window with some force. “My uncle Seth will have every right to go—that is, to be angry. Terrified. But we must think of Miss Miranda, Doris Ann. We will think of her, and we will be brave. If not entirely honest,” she added, squeezing the maid’s hand.
“Yes, miss. And how will you explain Mr. Goodfellow?”
Regina opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again before making a decision. “He said he would handle the broad strokes. We’ll leave that up to him, shall we? Now quiet, please, I hear footsteps. Yes, here he comes.”
Regina sat forward on the cushion seat and squinted into the darkness, waiting for him to step into the moonlight so that she could finally see his face without that extraordinary mask. She probably would one day convince herself that it was the mask that had destroyed her common sense, that its odd design had somehow enthralled her into doing something she would otherwise have never considered. That her compliance had nothing to do with his pleasant, cultured voice or the way he had placed his hands on her shoulders and nearly caused her heart to stop or the mischief she’d seen in his intelligent blue-green eyes.
It was either that or believing that Grandmother Hackett had taken up permanent residence on her shoulder.
“Oh …” Regina blinked, looked again. “Oh, my goodness.”
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Now that she could really see him. He was still dressed mostly in black, but his shirt and his faultlessly tied cravat were startlingly white in the moonlight and he had tied back his long, blond hair somehow. He was English, she was certain of that, but he had a nearly foreign look to him: so very neat, sophisticated, compellingly romantic. The gold-lined cloak was gone, as was the beribboned walking stick that had dropped to the ground when he’d been kissing her, to free his hands so that he could— No, she would forget that, too. She would forget all of that!
He stopped, bent down and picked up the discarded mask before opening the door of the coach. “Lesson number two, fair Titania. Never leave incriminating evidence strewn about for all to see. If you’d kindly pass over the two dominos and your cousin’s mask? Ah, thank you. Gaston!”
A second figure appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and Mr. Goodfellow tossed the evidence at him as the fellow exclaimed in French, scrambling for the green mask, which had eluded him and fallen to the ground.
“My apologies, Gaston. I have no experience in throwing clothing. Only in catching it, si vous prenez ma signification. Burn them, and stir the ashes,” he instructed the servant, who then hustled back into the shadows.
Inside the coach, Regina had recovered herself sufficiently to roll her eyes at the man’s outrageous behavior. But any feelings of superiority vanished immediately when he bounded into the coach and plunked himself down beside her.
He looked good. He smelled delicious. This was no boy; this was a man. Very much a man. And he was gazing at her in open appreciation.
“Stop looking at me that way. My cousin has gone missing,” she reminded him.
“And yet I have not been struck blind,” he responded just as quickly. “You are as beautiful unmasked as you were mysterious half-concealed. Doris Ann, close your mouth. Your mistress and I are flirting. Aren’t we, Regina?”
“We most certainly are not! And you aren’t to call me Regina, any more than I will agree to continue addressing you as Mr. Robin Goodfellow. What a ridiculous name.”
He put his crossed hands to his breast as if mortally wounded. “You mock my name? My not precisely sainted mother will be devastated, I’m sure, as she so loves it.”
Regina didn’t know if she could believe the man, even if he’d told her the sky was blue. “Oh, she did not. I mean, she does not. Stop grinning like that! You’re an impossible man.”
“Yes, I know. Very well, you may call me Mr. Blackthorn. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn.”
Regina felt hot color flooding her cheeks. “Then you weren’t lying?”
“Not completely, no. And now if you will return the favor?”
“Return the— Oh. Hackett. I am Regina Hackett. My cousin is Lady Miranda Burnham, daughter of Viscount Ranscome and granddaughter of the Earl of Mentmore.”
“E-gods, all of that? And yet we’re still missing one important fact. Two, actually. Where should I be instructing my coachman to drive us, hmm?”
Regina had been giving that some thought. Her mother was less than useless by this time of night, and with luck could be persuaded upon rising tomorrow that she had indeed accompanied Regina and Miranda this evening. She’d feel more confident if she had a few lemon squares tucked up in her reticule, but her mother could be convinced she’d already eaten them. Regina wasn’t proud of these facts or of using her mother’s problem so shamelessly, but these were desperate times, and desperate measures were in order.
“I reside for the Season in Berkeley Square, but we will be dropping my mother off there and continuing on our way, seeing as how the poor woman is completely overset by the recent terrible events and must take to her bed with a strong dose of laudanum. We will then drive directly to my grandfather’s domicile at Number Twenty-three Cavendish Square, where we will explain all to Miranda’s parents. My grandfather, I’m relieved to say, remains in the country, suffering from the gout, so we may see either Aunt Claire or Uncle Seth or, if we are to be extremely unlucky, both of them. What is the other important fact?”
“I’m not sure. I’m still attempting to wade through all those names and titles. Oh, I remember now, and you’ve already answered it. Your mother accompanied you and your cousin this evening? I look forward to hearing how you’ll convince her to go along with your lie.”
Regina shot a quick look at Doris Ann, who was coughing into her fist. “That is my problem, Mr. Blackthorn, and I will handle it. Now, please instruct your coachman, as I wish to arrive in Cavendish Square to hear what information it is you learned at the ball and have thus far refused to share with me.”
“It’s a tale that should not have any telling, not even in Cavendish Square, but if you will allow for some small changes and keep your silence except to sniffle sorrowfully a time or two in the correct spots, it is one I wish to tell only once.”
“I am sorrowful! I’m frantic.”
“You hide it well.”
“I’m used to— Would you please just give the coachman my uncle’s direction!”