Unmasking Miss Lacey Read online

  For a long time he stood, not moving, not speaking, a dark figure against the brightness of the moon. At last she said quietly, ‘One’s choices in life are a gamble, are they not? If I were to judge from my own mother’s experience, falling in love would seem to bring little more happiness than an arranged liaison.’

  ‘It doesn’t.’ She was shocked by the finality in his voice. His words slammed a door shut and she saw clearly that this was something of which he would not or could not speak.

  There was another long silence and then in a complete change of tone, he said, ‘I would like to apologise, Lucinda—you were rightly angry with me yesterday.’

  Was this the chance for her to clear the air between them, to acknowledge her guilt and his silence? She hesitated a second too long and the moment vanished.

  He was speaking again. ‘I hope you will forgive my intrusion. I had no right to be in your brother’s room.’

  ‘I have forgotten it already,’ she lied. If she could pretend that it had not mattered, she might allay the suspicions he held.

  ‘Thank you. I would wish to leave Verney Towers as a friend.’

  ‘That would certainly please my uncle,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Would it please you?’

  He walked towards her shelter beneath the tree and stood close beside her. She could feel the sigh of his breath on her cheek as he spoke and the warmth of his body as he drew nearer. She knew that she should make her excuses and return to the ballroom. But he was reaching out, his hand caressing her hair, his finger wrapping itself in one of the curls that Molly had so carefully combed into place. She could not stop herself looking up into a pair of dark eyes; in the play of moonlight and shadow, a flame danced in their depths.

  ‘You have beautiful hair,’ he said softly. ‘Like spun silk.’

  She felt her pulse beginning to beat too rapidly and her breath tangling in her throat. His lips brushed gently against her forehead, then slipped downwards to her cheek.

  ‘And skin to match,’ he murmured.

  His mouth traced a lazy line along the curve of her cheek and nipped gently at her ear lobe. She felt her skin burning beneath his touch, but was powerless to escape. The jacket slid from her shoulders and was replaced by a pair of strong arms. His hands skimmed her waist and drew her body against his. She was as close to him as when they had been dancing, closer even, for the hard planes of his body were melding themselves to her soft flesh. An unfamiliar pain began somewhere in her stomach. She closed her eyes, drinking in the scent of him. Very gently his lips found hers, a featherlight touch that was achingly sweet. She lifted her mouth to his and was shocked how much she wanted this. Warm, firm lips fastened on hers and kissed her long and hard. She tasted him slowly, then tasted him again and again. She was falling into delicious darkness, a cradle of warm sensation, acute sensation.

  ‘Lucinda, are you there?’

  From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the figure of her uncle, black against the lighted window, and swiftly slipped from Jack’s hold. He stooped to retrieve his jacket and followed her down the pathway.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ her uncle scolded. ‘To be walking alone at night. And in such flimsy attire.’

  ‘I was not alone. I went to find our guest.’ She could not pretend otherwise.

  Sir Francis did not look gratified and was still muttering angrily, when the strains of a waltz filled the air, causing excited chatter among the assembly. The dance had previously been thought too daring to be performed in the midst of a country audience.

  ‘You must forgive me, Sir Francis.’ Jack had appeared at their side. ‘I persuaded Miss Lacey to walk with me awhile and the gardens proved far more extensive than I realised.’

  ‘You have missed most of the ball,’ his host said

  testily. ‘We shall have to leave very shortly.’

  ‘A final dance, then.’ The earl was unperturbed by his host’s annoyance. ‘Do you waltz, Miss Lacey?’

  She had no idea how to answer. She could waltz; she had taken secret lessons. And she loved the freedom, the vitality of the dance. But whether she had permission to waltz, she doubted. She had never had a Season, had never been officially ‘out’ and she knew that her uncle, stern moralist that he was, would not approve. But before her guardian could give them the benefit of his views, Jack had whisked her onto the floor to join the venturesome couples undeterred by the monstrous immorality of this latest craze of the ton.

  ‘We should not have done that,’ she remonstrated.

  ‘Why ever not? We are friends, remember. And friends may dance.’

  ‘It has made my uncle cross.’

  ‘Then let us make him even crosser and enjoy ourselves.’

  She could not stop a small giggle escaping her and at the sound, he smiled down in a way that made her heart shift in alarming fashion. She should have refused to dance, she knew. After those kisses in the garden, she should definitely have refused.

  But she hadn’t and she was once more in his arms, being floated across the polished boards. The strains of violins sang through her heart and their rhythms resonated through every nerve and fibre. She must focus on her steps, she told herself, forget the strong male body that cradled her so intimately, the firm chin resting lightly against her hair, the tempting lips inches from hers. They were dancing closer and closer together, until their two bodies seemed fused into one single entity, sweeping and swaying sensually across the floor in a shared delight. Their fellow dancers, the matrons lining the wall, her uncle glowering from a distance, all faded into obscurity. All Lucinda knew was light and air and movement—and intoxicating pleasure. She felt Jack grow hard against her and her body melt in response. A wild desire to fling off her clothes and dance naked against him burnt its path through her. Then the music stopped.

  For minutes, neither of them moved. They were almost alone on the dance floor, she realised, and every pair of eyes in the room appeared trained on them.

  ‘We should return to your uncle.’ Jack Beaufort’s voice had lost its customary self-possession.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in barely a whisper.

  Her uncle’s glowering expression had been replaced by wrath and he could barely bring himself to speak as they approached. ‘The carriage is waiting.’ The words were almost hissed. ‘We should leave immediately.’

  Sir Francis, she thought, must be nursing a bitter regret for championing the earl’s courtship. After that shameless waltz, the London gossip that he’d dismissed so lightly must be rioting through his mind. If he could, she was sure that her guardian would have his exalted guest packed and out of the door by morning light. One thing was certain: he would no longer be encouraging her to spend her days with Lord Frensham.

  And her uncle would be right; she must stay away from Jack. It seemed that he was not about to incriminate her and she was grateful for that, but she must still stay away. Those stolen kisses in the garden, those intimate caresses of the dance, could not signal a greater warning. He was a temptation she must flee. She might know him a little better from this night’s encounter, but he was still the same person. By the earl’s own admission he was a man who rejected any notion of love and she was sure that women for him were an easy pleasure and as easily discarded. Hadn’t he come to Verney to escape an affair of which he had tired?

  She followed in her guardian’s wake towards the entrance hall, a sudden blast of icy wind through the open door making her shiver. This time Jack did not leap to protect her. His face was a mask and his thoughts evidently elsewhere. The spell had been broken and the intimacy they’d shared had fled. She wrapped the shawl of Norwich silk around her shoulders, as much to keep out unwelcome thoughts as offer protection from the cold. Now that she was no longer in his arms, she was realising how foolishly she had behaved and she blushed for the liberties she had allowed him. She h
ad fallen under his spell so completely that she had been ready to fling herself, reputation and all, at his feet. How could she have been so stupid as to forget her vow to herself? He was charming, utterly charming. But of course he was—he had not gained his name as a ladies’ man for nothing. She felt sick inside as she remembered what he had said of his father. It seemed that the earldom was not the only thing he had inherited from a parent.

  They were making their way to the Devereux carriage which waited a short distance from the front entrance, when she became aware of the stares that were following her progress. She had become notorious! The magic of the evening unravelled, shrivelling like snowdrops in unseasonable ice. All that was left was humiliation. She could see more and more people she knew whispering behind their hands: Miss Lacey, so measured, so well-conducted! Who would have guessed? she was sure they were saying. How would she ever live this evening down?

  The return home was as silent as their outward journey. Lucinda sat unable to say a word or even raise her eyes. She had a vague sense of her uncle’s figure, stiff with outrage, but she dared not look at the earl who lounged lazily in one corner of the coach. Instead she stared determinedly at the floor—it was time again to find her feet fascinating.

  Chapter Six

  As soon as they reached the Towers, she hurried through the hall with only a murmured goodnight for her erstwhile companions. Tomorrow her uncle would reprimand her severely but at this moment all she could think was to make her escape to the refuge of her bedroom. She had her foot on the first stair when Molly glided out of the dim shadows that filled every corner and laid a hand on her mistress’s arm. Lucinda’s heart gave a little jolt. There must be something wrong, very wrong. Night after night Molly waited patiently above stairs to help her mistress to bed, but this evening she could not pause for Lucinda to climb even a step before thrusting into her hand a crumpled and stained envelope.

  Lucinda glanced down at the handwriting and turned chalk-white. All thought of the dance and its mortifications vanished in an instant. Quickly she stowed the letter away in her reticule and ran up the stairs, caring little for what the men in her wake might have seen. Molly followed almost as quickly.

  Once in the room, she kicked jewelled dancing slippers to one side and tore at the envelope.

  ‘When did this arrive, Molly?’ she asked tremulously.

  ‘About an hour after you left. It was brought from the village. Seemingly it’s been in the carrier’s cottage a day or two before he found time to send his youngest up with it.’

  Lucinda was anxiously scanning the single sheet of paper she had drawn forth. ‘There is no date to it—Rupert could have written any time this last week.’

  ‘What does it say, Miss Lucy?’

  The maid’s voice was unsteady and it was with an equally unsteady hand that Lucinda held the message to the light. Black, spidery characters, misshapen and stumbling, crawled across the page as though they would fall off its very edge. Her terror increased—Rupert would not have written so if he were not in the most desperate trouble.

  Dear Sister, she read aloud,

  I am ill with typhus fever and the ague worsens. The money you gave me is gone and I have sold our father’s fob. Nothing is left and without money, there is no medicine. Go to our guardian—he must send funds. Only you can help, Lucy. Help me. Please. Rupert.

  The signature was barely legible and Lucinda’s face held a ghastly expression as she sank into a chair, her hand frantically clutching the dreadful missive as though the two were welded one to the other. Rupert was sick, very sick, and without money he would die. She must go to Sir Francis, show him the letter and once more plead with him. He must help her brother. Surely he could not refuse. But he would; she knew in her heart that he would not yield his conviction that prison was rightful punishment for his disgraced nephew. He’d uttered his last word, he’d said, and she knew him well enough to realise that he would not go back on his pledge. If by some miracle she persuaded him to read the message, he would say Rupert was shamming, that the letter exaggerated his plight and that the boy would try anything to avoid just retribution.

  Her brother’s fate was in her hands and hers alone. Guiltily she realised that she had allowed the threat to Rupert to fade from her mind. She had allowed herself to be waylaid by a plausible charmer. While she had dallied with the seductive earl, her brother had fallen very sick and she had been doing nothing to aid him. What kind of sister was she? The kind that would move heaven and earth to rescue him, she vowed silently.

  She turned towards her maid and when she spoke, her voice was firm and clear. ‘Did you see your mother today, Molly?’

  The girl nodded her head uncertainly.

  ‘And you asked for new information? Has she heard anything that might be useful to us?’

  The maid’s eyes were downcast and she refused to meet Lucinda’s gaze. In some agitation, she began to smooth imaginary creases from the well-ironed bed linen.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mother did overhear something, but I don’t rightly know if I should say.’ Her voice dragged with reluctance.

  ‘Look, look at this letter, Molly,’ and Lucinda sprang across the room, shaking the sheet of paper at her maid. ‘Read it for yourself and then say nothing, if you dare!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Lucy,’ she said miserably, ‘but Mother was right flummoxed about whether to tell or not.’

  ‘Let me be the judge. Tell me this minute what your mother heard.’

  Molly’s sigh appeared to come from the depths of her small, leather boots. ‘There’s a convoy of wagons making its way to London. It’s carrying the tolls from every turnpike for a hundred miles around.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I saw it with...’ Guilt returned with a hefty thump as she remembered the church tower and the pleasure of being with Jack Beaufort. ‘But you cannot be suggesting that I ambush this convoy. It’s sure to carry a veritable army of guards.’

  ‘If I had my way, miss, you’d never ambush another thing. I wouldn’t have mentioned it except that you were so keen for me to tell and Mother said as how one carriage has got separated from the rest. It lost a wheel and had to stop for repair, so it’s travelling alone and there’s only a driver and a guard with it.’

  Lucinda’s face brightened considerably. ‘A driver and a guard?’

  She began to walk up and down the room, her mind busy with possibilities. ‘If the wagon is travelling solo and is only lightly armed,’ she said at last, ‘I cannot see why I could not take it by surprise. After all, they are the same odds that I faced before—only this time I would not make the mistake of riding too close.’

  She resumed her pacing, running through the plans in her head, gaining confidence as she walked. A few days ago she had been successful in bringing a travelling coach and horses within range of her pistol. If it had not been for the earl...

  She turned impatiently towards Molly. ‘Why were you so reluctant to tell me this? It is an excellent scheme. Even better than when I rode out against Jack...against Lord Frensham, for this time I need feel no contrition at robbing a fellow being. The tolls are hated by everyone!’

  Molly continued to hang her head.

  ‘What is it?’ Lucinda felt infuriated with her maid.

  ‘You shouldn’t go, Miss Lucy. Mother says it ain’t right.’

  ‘What do you mean “not right”? I have to act now and it’s the best chance I’m going to get. If you are thinking that Lord Frensham will be a problem, he won’t. He knows already that it was I w
ho held him up.’

  Molly gasped. ‘He knows, but...’

  ‘But he will say nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure, miss? Has he made you a promise?’

  ‘Not exactly, but he won’t.’ How could she explain that she knew Jack would keep her secret?

  ‘But if he discovered you were going to rob again, he would be forced to report you.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Lucinda said thoughtfully. ‘Even Jack Beaufort’s tolerance must know a limit. But he won’t find out. What is to tell him? And tomorrow he will be too busy keeping out of my way and out of my uncle’s, to concern himself with what I am doing.’

  Her maid looked questioningly at her. ‘It doesn’t matter why, Molly. Suffice to say that this evening’s ball was eventful.’ Eventful was an understatement and it was only the shock of Rupert’s letter that was stopping her dwelling on her likely disgrace.

  ‘Do you know the route that the wagon will take?’

  ‘Tomorrow it will pass nearby. Mother said that it should leave Storrington midmorning, and after Steyning will take the Horsham road.’

  ‘Then it’s settled. I can use the same clearing in the forest. That’s good—I know the terrain and so does Red. I will lose myself for most of the day and in late afternoon slip away. You will need to make sure that Jem has the mare saddled and ready by four.’

  ‘You mustn’t go,’ the maid burst out suddenly. ‘Mother thinks it’s a trap.’

  ‘How can it possibly be a trap?’

  ‘She thinks Partridge ain’t to be trusted, that he deliberately spoke of the convoy when he knew she was listening.’