Sally MacKenzie Bundle

by Sally MacKenzie

  Damn. He’d thought Richard was a danger only to him, but if he were threatening Sarah…

  Had Richard murdered Molly, the girl at the Green Man? And that girl back at University, the one they had fished out of the River Cam, her neck broken—had he killed her, also? James had discounted the rumors then. Perhaps he had been wrong to do so.

  And Dunlap—who the hell was he? He was obviously connected to Richard in some way, but he was proving to be an extremely elusive fellow. Parks had not been able to gather any definite information on him yet.

  He felt so bloody powerless. He’d put men to trailing Richard. He’d sent Parks and his associates out to scour the seedier sections of London. He’d hired a couple of Bow Street Runners to keep an eye on Sarah.

  And now he’d follow this damn note’s dictates until he had a clearer view of Richard’s plans.

  He didn’t want to stay away from Sarah. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight—not ever. He wanted to guard her day and night. Especially at night. In bed. He’d cover her sweet body with his. To keep her safe, of course.

  He crossed his legs and turned to the financial page, making certain the newspaper covered his lap. God, to be sitting in the middle of White’s on St. James’s Street, probably as far from any female as possible in London, and still grow hard thinking of Sarah.

  He made himself focus on the solid numbers. He would go to Palmerson’s tonight. He had given his word. If he didn’t go on his own, Robbie would find him and drag him there anyway. And truly he was starved for a glimpse of Sarah. Maybe he would see a way to bring an end to this agony.

  “Lady Gladys, I really don’t feel up to going to the Marquis of Palmerson’s tonight,” Sarah said. “I have a headache.”

  “A headache?” Lady Gladys put down her sewing and frowned.

  “Balderdash.” Lady Amanda pointed her needle at Sarah. “Stiffen your spine, girl. Don’t let a bunch of old fools keep you from going about.”

  Sarah sighed. “Lady Amanda, I have stiffened my spine till I think it will shatter. I wish you and Lady Gladys would just concentrate on finding me some employment. I’m sure I could be a companion, if not a teacher.”

  “I thought I had already found you some employment, Sarah, as companion to my nephew.”

  “And I thought your nephew was not such a cod’s head.” Lady Amanda clipped a knot. “When I told him to be more circumspect, I didn’t mean for him to vanish.”

  “You spoke to his grace?”

  “After the incident in Easthaven’s garden, I did.”

  “Oh, no.” Sarah closed her eyes.

  “I’m not certain that was the best idea, Amanda.”

  “Someone had to speak to the boy. He was making micefeet of things.”

  Sarah sat quietly next to Lady Amanda in the carriage on the way to Lord Palmerson’s townhouse.

  “Should be quite a crush.” Robbie’s voice was a trifle too hearty. “I’m sure everyone is going to be there.”

  “I suppose you mean James will make an appearance?” Lady Gladys sounded skeptical.

  “Said he would, didn’t he, Charles?”

  “Yes. He promised he would come.”

  “Did he say why he’s been avoiding us?” Lizzie asked.

  “Well, no, can’t say that he did.” Robbie coughed. Sarah felt his eyes on her. “Something important, I’m sure. You know how James is.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t,” Lady Gladys said.

  Sarah wanted to seep into the carriage cushions.

  Lady Amanda leaned over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, dear,” she whispered. “Everything will work out for the best.”

  Sarah appreciated Lady Amanda’s gesture, but she didn’t take much comfort from her words. Her only solace was that soon the ladies would have to give up their plans to marry her off to James.

  “Miss Hamilton, so glad you could come.” Lady Palmerson made a show of looking behind Sarah in the receiving line. Robbie was greeting her husband. “And the Duke of Alvord? Is he out of town?”

  “I don’t believe so.” Sarah kept her voice level.

  “No? So odd—he had become such a regular at the Season’s entertainments, we had come to expect him.” Lady Palmerson’s faded blue eyes sharpened. “He is rather conspicuously absent, is he not?” She might as well have licked her chops, she was salivating so over the juicy morsel of gossip she sniffed in James’s absence.

  “I believe he may look in tonight,” Robbie said, disengaging his hand from Lord Palmerson’s flaccid grasp.

  “Really? How delightful. I will look forward to seeing him.”

  And to seeing what a stir his presence will cause, Sarah thought as she entered the ballroom on Robbie’s arm.

  She danced the opening set with Robbie. She felt she did a good job of ignoring the sideways glances, the muffled giggles, and the whispers and murmurings. She kept smiling, even though her stomach was knotted into a hard ball.

  She sat out the next two sets. The Duchess of Rothingham condescended to keep her company for the last of those.

  “I don’t see the duke here tonight.”

  Sarah tried not to sigh. Or to scream. “I don’t believe he has arrived yet.”

  “Oh, is he coming then?”

  “I really can’t say. My cousin, Westbrooke, says so.”

  The duchess adjusted the ruffle on the low neck of her dress. “I thought you were staying at Alvord House.”

  Sarah gritted her teeth. “I am.”

  “And you don’t see the duke to speak to? How odd.”

  “He’s very busy. I’m really here to keep his sister, Lady Elizabeth, company.”

  “Oh.” The duchess smiled. “I see.”

  “My dance, I believe?”

  Sarah had never been so delighted to see Charles. She turned to the duchess and forced a smile to her lips. “Excuse me, please.”

  The duchess inclined her head.

  Sarah danced twice with Charles and once more with Robbie before Mr. Symington presented himself. As he steered her clumsily around the perimeter of the dance floor, she scanned the ballroom. James still had not arrived. She swallowed her disappointment. She knew she should not have listened to Robbie when he’d said James would come. More, she should not have allowed herself to hope James would take her in his arms and waltz her past the nasty little gossips of the ton.

  The music ended. Sarah smiled at Mr. Symington, but he was looking over her shoulder at someone entering the ballroom.

  The couples around her began to murmur, their eyes darting from her to the new arrival. The tide of whispering rushed outward to the farthest corners of the room.

  Sarah closed her eyes briefly, swallowed, and then turned. The entire room held its breath.

  She looked directly into James’s eyes. She might have seen a flash of warmth there, but it was gone before she could be certain.

  He turned away, inclining his head to Lady Palmerson. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

  “Quite all right, your grace,” Lady Palmerson said, shooting Sarah a look of wicked glee. “We’re happy you could come at all.”

  Simple Symington stared, goggle-eyed, at James’s retreating back.

  “Please excuse me.” Sarah kept her head up and walked slowly over to where the chaperones were sitting. She felt every eye on her, heard the murmuring ton relish her humiliation. Well, she would refuse to look humiliated. She lowered herself into a chair. Her eyes were on the dance floor, but all she saw was James’s face.

  She felt a gentle hand on her knee. She glanced to her right, but Lady Amanda was already moving away. She watched her cross the room and stop to whisper something in Mrs. Fallwell’s ear. Mrs. Fallwell’s head came up like a startled deer’s. Her glance darted to Sarah, then she turned and said something to Lady Amanda. Lady Amanda smiled and shrugged.

  Robbie came to collect his second dance. “I’m so sorry, Sarah,” he said quietly as he bowed over her hand. “I asked James to come tonight. I never
thought he’d treat you this way.”

  “It’s all right, Robbie.” Sarah did not want to talk about James. She did not have that firm a grip on her composure, and she knew everyone was watching her to see when she would break. She did not want to give them that satisfaction.

  “I’ll call him out, I swear, and put a bullet through him.” Robbie grimaced. “If I can. The blood—blasted man’s a crack shot.”

  “Don’t, Robbie.” Sarah was touched that her cousin cared about her enough to confront his friend. It made her feel less alone. “You know I always said I couldn’t marry James.”

  “Well, I don’t see why you can’t. It would be the best thing for both of you.”

  Mercifully, from Sarah’s perspective, the music began and she and Robbie were separated by the patterns of the dance.

  Afterwards, Robbie returned her to her seat. The women near her moved, whispering and throwing her sidelong glances. If she had felt shunned before, she now felt like a true pariah.

  She watched James dance with Charlotte Wickford. They made a lovely couple, if one were fond of statuary. Lady Charlotte might be a good match for James in rank and background, but a marriage between them would be a disaster. James’s face held none of the warmth and humor she remembered from their weeks at Alvord.

  She sighed. It was time for Mr. Symington to claim his second dance. She saw him approaching and tried to smile. Then Lord Stevenson, the biggest prig she had ever met, stopped his progress. She was not disappointed. Every moment Mr. Symington was delayed was one less moment of his boring monologue.

  Lord Stevenson kept talking. Mr. Symington looked over. He said something to Lord Stevenson and the other man nodded. Then Mr. Symington shook his head and turned away.

  How odd. Sarah was relieved not to have to listen to him go on about his children and grandchildren, but he had never missed a dance before. Perhaps an emergency had occurred. But no, he didn’t leave the ball. He asked Mrs. Lombard to partner him.

  Sarah sat alone through three more sets. Finally, she decided she had earned a retreat to the ladies’ retiring room. She had no trouble making her way around the crowded dance floor. The knots of people parted like the Red Sea to let her pass. She sighed with relief when she stepped into the hall and out of the ton’s view. She hoped the retiring room would be deserted.

  She was not in luck. Just as she was about to enter, she heard the distinctive nasal tones of Lady Felicity Brookton, possibly her least favorite of the girls making their come-outs. Sarah drew back, hoping Lady Felicity would leave soon.

  “She was stark naked!”

  “Really?” Sarah couldn’t place the second voice. It was breathless with a horrified excitement. “And Alvord?”

  “Naked, too.” Lady Felicity dropped her voice. “They were in bed together.”

  “No!”

  “I’d like to see Alvord naked,” said a third voice.

  “Julia!” There was a great deal of giggling.

  “Well, I would. Those shoulders! Those legs!”

  “You shouldn’t be thinking about such things!” said the second voice. Then all three girls went back into a fit of giggles.

  “I can’t believe she has the audacity to show herself among polite company.” That was Lady Felicity again. “Lady Gladys must not know.”

  “I hear they do things differently in the colonies,” Julia said.

  “What, they allow their whores into society?” Lady Felicity laughed. “Well, I suppose the men might like that, but you’d think the women would protest. I certainly would.”

  The girls—Lady Felicity, Miss Julia Fairchild, and Lady Rosalyn Mannerly—came out of the retiring room and saw Sarah. Their jaws dropped in unison so that they looked like three beached fish. Sarah would have found the spectacle funny, had she not misplaced her sense of humor. Then Lady Felicity snapped her teeth shut, put her nose in the air, and pulled her skirts back so they would not touch Sarah as she walked past. The other girls followed.

  Sarah barely saw them. She was struggling to get a breath. Her head spun. She braced herself with one hand on the wall.

  The story of the Green Man was out. All those people in the ballroom were talking about her and James, speculating about them, imagining they knew everything that had gone on between them.

  Suddenly, the retiring room was not far enough away. She needed to get outside. A group of men blocked the front door, so she darted into the ballroom. People stepped out of her way, but this time she didn’t notice. Her sole focus was the door to the garden and freedom. She had to get out of the suffocating heat and smell of the ton, out of the bright light and into the anonymous darkness.

  Chapter 10

  Dunlap had had a rough week. Unpleasantness was crowding him from every direction. He had been slipping out doorways and around corners, avoiding Runyon and Alvord. Runyon wanted Miss Hamilton raped immediately, and the bloody evidence of the deed displayed on the door to Almack’s. Alvord wanted Dunlap’s balls strung from the Tower. His spies had been sniffing much too close to Dunlap’s carefully guarded business interests.

  He would have avoided the Palmerson affair altogether if he could have. Unfortunately, Runyon had gotten wind of the fact that he had not attended the last few ton events. He had sent him a pointed note, threatening to give his name and direction to the Earl of Lugington immediately. Lugington was not a gentle, understanding man. Dunlap did not want to be buried in English soil.

  He heard the rumor that Miss Hamilton and the Duke of Alvord had been cavorting naked at some inn the moment he stepped through the door. He was skeptical. He could have sworn the girl was a virgin—that innocent look was too hard to fake. He should know, he’d tried to train countless whores to mimic it.

  But he also knew how these swells operated. True or not, the rumor had ruined the girl, so Alvord would marry her. Dunlap had just run out of time. Runyon would get his wish. Whether Miss Hamilton was or was not a virgin now, she definitely would not be one by the end of the evening. Alvord would have to postpone his nuptials at least three or four months if he wanted to be certain that his heir was his own, and not a cuckoo sown by an American whoremonger.

  A lot could happen in three or four months. The world was a dangerous place.

  Dunlap saw Sarah hurry down the hall and dart into the ballroom. He followed her. He watched her go out into the gardens, then he slipped outside himself.

  James saw Sarah rush past. She had the look of a soldier emerging from a death-drenched battle. He nodded at Colonel Pendergrast, no longer listening to him. He had to follow her, but he couldn’t be obvious about it. He looked over the heads of the crowd and spotted Robbie.

  “Excuse me, Colonel. I see someone I must speak to. So sorry.” James detached himself from the old jaw-me-dead and tried to work his way through the crush. Normally his size and rank caused people to step aside, but now he felt as if he were swimming through quicksand.

  He noticed other oddities. All conversation stopped as he approached and resumed as soon as he moved away. Gaggles of young ladies blushed and giggled when he looked at them. Mrs. Sparks, a widow notorious for her accommodating morals, winked and pulled her bodice lower when she caught his eye. Damn. Something was very wrong.

  “Alvord!”

  James cringed. He recognized Featherstone’s gravelly, rough whisper. The man had been a dirty dish even at Aunt Gladys’s come-out.

  “Featherstone,” he said, swallowing his impatience.

  “Jolly good joke, old chap.”

  “Indeed?” James’s tone could have frozen hell, but Featherstone was not very perceptive.

  “Foisting your whore on society! Heard you even got the gal vouchers for Almack’s—that’s one for the record books. Bet old Silence Jersey is beside herself.” Featherstone wheezed in what James took to be laughter. “But since it looks like you’re finished with her, I’ll be happy to take her off your hands. Won’t be squiring her to respectable balls and such, of course. Ain’t quite the t
hing, don’t you know. Surprised Gladys and Amanda put up with it, unless you had them fooled, too?”

  James felt an overwhelming urge to grab Featherstone’s scrawny neck and wring it like those of the chickens he’d dispatched many times for supper on the Peninsula. He flexed his fingers. Some of his feelings must have shown on his face, because Featherstone stepped back.

  “No offense meant, old man,” Featherstone gabbled. “Thought you was done with her, that’s all. If you’re not, well, then, there’s no more to be said, is there?”

  “Featherstone,” James began, but stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Robbie.

  “James, you’ll have to kill this fellow later. I need to talk to you.”

  “Yes, right, don’t want to detain you.” Featherstone’s hands fluttered about his cravat like elderly sparrows. James ignored him. He pulled Robbie toward the doors to the garden.

  “What the hell is going on?” James kept his voice low. It was clear that everyone within earshot was listening. “I saw Sarah leave the ballroom a few minutes ago. We need to find her.”

  “Damn right we do.”

  James and Robbie stepped out onto the terrace.

  “The story of the Green Man is out, James.”

  “Damn!” James looked around, but the terrace was deserted. “Where the bloody hell is Sarah?”

  Robbie put a hand on James’s arm. “I’ll go look for her.”

  James shook him off. “No, we’ll both go. Do you know if Dunlap is here?”

  “The American? I think I saw him a moment ago. Why?”

  “He’s my charming cousin’s accomplice. Come on. We have to find Sarah quickly.” James took the steps down into the garden two at a time.

  Sarah barely saw the garden. She ran down the paths through the darkness, away from the lights, away from the eyes, away from the sniggering. Her thoughts were as thick and tangled as the greenery.

  How had the story of the Green Man gotten out after all this time? Had someone recognized her? Why had he—or she—waited until now to speak? She was already firmly on the fringes of society. Why would anyone want to push her beyond the pale?