Lady Torridon glared. “You are not paid to drive my grandson away from his father and me! Where did you leave him?”
“With his mother, my lady, in perfect health,” John assured her.
“Where?” she repeated.
“Edinburgh, my lady. Smart house in Charlotte Square. Belongs to a very good friend… A widow.”
“Edinburgh?” she repeated. “But my son believes she has gone to her family in Blackhaven! Did you not see him on the road?”
“No, my lady.”
Lady Torridon glared at him harder. “Honesty, if you please,” she demanded. “Has she run away?”
“Oh no, my lady,” came John’s shocked response. “She gave me a letter for Himself.”
The countess held out her hand.
John swallowed audibly. “It’s addressed to his lordship.”
“Who is in Blackhaven! Kindly give me the letter so that I can decide what is best to be done.”
Reluctantly, John took the missive from his pocket and handed it to her.
Without compunction, she broke the seal and read.
My dear Torridon,
On impulse, I have come to Edinburgh with Jamie. I feel the change in scene will do us both good. As John will tell you, we are staying with Mrs. Marshall, who is a good friend to me, although I know you do not like her. There is no cause for your concern, since we shall both be back in a few days.
Ever yours,
Frances.
Just like the girl herself: informal, insolent, openly defiant. Lady Torridon still hadn’t forgiven her for rejecting the wet nurse she had personally recommended. Feeding the child herself indeed, like some crofter’s wench. And now… how dared she visit someone she knew her husband disliked? More than that, how dared she take his son there?
She frowned, raising her gaze to John’s unquiet face. “If she is returning in a few days, why did she send you home?”
“I couldn’t say, my lady,” John muttered. “I believe she hired a post chaise.”
“Then she’s going on somewhere else? Where?”
“I did hear Blackhaven mentioned, my lady, but I really don’t know,” John said desperately.
“I don’t like this,” Lady Torridon fumed. “I don’t like this at all.” And yet… And yet, it brought things out into the open. “Wait a moment, this widow she is with, what is her name?”
“Mrs. Marshall, my lady.”
“Ariadne Marshall? That woman!” With as much triumph as disgust, Lady Torridon spun away, beginning to see her way. “Have the carriage ready in an hour,” she said. “I believe I need to see my man of business in Edinburgh.”
*
With the knowledge that his wife and son were safe, Torridon slept better, and yet awoke with fresh pain and fury churning him up. He could not face breakfast and the strain of being polite to his hosts and fellow guests, so he donned his traveling clothes, determined to return immediately to Scotland.
Throwing himself into the chair by the desk, he picked up the pen and began to write a polite note of excuse.
My dear Lady Braithwaite, he began, then stared at the blank expanse of paper. With a groan, he threw down the pen, splattering ink over the page, which he then crumpled and threw across the room. If he wrote, he couldn’t not mention the presence of his wife in Blackhaven.
Springing to his feet, he paced to the window and back several times.
“Damn you, damn you, damn you,” he whispered over and over. He didn’t even know if he was speaking to himself or his wife, or to Ariadne Marshall, whom he wanted to blame for the whole turn of events but couldn’t.
He could storm down there in righteous fury and take his wife home by force. It would have to be home, for they could not play out their quarrel here in front of her family and their guests. But even supposing he could cow her into submission… did he really want a wife who stayed with him through fear? God help him, he didn’t want to quarrel with Frances. He wanted her to run back to him, to be his.
He let out a laugh that sounded slightly demented to his own ears.
Something had gone wrong between them and he doubted he could fix it by playing the heavy-handed husband.
Abruptly, he seized his greatcoat and left the bedchamber. He ran down the main staircase and strode across the hall, determined to get out without speaking to anyone. Achieving that minor success, he strode on to the main drive. The rain didn’t bother him. He lived, after all, in the west of Scotland.
Walking into Blackhaven, he came to the eventual conclusion that he couldn’t leave yet. If Frances was in trouble via this game with Ariadne Marshall, he needed to help her before they tried to fix their marriage. Besides, it came to him that he could take a hand in the game, whatever it turned out to be. And so, he would buy a mask and attend tonight’s ball, and find out what she was up to.
Arriving in the town soaking wet, he went into the coffee house in High Street to dry off a little. By chance, it was directly opposite the hotel, and he found himself gazing with disfavor at the first-floor windows. As a soldier, he had always kept his anger under control until it was needed for battle. That now seemed easy compared with dealing with his wife.
When the rain went off, he strolled across the road to the little draper’s shop he’d passed on his way in. Walter Jones, Quality Draper, said the sign above the door.
Entering, Torridon found it even smaller than it looked. It took but two paces to the main counter, the rest of the space being taken up by cabinets and boxes.
The proprietor beamed upon him. “Good morning, sir. How might I help you?”
Torridon cast a doubtful glance at the display case, containing largely handkerchiefs and ribbons. “I don’t suppose you have such silly things as masks and domino cloaks suitable for a masquerade ball?”
“Of course, sir, of course. And at a much better price, I must say, than you will find elsewhere in the town. Nor do we skimp on quality. Perhaps sir has a particular color in mind?”
“Lord no, I don’t care.”
The draper, presumably Mr. Walter Jones himself, climbed a ladder and took down a box.
“Your shop is new, is it not?” Torridon asked. “I don’t recall seeing it before.”
“It is, sir. I moved here from Whalen some eight or nine months ago now, and I have to say business is better. Are you a frequent visitor, then, sir?”
“No, though perhaps I should be.” He glanced at the box of masks opened by Mr. Jones and grabbed the first one.
“Try it on, sir,” Mr. Jones said, scandalized. “You don’t want something too small for your face.”
Torridon, who didn’t actually care one way or the other, had the time to indulge him. He tied on the mask and glanced in the mirror set on the counter. He looked more like a highwayman than a gentleman going to a ball.
Just then, the shop door opened again and a widow came in. She, too, paused in apparent surprise at the size of the establishment, then approached the counter. Something in her movement triggered an elusive memory.
Torridon bowed to her as best he could in the cramped space, and the lady’s breath caught. It struck him that she was trying not to laugh, though she inclined her head in civil response.
“I shall be with you in one moment, madam,” Mr. Jones assured her. But Torridon, intrigued, pressed himself back against the cabinets, gesturing with one hand that she should be served first.
The widow, a young woman by the way she moved, inclined her head to him again with perfect gravity, although it struck him she was still amused.
“I’m Mrs. Alan,” she said to the draper with the faintest quiver in her voice, and Torridon’s mouth fell open. He hadn’t recognized his own wife. “I believe my friend Mrs. Thom asked you to put aside a few masks and domino cloaks?”
“Ah yes, of course, madam,” Jones said. “One moment.”
While Torridon stared at his wife in her widow’s weeds, Jones ducked under the counter so quickly that he might have collapsed.
Frances, presumably fearing the same thing, stood on tiptoe to peer over the top. Mr. Jones popped back up again and she jerked back, narrowly missing a clash of heads.
An involuntary hiss of laughter escaped Torridon. Beneath her veil, his wife seemed to cast him another glance. He could almost swear her eyes laughed back, although he could barely see them through the thickness of the veil. Did she recognize him, too?
He held his breath while Jones placed several cloaks and masks on the counter.
“Mrs. Thom,” the draper said, “preferred the gold cloak and mask.”
Good for Ariadne, Torridon thought irritably. Presumably she expected Frances to pay for her preferences.
“Yes, so she told me,” Frances said. “We shall definitely take those. Oh, and this dark blue domino will be perfect with my gown. Is there a mask to match?”
“Sadly, not exactly, but either of these blues would blend wonderfully. Or you could try a contrast with this silver one perhaps?”
Under Torridon’s fascinated gaze, Frances considered them all against the cloak. Abruptly, she glanced up at him, perhaps irritated by his scrutiny.
“Try them on.” The words spilled from his lips unbidden. More, he spoke them in an unnaturally husky voice, and with the oft-mimicked accent of a mad Cossack officer he had once met in his army days.
Mr. Jones blinked at him in surprise. However, perhaps because it would have been his own advice anyway, he beamed. “An excellent idea.” Lifting the mirror from its place in front of Torridon, he set it before Frances instead.
She swung the blue domino about her shoulders, and lifted her veil.
She took Torridon’s breath away. She always had. There was nothing ordinary about Frances’s beauty. It came from within, shining with fun and mischief and innate kindness. And passion, that, too. She was everything he had ever wanted, ever needed. And more, so much more…
Under his avid gaze, she held each of the blue masks against her face in turn.
“Allow me,” Torridon offered and caught the strings of the current mask, drawing them behind her head. He needed, suddenly, to touch her.
No, she did not know him. He felt her stiffen very slightly at the light brush of his fingers against her veil. Not her hair.
He paused. “You are in deep mourning, madam,” he observed.
She blinked, as though she had forgotten the normal purpose of her widow’s weeds. “Oh well, it is dull to mourn all the time,” she blurted. The words might have been spoken by Ariadne Marshall.
“Then, if you do not intend to wear the veil with the mask,” Torridon said, “might I suggest you remove it for now?”
She raised her hands to unpin it, but again he was ahead of her, deftly removing the correct pins as he so often had. To him, it was a gesture of intimacy, of possession, and he suspected she wasn’t entirely comfortable. She had no idea who he was. It hurt him and thrilled him at the same time. He could be anyone he wished to be with her. Like this, he carried no baggage of marital quarrels or recrimination. He could tease her, court her. Play her game… or his own.
However, unwilling to frighten her, he took no impudent advantage of his position. In fact, to set her at ease, he even included the draper himself in the discussion. “What do you think, Mr. Jones? Is that blue not just a little insipid with such brilliant eyes?”
“Perhaps it does not suit madam’s coloring as well as it should,” the draper said tactfully. “Why don’t you try the darker blue?”
Again, Torridon could touch the soft, silky hair at the back of her head. She had relaxed more, seeming undisturbed by his nearness, though not, he could swear, unaware. Secretly, he inhaled her scent of orange blossom and vanilla, drowned in memory and longing, while he behaved like a perfect gentleman.
In the end, they all agreed on the contrasting silver mask, and Mr. Jones again dropped like a stone behind the counter in order, presumably, to wrap her purchases. Torridon leaned over the counter to be sure. The ingenious draper had a little table down there, which rolled out on wheels from under the counter. On it were balls of string and scissors. Grinning, Torridon glanced back at Frances. Her eyes sparked with responsive laughter, though she pulled her lips into an expression of strict gravity.
“I take it you will be a guest at the Braithwaite spring ball?” she said breathlessly.
“Oh, no,” he replied at once.
She blinked and gestured delicately toward his mask.
“This?” he said, touching it as though he had forgotten its existence. “A tool of my trade, madam. I am a highwayman.”
She cast him a doubtful glance, as though she half-believed him. Certainly, his wet old clothing was not that of a man of fashion, and not how he normally appeared before her. But neither was she foolish. Her eyes teased him. “Are you planning to rob Mr. Jones or me?” she inquired.
“Neither,” he replied in shocked tones. “I would not dream of stepping on the toes of urban thieves.”
“Of course, you would not. Forgive my unwitting insult. I expect your old mask broke.”
“I expect it did,” he agreed.
“While you held up someone terribly wealthy,” she added, warming to her story as she often did, indulging in wildly unlikely and often highly amusing flights of fancy.
“Disgustingly wealthy,” he agreed.
“So, did you run away before he could see your face?” she asked innocently.
“Oh no,” Torridon said, as though shocked by such misunderstanding. “I robbed him blind. I couldn’t be expected to forego such fantastical wealth.”
She nodded. “Of course not. I quite see that. But aren’t you afraid he will recognize you?”
“Not a bit,” Torridon said blithely. “I shot him.”
Frances let out a choke of surprised laughter, and Torridon smiled back. He had missed his wife. He ached to make her fall in love with him all over again.
“Get along with you, sir,” Mr. Jones exclaimed, his voice muffled and vaguely sepulchral down behind the counter. “You must not be frightening my female customers.”
One parcel slithered across the counter in front of Frances, pushed from below. She looked hastily away from Torridon before laughter could consume her.
“I don’t believe the lady is afraid of me,” he assured Jones, who popped back up at that moment with the second parcel.
“Thank you,” Frances said unsteadily. “I’ll take them with me now.”
While she paid, Torridon regretted not being able to carry her parcels to the hotel for her. It would involve removing his mask. So, he merely held the door open for her as she left.
“Goodbye,” she said brightly. “I expect I shall see you at the castle tonight.”
“If I choose to rob it after all.”
“Of course. I hope you will spare me.” She sailed out without a backward glance. But he was sure she was smiling. As he was. Because now he had a reason to attend the ball. Not just to find out what she was up to, but to court her.
Chapter Five
It seemed both strange and exciting to drive up to her own home as a stranger, to walk up the front steps, and be directed to the ballroom, once the medieval castle’s great hall. As she and Ariadne waited patiently behind a large blue domino and an even larger pink one, Frances wanted to laugh, because there in the mezzanine gallery, running around behind the orchestra, were her three little sisters, behaving almost exactly as she had once done with Gervaise and Serena, desperate to catch a glimpse of the fashionable guests and those long ago, magical spring balls from which they were supposed to be excluded.
Straightening her face so that she didn’t give her sisters’ game away to her mother or sister-in-law, she prepared to be welcomed.
The new Countess of Braithwaite was undeniably beautiful, with red-blonde hair like a Highland sunrise, and a gaze at once shy and direct. Her brilliant green eyes were particularly lovely behind the jeweled mask, but they also held humor, and her lips were used to smiling. Frances thought
she would like her.
In response to the countess’s greeting, Frances opted for a small, mysterious smile and a silent curtsey. She wasn’t entirely sure such tactics would work on Gervaise or her mother who stood at his other side.
Neither Gervaise nor the dowager countess were wearing masks. Frances looked each boldly in the eye as she curtsied and smiled, prepared to burst into delighted laughter as soon as they recognized her. She was almost disappointed when neither did. Gervaise seemed more concerned with how his wife coped with what was no doubt her first major social duty, and the dowager countess had far too much dignity to pry into the identity behind the masks. No doubt she disapproved of the whole thing. Serena, and possibly Eleanor, the new countess, had obviously talked her into it. Or overruled her.
“Drat it, you are too good at this,” Ariadne murmured in her ear. “Your own mother does not know you!”
“Shall we call it another draw?” Frances suggested.
“Certainly not. The night is young.” Ariadne glided away, much to France’s amused frustration. If they did not stay together, how would they know if the other was recognized? Trust, she supposed, accepting a glass of champagne from Harry, the second footman, with a murmur of thanks. He didn’t recognize her either. As she had told Ariadne, it was all a matter of expectation, and no one expected her to be here.
It was much easier from her own point of view. She picked out Serena quite easily, play-flirting with her fan for the delectation of an older gentleman who was surely Mr. Winslow. And there, by the open terrace door, with the midnight black hair, was Kate Crowmore who had inexplicably married the new vicar of Blackhaven’s church. Her old friend Gillie was dancing with none other than Dax, the same Lord Daxton who had once almost ruined Serena. How come he was even invited?
Up on the gallery, as the music ended, the girls waved to someone below. Frances suspected it was Miss Grey, their old governess who had married the tenant of Haven Hall. Subtly, the lady made a shooing gesture with her fan while turning to speak politely to her masked partner. It seemed the children rightly trusted her not to give them away.
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