AND ALL THE LADIES OF HIS HOUSE,
HIS LORDSHIP THE EARL OF HARCLAY
REQUESTS YOUR PRESENCE
AT A MASQUERADE BALL
THIS EVENING, AT HALF PAST EIGHT O’CLOCK.
A PRIZE SHALL BE AWARDED
TO THE JEWEL WHO SHINES BRIGHTEST.
Thirty-three
Later that night
Brook Street, Hanover Square
Mr. Thomas Hope gave his hat a vicious tug, but to no avail; his curls were as wild as ever, and no matter his best efforts, the beaver hat atop his head would not stay put.
Not that he was surprised. The French Blue was still missing; by Hope’s estimation it was lost forever, disappeared into the tumult of history as it did some twenty years ago, in Paris.
And because Hope had yet to miraculously recover the diamond, proving to his clients, investors, and those nasty editors at the papers that yes, he was a capable man of business, and yes, he would safeguard the wealth of those who depended upon him with his very life, he was seen as exactly opposite that: a careless, vulgar idiot.
As Hope’s situation deteriorated and Hope & Co. slid further into debt, he’d spent the week at his desk mired in panic, tugging his hands through his hair as if he might pull it out by its very roots. By Friday his dark curls stood on end, lending him the appearance of a wide-eyed street urchin who’d been struck in the arse by lightning.
“Really, old chap, you should try to get some sleep,” Mr. Lake had counseled. “We’ll find the diamond. When that rascal the earl resurfaces, I’ll take him by his—”
Hope had cut short that thought with the wickedest glare he could muster. Sleep. Ha! As if he could afford such luxury. Besides, whenever his exhausted eyes fluttered shut—even for a moment, a second, a heartbeat—he saw Sophia’s face tensed with passion, screwed tight in pain. Her eyes full as he closed the door on whatever it was they had shared these past weeks.
Even now it stole his breath, the memory of that unspoken good-bye; regret pressed heavy on his chest. He’d never had the chance to tell her that he longed, more than anything, to hold her in the circle of his arms and make her his.
To tell her that he loved her.
The coach pitched to a sudden stop, nearly launching Hope headfirst into the opposite row of velvet squabs. He was going to miss this carriage, yes, but the driver? Not quite.
Hope let out a sigh. The time for regrets had passed. Tonight was his last chance to gain back all that he’d lost. If Harclay, as his invitation suggested, had indeed returned from the dead, then perhaps he’d managed to bring the French Blue back with him. And perhaps—though this was highly, highly unlikely—he might feel, after his trip to the underworld, the compulsion to atone for his sins and return the diamond to its rightful owner.
Perhaps.
He glanced out the window; the Earl of Harclay’s house was ablaze, the twinkle of crystal and shine of satin-clad ladies peeking through the massive front doors, which were flung open to greet an impossibly long line of guests that snaked along the perimeter of the drive.
For a brief moment his heart rose with hope. Hope, not for the earl to give back what he’d taken, but for Sophia to be there, at the door, her gold eyes alight with mischief. Would she be wearing that pale pink gown of hers, the one with the rosettes embroidered about the neckline? Or, more daringly, the gauzy confection she wore to his own soiree? The invitation had said something about a masquerade . . .
Heart pounding, Hope tugged the strings of his white leather domino into some semblance of a knot at the back of his head, his fingers for a moment getting lost in the tangled nest of his curls.
Regret be damned. If he was going to see Sophia tonight, or win back the diamond—he wasn’t stupid enough to hope for both—he could not afford to waste a single moment.
Mr. Hope waited rather less patiently than was polite in the receiving line. While he understood that this was the first ball the earl had hosted since he’d come into the title some years ago, it did not excuse the snail-like progression of introductions.
After waiting a lifetime—five minutes, actually, but who was counting?—Mr. Hope ducked into the shrubbery and strode through the front doors beside his grace the Duke of Devonshire, who, as the infamous bachelor duke, arrived alone, and started in that baffled, Labrador-like way curious to the English.
“Hope, old boy, out to avenge your honor?” The duke wagged his heavy brows. “I’ve been reading up on your diamond, ho ho!”
“My honor’s been shot to hell, your grace.”
The duke pulled back so violently he nearly fell down the stair, his face wide with horror. “Good God, but what will you do?”
Hope shrugged. “Die, I suppose.”
The duke gaped at him as if his brain had just exploded inside his skull. Only after Hope slapped him, hard, on the back, did his good humor return. “Ho, ho, it can’t be as bad as all that. You, without honor. Ho ho! What will you live for, old boy? What will you live for?”
Hope turned to glance up the stair. There, standing at the top of the landing as if God himself had sent her down from heaven to answer the duke’s idiotic query, stood Miss Sophia Blaise.
She was wearing the gown of gauze; the nymph gown. Her dark curls were gathered loosely at the back of her head, a stray lock or two brushing her temples as she smiled at something Cousin Violet was saying.
Hope’s gaze darted to the fingers of her left hand. Damnation; she was wearing gloves. But there was no hint of the ring through the fine satin, and he’d seen no mention of the engagement in the papers or gossip sheets.
Not that he’d been looking, of course . . .
Stop.
It took a special kind of idiot to believe a debutante as wicked, and as wickedly pretty, as Sophia would ever refuse the season’s most eligible bachelor.
Bah. Even thinking the words most eligible bachelor made Hope recoil in distaste. Really, he had to stop reading the gossip sheets.
The Marquess of Withington was heir to a family that traced its lineage back to some hideously handsome medieval knight, who, after saving England from those devil-worshipping Yorkists at Bosworth Field, built the family’s current rambling seat with his own two hands and the help of six strapping sons. His title was ancient and his fortune enormous; almost as enormous as his fashionably furry sideburns.
His was the name that every debutante whispered into her pillow at night. Sophia, with her dreams of a brilliant match, was no different. She’d be a fool to pass up the chance to marry the Marquess of Withington. What with the prince regent being more akin to a hippopotamus than King Arthur, a match with the marquess was even better than a match with royalty.
Hope climbed the stairs slowly, Devonshire breathing heavily beside him.
Sophia turned to him, her smile fading as if in his gaze she could read his dark thoughts. In the molten light of the chandeliers above her eyes burned a deep shade of amber, depthless pools of passion. Whatever she was feeling, she felt it acutely, wholly; she teetered on the edge of something nameless, and it bothered him that he could not assuage it.
His grace the duke bowed low, murmuring some nonsense about the weather and its effect on his delicate knees before excusing himself as one of his mistresses, this one decked out in head-to-toe peacock feathers, tickled him on the ear as she passed.
This left Hope flat-footed and openmouthed before Lady Violet, Sophia, and Lady Blaise. He felt Sophia’s presence beside him as one might feel heat from standing too close to a fire. The urge to touch her, to look her shamelessly in the eye, overwhelmed him.
Stop.
Hope pulled off his ridiculous mask, attempting to quell the rapid beating of his heart with thoughts of the diamond, the earl, the bank. He was here to get back what Harclay had taken from him. He was here to protect all those who depended on him.
He was here to fight back in the name of his family.
He turned to Lady Violet.
“Our plot is still in play, yes?” he asked, a bit more breathlessly than he intended.
With no little impatience Violet replied that yes, the plot was still in play, and yes, if Harclay did not hand over the French Blue, she would have him arrested. From the way her eyes wandered toward the crush of the ballroom, looking for the earl, waiting for him to make his move, Hope didn’t believe her, not for a second.
Especially not with the slip of paper held in the hand she clutched to her breast. It peeked out between her first and second fingers, a small sliver of fine, smooth-edged stationery. He peered closer, trying to make out the embossed seal half-hidden by her glove.
His weary eyes betrayed him; years spent poring over ledgers in the dark had ruined his sight. But he knew, he knew, it was a note from the earl.
Harclay was here.
Hope scanned the ballroom that thrummed beyond the arched threshold, parsing through the masked and feathered and bejeweled faces. Damn him, Harclay had done it on purpose; with everyone in disguise, that devil could move freely about without anyone the wiser.
Well. Two could play this game, Hope thought with a harrumph, and went about refastening the ties of his mask.
Only they kept getting tangled in the wild mass of his hair.
“Here,” came a voice, soft, from beside him. “Let me help you, Mr. Hope.”
He froze, casting a sidelong glance at Sophia as she raised her arms.
“Thank you.” He let his arms fall to his sides as her fingers went to work.
“It is my pleasure.”
Hope sucked in a small breath as her fingertips grazed his scalp; a wave of goose bumps broke out on his neck and arms.
The silence between them was broken by Lady Blaise’s twittering about moving on, why, look, the dancing’s begun, and is that the Dowager Baroness Hat-Wittlesby . . .
“There you are.” Sophia patted him lightly on the shoulder.
“Does the white suit me?”
“Not at all.”
Sophia smiled. Hope’s heart lurched.
“I thought I might stand out from all those would-be rogues in their dashing black leather.” He sighed. “I suppose one can’t win them all, Miss Blaise.”
She blushed, her eyes never leaving his. “I suppose not.”
For a moment they stood, eyes locked, at the top of the stairs, guests prodding and elbowing their way past them. The music had started; somewhere in the back of his mind, Hope registered the one-two-three of a waltz.
He felt desire welling up inside him, grief, too, a kind singular to the sort from which he’d suffered all these years for his family. His heart was full enough of mourning; he did not want to have to mourn Sophia, too.
Stop.
The French Blue.
The bank.
And that bloody bastard the earl.
When he opened his mouth to speak, Sophia rose with hope, eyes wide and willing. Pain ripped through him, pain and rage and the desire to throw her over his shoulder and leave this place forever, the rest be damned.
Stop.
He tore his eyes from her as he fell into an awkwardly stiff bow; and because he could not bear to see her disappointment, he turned and without another word stalked into the ballroom.
For a moment the edges of his vision blurred. Stop, stop, stop you bloody fool, stop; the words came in time to the savage pounding of his heart. The agony of leaving Sophia alone, of leaving her so rudely and abruptly to chase after that bloody jewel, left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Hope stole a coupe of champagne from a passing footman and downed it in a single gulp. There, that helped; the ballroom materialized around him, the lilting music, the scents of sweat and spilled wine, the honeyed light of twinkling chandeliers above. He returned the coupe to the gaping footman’s tray and stepped into the crush.
The ballroom appeared to be evenly divided: half using the waltz as an excuse to grope one another, half yelling above the din that said dance would lead them all straight to hell. Yes, yes indeed, the waltz was the harbinger of the apocalypse, and did you see the way the Earl of Harclay swept into the ballroom, that dashing black leather mask of his . . .
“Pardon me, Lady Featherstone.” Hope watched with no little satisfaction as both her chins flushed at his smile. “Did you say the earl has at last made his appearance?”
“Oh, Mr. Hope, yes, yes indeed!” Lady Featherstone leaned in, the wisps of her wig flying in the furious batting of her fan, and lowered her voice. “He’s dancing with Lady Violet Rutledge! Out of all the girls in England, he picks a degenerate gambler, and did you know she openly professes her love for liquor! . . .”
“Thank you,” Hope said, peering in the direction of her outstretched arm. Ah, yes, there they were; there was no missing them, pressed against one another as if these were their last moments on earth. The heat between them was palpable, even from here.
Indeed, a small circle of observers had gathered around them, staring incredulously. From the crowd there rose an audible gasp, loud enough to cause the musicians to falter. Hope’s heart went to his throat; he pushed toward Violet, desperate to see what was happening, what would happen next.
The crush here was thick and stubborn. No one, it seemed, wished to relinquish their position at the forefront of what was sure to prove this season’s greatest scandal.
Hope ducked; he leapt into the air; still he could see nothing.
At last, squeezing between two potbellies, Hope found himself inside the circle.
His eyes fell on Lady Violet.
There, strung from a collar of glittering white diamonds, was the French Blue, nestled just above the overeager rise of Lady Violet’s bosom.
The French Blue.
Disbelief pulsed through him, along with a wave of panic so strong it made him nauseous. Without thinking he leapt into motion, pushing bodies out of the way as he made for Violet, the diamond, his salvation.
The Earl of Harclay was nowhere to be found; it seemed he’d vanished as quickly, as inexplicably, as he’d appeared some moments before.
The crush was terrible, and even with the advantage of his height and breadth he could make little headway. His heart raced. He was close, so close, he couldn’t let the diamond out of his sight . . .
If only for Sophia. If only to save her family’s meager fortune, her cousin, her mother, and her uncle. If only for Sophia, he would reclaim the diamond, make it his once more.
When at last he trampled his way to the middle of the room, Lord Harclay had, predictably, disappeared; Violet was nowhere to be found. He frantically searched the sea of faces that surrounded him on all sides, thousands and thousands of masked people he did not recognize. Was that the back of her head there? Or her skirts, was she wearing blue, or had it been white? No, no, he thought, ticking off faces as he looked, not her, not her, definitely not her . . .
But then he caught sight of a small ripple on the sea’s surface, a parting of bodies as if someone were snaking between them. He followed the movement as it made its way across the ballroom and into the gallery beyond; as the figure rounded the corner, he caught the glimmer of a gauzy gown, followed by the flash of diamonds.
It was Violet. She was going after the earl, wherever he’d disappeared to.
Hope pushed and prodded his way after her, ignoring the cries and gasps of outrage as he went. He wasn’t about to lose the French Blue, not after he’d come so far; not after all he’d lost, and still had to lose.
He stumbled into the gallery just as Lady Violet ducked through the narrow servants’ door at the far end of the hallway. Hope paused, catching his breath, his mind racing with options, his chances, what his next move should be; and as he stood there, his eyes of their own volition settled on
a shapely figure in an alcove to his right.
Sophia stood dutifully next to her mother as Lady Blaise chatted with a circle of flush-faced matrons. Watching Sophia, face studiously blank as if she were about to weep, eyes darting over her mother’s shoulder in search of him—he knew she was looking for him—something inside Hope broke and began to bleed. He felt the poison seeping into his lungs, weighing down his limbs and his will to move on.
But he had to move on. Move, but his feet remained planted on the parquet floor of Harclay’s high-ceilinged hall.
Hope gritted his teeth. There would be time enough for grief. Right now he had to move.
Only with tremendous effort did he coax his body into motion. Down the gallery, through the door, he nearly fell down the darkened corridor of the servants’ stair. His unexpected tumble lent him momentum, and the cacophony of the kitchens passed by in a whirl of scents and shouts and the clatter of pots.
He heard Violet’s voice, soft and breathless, followed by the burly cook’s booming reply: “He’s thataway, my lady. Just missed ’im, you did. You’d best hurry!”
He followed Violet into the servants’ quarters at the back of the house. Violet was calling for Harclay, William, William, wait, as her footsteps quickened on the cold stone floor.
Hope followed her through the back kitchen door and out into the night, skidding on the loose gravel of the drive. Lady Violet was several paces in front of him; she was cursing, something about damning said William to hell; in answer to her curses, an enormous coach silently materialized out of the darkness.
Hope plastered himself against the house’s far outer wall, peering through a thorny tangle of a rosebush. The vehicle slowed but did not stop; the door flung open, and with a little yelp, Violet was swept from her feet and into the carriage, the door clicking quietly shut behind her.
His blood rushed as he bolted out into the drive. Had Lady Violet, with that fifty-carat diamond about her neck, been kidnapped? Hope was as tired of that plot as anyone, but it did make sense; it wouldn’t be the first time the French Blue was thieved out from under his nose.
The Millionaire Rogue Page 30
