“I can barely see a thing,” he murmured, which was true enough. He could barely see those legs. He could barely make out the curls covering her sex. He could barely see her nipples. His own arousal, hidden by the cloak, was all but killing him to see more of what he’d caressed downstairs. “As I told the valet, you look as if you might be a ghost. Or maybe you’re just an angel come to tempt me.”
“Oh, but devils don’t need tempting. Did you not tempt me into leaving my carriage the other night? I certainly didn’t tempt you into stopping our carriage and taking my betrothal ring, did I?”
“But you’re tempting me now.”
Her steady gaze pierced his own, as if she were taking careful note of his eye color. He wasn’t certain she could easily determine that through the eyeholes, and by mere candlelight.
“You just said you could barely see a thing,” she said softly.
“That’s true. I’m compelled to use my imagination. You might imagine what I’m imagining.”
He definitely caught the smile that lit up her face more brightly than the candelabrum of five tapers that flickered on the dressing table on the other side of the room. “Do you really wish me to remove your mask?”
“So I can see you better, or so you can see me better?” He kept his hands locked at his sides, not so much to give her the chance to rip the mask away, but to keep them from fondling those thinly veiled breasts that continued to tantalize him.
“Oh, I’m afraid it would ruin everything if I did.” She sighed wistfully, offering him a rueful smile as she tilted her head to one side. Or maybe that was Jack cocking his head the better to see her, like a hungry wolf preying upon an innocent maiden lost in the woods.
“How would it ruin everything if you did?” he asked in genuine bewilderment. “Especially considering you’re already—well…”
“Ruined? Perhaps I’m afraid I might be disappointed to see who’s responsible for my ruin. Because then you’d have to marry me.”
“Alas, highwaymen make terrible husbands. They’re always away at night, and you’re more likely to be widowed sooner rather than later.”
She toyed with the capes on his cloak. “Can’t you find something else to do? Why must you be a highwayman at all? I already know you’re a gentleman from a good family.” He glimpsed a crease in her brow—from curiosity about who he really was? Worry that despite his family, he might be too much of a reprobate even for her? “Did they cast you out, as my own family has done with me?” With those last words her voice betrayed a hint of despair and vulnerability, and he wished he could take her back into his arms, this time to reassure her.
“Your family hasn’t quite done that yet, or we wouldn’t be searching for that express,” he reminded her.
“Then perhaps you should stand aside while I try to find it. You can’t possibly search with that mask on. You might knock over the candelabrum and start a fire.”
She had a point about that. Jack sat down in the armchair over which he’d tripped
“I must find the coat he wore earlier,” she said. “The housekeeper said he slipped the express into his coat pocket before going upstairs. I should think it would still be draped across the bed or—oh, no. The valet. Was he carrying clothes when he left this bedchamber?”
“I couldn’t see. I wasn’t exactly searching for such a detail.” Certainly not the way he was searching for detail now. “Why didn’t you see? You’re not wearing a mask.”
“That’s because I was hiding my face from him so he wouldn’t see me and be able to describe me to the duke later on. Surely you can appreciate that dilemma.”
“I believe he did say something about picking up clothes, but—”
“Aargh!” she yelped in exasperation. At least she didn’t scream like her cousin Lydia, for which Jack was extremely grateful.
“But,” Jack said again, “perhaps he emptied the pockets before taking the clothes away.”
She gasped and whirled around, and Jack bit back a groan as her night rail floated and swirled around the naked curves beneath it. “Then it must still be in this room somewhere!”
“Check the dressing table.”
She flitted about, bending over this way and that and driving him insane with veiled hints of her delectably shaped derriere, her pointed, upright breasts, and that dusky triangular mound where he ached to imbed himself.
“I can’t find it anywhere!” she rasped in despair. “You don’t suppose…”
That’s when it dawned on Jack, and he silently cursed. “That instead of leaving it on the dressing table, the valet took it back downstairs and left it on the desk?”
“Where we just were.” She actually stamped her foot. “We’ll have to go back down—”
“No, I will go back down, since it’s on my way out.” He bolted from the chair. “I will find the letter and destroy it. Then I will leave the same as I came, so I will bid you a good night now. Only this time, do not come after me.”
How he hated having to say that. How he hated leaving her here in her night rail, without taking further advantage of her—as if he hadn’t taken enough downstairs. But he’d already done enough damage to her honor.
“The thought hadn’t even occurred to me,” she said a little too innocently. Did she really want another kiss? And perhaps more? “But what if a servant should happen to see you?”
“He’s already seen me. He thinks I’m me. I mean the duke.” Jack growled under his breath as he headed for the door.
“Are you quite certain you know who you are?” she called after him.
At this point, Jack wasn’t at all certain of anything except he was rapidly losing his mind—and he knew it was because of Felicity and all the havoc she was wreaking on his wits, his senses, and his sensibilities.
And maybe even his heart.
Down the stairs he clattered, heedless of the noise. Candlelight emanated from the book room, and as he approached the doorway, he nearly collided with the valet, who yelled again and lurched back, nearly dropping the candlestick in his hand.
“It’s only me,” Jack chided him. “Did you happen to find an express from Lady Tyndall in one of my pockets this evening?”
The valet’s face looked frightfully waxen as he slumped against the door jamb, clutching a hand to the middle of his chest. “The one that arrived earlier this evening? Yes, Your Grace. I just now put it on your desk.”
“Splendid.” Jack wrested the candle away from him. “I’ll relieve you of this since I now have greater need of it. Go to bed already.”
He rushed across the book room and snatched up the express the valet had left in the very middle of the desk. He shoved it into his pocket and blew out the candle before making his way to the front door, wishing he knew the valet’s name.
There was no help for it. “Valet, are you still there? It’s so bloody late and I’m so foxed and fagged I vow I can’t even remember your name. I’m not even certain who I’m supposed to be at this moment.”
“Charles, Your Grace.”
“Charles! Of course. Since the night is still quite young yet, I do believe I shall go back out and attend another party.”
“Very well, Your Grace. Would you like me to take your mask?”
“No, I think I’ll wear it to my next destination and scare the hell out of everyone, rather like I did you. What a jolly joke, eh?”
“Indeed, my lord.” Charles didn’t sound as if he considered the joke at all jolly. Or even just a joke. “Only what about the—uh—the—uhh—”
No doubt he was scrambling for the right noun to describe Felicity, but Jack didn’t have time to toy any further with whatever might remain of the valet’s own wits. “Whatever it is, it can wait till the morrow, Charles.”
“The ghost, Your Grace! What about the ghost?”
“Don’t be silly, Charles. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“But—”
“Now good night.” Jack slipped out the front door and made it
to the street without being seen or having another mishap caused by the eyeholes in his mask. He crossed the street and ducked into the shadows before doffing the mask and wiping the sweat from his brow. He took a moment to catch his breath and gather his scattered wits as he watched a carriage rumble up the street, only to stop before the duke’s townhouse.
Her cousin had finally returned, in which case Jack needed to get far away from here before Charles learned he’d just been bamboozled. Jack darted down the street, ducking back into the shadows as a man on horseback galloped past in the opposite direction.
Fortunately, Ellsworth House, his sister and brother-in-law’s residence, was just around the corner. He entered through the kitchen, where he lit a candle. He wanted to read Lady Tyndall’s latest express before setting it aflame. What did she have to say about him—or rather, the highwayman—in regards to Felicity? He broke the wafer with his thumbnail and opened the missive, bracing himself for a hysterical, exaggerated account of how all four and twenty of his wicked selves had taken turns ravishing her with ten foot long bayonets.
Dear Blake, Lord Renton talks of taking all of us to Brighton for some sea-bathing and to see the Royal Pavilion, and for that Lydia will need a new—
This time Jack cursed aloud as he crumpled the note and threw it into the darkest corner of the kitchen.
Since that didn’t make him feel any better or otherwise solve anything, he retrieved it and smoothed it out on the table next to the candle. The message said not one word about Felicity.
Now he wondered if the harridan had indeed written any incriminating message about Felicity. Howland said she had. And Felicity herself had corroborated it, which was why she’d come into the duke’s book room in the first place this evening.
Then he remembered the horseman he’d seen galloping hell for leather toward Halstead House. He must have been about to deliver the express.
Jack groaned and blew out the candle as he realized he had no choice about what he would have to do, after all.
* * * *
Felicity returned to her bedchamber long enough to grab a bathrobe, and then she did the same foolish—yes, she knew jolly well it was beyond foolish—but the same foolish thing she did the night she first encountered him.
She went after him, but not because he’d left without something she couldn’t identify—because this time, he hadn’t left without it. She just wanted to make certain he had the very express they’d been seeking.
She reached the head of the staircase in time to hear him slip out the door after assuring the baffled valet that there was no such thing as ghosts and bidding him a terse good night. He must’ve found the express, or perhaps the valet had given it to him.
But she had to make certain.
She waited until the valet’s footsteps disappeared toward the rear of the house where the servants’ staircase was, and then she gingerly crept down the stairs in pitch darkness. She’d have to light another candle, but she’d only need a moment to confirm the damning express was no longer sitting in the very middle of Blake’s desk.
Just as she reached his desk, the front door loudly clicked open again, and her heart jumped straight up her throat.
“Not one?” said a woman’s voice that she recognized as Aunt Dolly’s. Still, it wasn’t enough to peel Felicity’s heart from the roof of her mouth. “You didn’t see even one who made you think, ‘The Duchess of Halstead’?”
“No, Mother. I did not see a single one who reminded me of you.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Dolly said curtly.
Felicity held her breath. She marveled that Blake and Dolly couldn’t hear the hammering of her heart, which she swore was now just inside her ear.
“Good evening, Charles!” said Blake. “Or perhaps I should say good morning! What are you doing here at this hour with the candelabrum?”
“Why, I just saw Your Grace out this door a moment ago.”
“What the devil? Charles, are you foxed, or have you just been asleep all this time? You saw me out this door four hours ago.”
“Never mind that,” Dolly quavered. “Someone is coming up the front steps. Who could it be at this hour, but a footpad come to attack us?”
Panic seized Felicity. The highwayman had come back? But why? Could he have taken the wrong express from Blake’s desk? There were so blasted many from Aunt Cordelia…
“Oh, it’s just a messenger, no doubt with another express from Cordelia about some trifle for her or Lydia,” grumbled Blake. “See to that, will you, Charles?”
Dash and blast! That must be the one Felicity wanted destroyed before Blake could see it—or worse, Aunt Dolly. She pressed herself against the bookcase, thankful she hadn’t yet lit a candle. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to lurk too long until they all went upstairs and then she could finally go back to—she gasped at the sudden flare of light in the doorway.
The valet screamed almost like Lydia, nearly dropping the candelabrum.
“What on earth?” exclaimed Dolly.
“Charles, what is it?” demanded Blake. “A ghost?”
The valet struggled to steady the candelabrum in both hands as he gawped at Felicity, who stood rigidly against the bookcase. “Yes, yes! The same one who—well, just as you say, Your Grace!”
“The same one what? Kindly give me that candelabrum before you set the house ablaze.”
Felicity didn’t even budge. At this point, there was simply no…well, point.
“Blake, no!” Dolly cried. “If it’s a ghost—”
“Oh, it’s just Felicity,” he said, as if she were a longstanding fixture in the book room, like the shelves or his desk. “What the devil are you doing here, Felicity?”
“I—I was just looking for a book to read. I couldn’t sleep.”
He crossed the room and set the candelabrum on the desk, looking down at the papers she’d swept to the floor earlier after snatching up her night rail. “Don’t you think it’d be easier to find a book if you had a bit of light by which to see?” He bent down to scoop up the papers. “You’re lucky you only knocked some papers off my desk.”
She managed a feeble smile. “I was about to light a candle when you and Aunt Dolly came in the door.”
He grinned back, and she had to remind herself not to be lulled by that grin. Any moment now she was going to meet her doom unless she could somehow talk her way out of it. The valet now knew who she was, but what if he realized the masked man hadn’t been the duke?
“You shouldn’t have let us stop you,” said Blake. “Of course now with this candelabrum, there’s no need, is there? So what brings you to Town?” He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Please don’t tell me Cordelia and Lydia came, too. As it is, I can barely refrain from locking my mother in the attic.”
Dolly flew into the book room. “What is Felicity doing here? I take it Cordelia and Lydia came, too, and that’s why Cordelia sent this express in my hand?”
Alarm spiked through Felicity as Dolly plucked a pin from her feather-bedecked coiffure and inserted it into the seal of the express.
“Aunt Dolly, I haven’t seen you in so long! How are you?” Felicity flew over to the duchess and tentatively reached for the partially open express. “May I take that for you? You must be tired after such a long journey—I mean evening.”
Dolly skewered Felicity with a sharp glare and kept the express out of her reach. “Maybe I’m not the one who’s so tired—at least not after such a long journey. I thought you were in Sussex with Cordelia and Lydia and what’s his name?”
“It’s been a long night for all of us. Why don’t we all go upstairs and to bed, and we can talk some more on the morrow?” Felicity thought she’d never sounded brighter.
Or more desperate.
Dolly narrowed her eyes. “Methinks this express might give a clue as to why and how you came here on your own.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s just another request from Aunt Cordelia for Blake to send Ly
dia more ribbons or something.”
“My money’s on the something.” Dolly thrust the missive at her son. “Read it aloud, Blake.”
He unfolded it and held it near the candlelight. “‘Dear Blake, Felicity is coming to London today on the mail coach—’”
“The mail coach!” Dolly burst out. “Without a chaperone?”
“She writes nothing of a chaperone,” Blake said, and resumed reading. “‘You must make immediate arrangements for her to be sent to the farm in Northumberland where she should remain indefinitely. She ended her betrothal to Renton—’”
“What? Why, that’s even worse than traveling on a mail coach without a chaperone!” Dolly looked apoplectic. “And he just inherited a title. What’s the matter with you, girl?”
Blake continued reading the letter. “Cordelia writes, ‘She ended her betrothal to Renton after she was compromised by a thieving rogue who cannot marry her. I shan’t go into more detail as I must get this posted anon if it is to reach you before this eve and it will cost even more coin if I write on a second page and I’m still waiting for you to send more…’” He furrowed his brow and turned the paper sideways as if that would help him decipher the rest of whatever Cordelia had written, but he only shook his head before glancing at Felicity. “I dare not ask what he stole, but just who is this rogue you can’t marry?”
“And why can’t you marry him?” Dolly interjected. “Where can he be found?”
Felicity had never thought so fast in her life. Cordelia hadn’t said anything to indicate the rogue in question was more specifically a highwayman. And while she was very certain Captain Jordan was the culprit, she wasn’t entirely certain.
But that’s when she knew what to tell them.
Chapter Thirteen
Jack sat in the dining room of Ellsworth House late the next morning, breaking his fast with his brother-in-law. The two had swiftly become fast friends, having both fought in the Peninsular War and sharing two different kinds of love for Samantha.
The Highwayman's Lady (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 16
