A Noble Masquerade

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  As she sipped her tea, she noticed a square of paper on the tray, partially covered by the teapot, a bit of it in a puddle of spilt tea. How odd.

  With a frown she plucked the paper from the tray, shook off the tea, and opened it. Shaky handwriting scrawled across the scrap of parchment.

  Your family I shall spare, but you will feel the pain. And no one will save you.

  Miranda bobbled her teacup, sending drops of tea splashing to the floor before she managed to plop the cup back onto the tray.

  She studied the paper, reading the short missive over and over again. What did this mean? Why would someone threaten her? Or was the note intended for Griffith? The note said they would be spared, but was her family in danger?

  Her teeth sank into her lip as she looked to the window, still streaked by falling rain. The fragrant steam from the tea that had been so calming mere moments before now seemed ominous, the bearer of bad tidings.

  One thing was certain. She needed help. Someone who knew how to deal with something such as this.

  As she pulled her cloak around herself and snuck down the stairs, part of her acknowledged that she was using this as an excuse, but she didn’t care. If she took the note to Griffith he would assure her he could take care of it, but Miranda had her doubts. Griffith was a man of business and politics. He was completely upfront about everything. What did he know about protecting them from an ominous threat? She would rather err on the side of caution and protect her family.

  And there was one man she knew would know how to do that.

  Chapter 30

  Price returned to the drawing room. Was it Ryland’s imagination, or was the man puffing himself up to appear even larger than he already was? Aunt Marguerite’s lips thinned into a belabored frown. Ryland decided to give the man a bonus.

  “Your Grace, I’m afraid your presence is needed in the library.”

  Ryland sighed, took a gulp of tea, and grabbed another sandwich as he stood. One more thing to thank God for when he prayed tonight.

  He left the drawing room, and Price fell into step beside him.

  “Jess found something when she was lurking in the streets this evening.”

  Ryland nearly choked on the ham in his mouth. “She went out in this?”

  Price shrugged. “She wanted to keep an eye on Grosvenor Square a bit longer. She said something didn’t feel right.”

  Ryland began to get nervous. He’d had that same feeling ever since he’d washed the Thames from his hair. “What did she find?”

  A large blunt-fingered hand gestured to the study door.

  Ice skittered down Ryland’s back. “She brought it back?”

  Price nodded.

  Ryland opened the door just enough to slip inside, careful to keep anyone from seeing anything they didn’t need to see. Jess stood near the French doors, water dripping off the moth-eaten wool cap she wore as part of her disguise. Next to her was the last person he expected to see in his study.

  “Hello, Ryland.”

  He blinked. “Miranda?” Panic surged through Ryland’s blood as he watched Miranda wring her hands. She stood in the corner wearing an expression he couldn’t decipher. Was she scared? Angry? Sad? It didn’t matter. If Jess had brought Miranda here, something must have gone horribly wrong.

  He looked at Price and then Jess, but both of them were too experienced to allow anything to show in their expressions. The information was going to have to be pulled out of them. “What is she doing here?”

  Price nodded in the direction of Jess, a dirty bundle of rags with stringy blond hair, as she plopped down in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. “Jess brought her in through the back. She swears no one saw them.”

  Jess shrugged and reached for a nearby dish of peppermints. She popped one in her mouth and then indicated Miranda with a wave of her hand. “She was planning to sneak over here anyway. I assumed you’d prefer she actually make it undetected.”

  Ryland’s gaze homed in on Miranda. He was going to throttle her. Never mind that she had no idea what danger could have surrounded them had the baron not been arrested—she was here alone, which meant she’d been planning on coming unescorted. That was reason enough to be mad at her. “You were coming here? Alone? What were you thinking?”

  He could see the instant her befuddlement was overcome by anger. Her hands went to her hips, her brow lowered, and her mouth pulled tight at the corners. Her eyes bored into him as she took a deep breath and spit out a tirade.

  “What was I thinking? Maybe I was thinking that you owed me some answers. It’s possible I wanted to tell you what a cad you are for leaving me to wonder if you’d ended up in a ditch somewhere. Now I think I’ll call you on the carpet for having me watched! I’m assuming this person works for you.” She stalked across the room and stood behind Jess’s chair. “She practically abducted me out of Grosvenor Square! I had one of those filthy mittens stuffed in my mouth. There is dirt between my teeth.”

  She sidestepped the chair so she could continue advancing on her target, which appeared to be him. Her finger was now stretched out, stabbing the air to make her point. Five more steps and it would be boring into his chest.

  “I was hauled through places I never knew existed, fearing for my life because she certainly saw no need to enlighten me as to where we were going.”

  Her scent, the enticing combination of roses and rain, reached him before she did, making it difficult to concentrate on her words. Never before had he faced difficulty concentrating during dangerous situations.

  She glared back at Jess before poking her finger at him again. “Believe me, if I’d had anywhere else to turn I would steer clear of you, but the only thing underhanded about the individuals of my acquaintance is how low they’ll stoop to snag the last of the white silk at the dressmakers! You, on the other hand, spent nine years doing heaven only knows what!”

  She was beautiful. His brainpower and focus were needed for much more pressing matters, but he couldn’t seem to get past the thought that she was gorgeous. And brave. And strong. And he really needed to think about something else.

  A bit of branch clung to the side of her head, its four spindly twigs forming a lopsided crown. Dirt smudged her flushed cheeks. What path had Jess used to get her here? Her chest heaved with the effort of propelling air in and out of her lungs with considerably more force than necessary for normal breathing.

  He flushed as he pulled his gaze back to her face.

  She swallowed hard, pulling herself back into a more decorous posture. “Now, would you please send your man for some tea? There really is an awful lot of grime in my mouth.”

  He tilted his head toward Price and heard the man open the door and slip out. Ryland’s eyes narrowed as he watched her swallow again and shift her eyes away from a direct connection with his own. The realization that she was scared hit him in the gut with the force of one of Price’s punches. What had she said about needing his underhanded experience?

  Taking her elbow, he led her to the vacant fireside chair. He squatted in front of it and took her icy hands in his own. “What happened?”

  “I-I was walking across the square. I slipped out the servant door so that Gibson wouldn’t see me. This, um, young lady—”

  Jess snorted out a laugh.

  “—appeared out of nowhere and asked me for a coin. I didn’t give her one, but she persisted in walking next to me. I don’t know how she knew where I was going—”

  “I didn’t. Not really. You said you were on urgent business to meet a friend. You was shaking and frightened.” Jess shrugged and chomped down on the mint. “If you wasn’t coming here, you shoulda been.”

  Ryland cleared his throat and swallowed a smile. “Jess, why don’t you go get cleaned up and out of character. I’m going to have a hard enough time as it is convincing Miranda that you are actually a gently born lady.”

  Jess grinned, revealing wide straight teeth blackened to make them appear crooked and broken at a glance. �
��As you wish, guv’nor.”

  Jess slipped out the door with a jaunty salute. Ryland hooked a foot on the leg of her vacated chair and pulled it closer to Miranda’s. He shifted to sit in it without losing his hold of her hands.

  Miranda’s eyes seemed fixated on their joined hands. “She stuffed a mitten in my mouth and hauled me into the bush. We went down I don’t know how many alleys—although I’m sure we circled behind Brooks’ at some point. Then we ended up here.”

  She shrugged. One hand slipped free of his clasp and began tracing the fine white line of an old scar that ran along the back of his hand and across his thumb. While Ryland didn’t mind the caress in the least, he felt certain it was an indication that her concentration was elsewhere. Most likely on whatever had driven her to him in the first place.

  “Why were you coming here?”

  “I found a note.”

  The icy fear that had ridden his back earlier stabbed through his skin and seized his heart. The door clicked open and he jerked, shifting to the edge of the chair, ready to pounce on the intruder if need be. It was only Price with the requested tea and a plate of sandwiches. Telling himself to at least appear relaxed, Ryland rolled his shoulders and eased back in the chair.

  Miranda slipped her hands from his and busied herself with the tea. She slid a cup in his direction, fixed the same way he’d requested it of her that first night in her brother’s library. It was possible that ladylike decorum had drilled in her the need to remember how people took their tea, but he chose to believe that even then she’d noticed the attraction between them. At least enough to take note of how he took his tea.

  He cleared his throat and his mind. “A note? Did you bring it with you?”

  It had to be a coincidence. There could be a million reasons why someone would threaten Miranda. She was connected to the powerful Duke of Riverton after all. Hope plummeted as he saw the shaky black scrawl on the paper she pulled from her sleeve.

  “I think someone is after Griffith.”

  Ryland paused in the process of reaching for the note. It wouldn’t be out of the question for Baron Listwist to have threatened more than one aristocrat if he’d been panicking. He hadn’t seemed like a panicked man that morning, though. “And you received it today?”

  She nodded. “This evening.”

  He slipped the note from her fingers.

  With the slightest jerk of his head he called Price over. The man leaned down, eyes on the note, ears ready for instruction. “Send someone to Grosvenor Square. Have them keep an eye on Griffith. And the rest of them as well.”

  Price nodded and left the room once more, shutting the door behind him. Ryland stared at the door latch. It didn’t matter that the matter was sensitive and possibly dangerous, he shouldn’t be alone in the study with Miranda. That she wasn’t calling him out on it meant that she was too flustered to notice or had already decided in favor of his suit, despite his not showing up for the agreed-upon ride.

  Either alternative left him shaken, so he focused on the note instead.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “On my tea tray. We decided to stay in tonight, with the poor weather and all. I rang for tea. When the weather is bad, Mrs. Brantley always keeps a tea tray ready so all she has to do is pour hot water into the pot and have it delivered. I suppose someone thought the tray was meant for Griffith and tucked the note on it.”

  Ryland frowned. It was plausible, but very sloppy. There was no way of knowing the tray would get to the intended target. Why risk such a note falling into unintended hands?

  Her cup rattled in its saucer, and she carefully eased it onto the table. “I don’t think it’s the first note.”

  That caught his attention. “Why not?”

  “Because he doesn’t say why he’s mad. Don’t they normally say why they’re mad? How else can someone rectify the situation?” Miranda’s eyes were wide. She wrapped the fingers of both hands around her steaming teacup and pulled it to her lap. It was nearly full. Had she drunk any of it?

  He fought with himself. How much to tell her? Should he let her believe there were other notes or enlighten her of the fact that once a lunatic got the idea in his head that he’d been wronged and vengeance was required, nothing was going to rectify the situation. In his experience, if the problem had deteriorated into anonymous, vague threats, someone was going to get shot before the whole thing ended. He preferred making sure it wasn’t him or someone he cared for.

  Their eyes met. He couldn’t lie to her. All of his adult life had been spent in shadows, but he’d held on to his integrity with a death grip. The idea that he was about to bring more fear into her life made him cringe, but there was no help for it.

  “I don’t know that—”

  He was cut off by the sudden opening of the door.

  Miranda jumped as the door clicked shut almost as soon as it swung open. She peeked around the back of her wing chair to see who had entered. A slight maid hastened across the room. Her dress was light brown and it was covered nearly to her ankles by a crisp white apron. “Your aunt is coming.”

  The sentence was still sinking in to Miranda’s brain when Ryland jumped up from his chair. He kicked open the door to a cabinet resting below his bookshelves. He slid the tea service in and swung the door closed.

  The maid hauled Miranda out of the chair and across the room to the solid walnut desk. The massive piece of furniture rested directly on the floor on three sides. Miranda found herself shoved down into the knee space of the desk, the maid squeezing in behind her, blocking her from the opening.

  “Who are you?” Miranda hissed. Really. Ryland had the strangest staff she’d ever seen, and she had been privy to some interesting households.

  A single blond brow inched up the forehead of a face that could have graced a porcelain doll. The door clicked open just as the maid was opening her mouth to answer. She snapped her teeth shut. Her arm shot out and stuffed a corner of her apron in Miranda’s mouth.

  Surprise made a more effective gag than the apron. This beautiful waif was the rugged street urchin Jess? Surely Ryland didn’t employ two women that would so quickly resort to stuffing fabric into Miranda’s mouth to ensure silence.

  Movement on the other side of the desk reminded her why the need for silence existed.

  “Do you intend to stay in this evening? There is a break in the weather, and it looks as if I shall be able to go out after all. Perhaps you would like to join me.” It was a woman’s voice, presumably the aunt.

  “I believe I shall decline, aunt. All the rain has put me in the mood for a good book,” Ryland answered.

  “So I see. Hmmm, by a lady. Sounds . . . delightful.” Her tone indicated that it sounded anything but.

  Miranda clapped her hand over her apron-filled mouth to stifle a giggle. In his haste Ryland had grabbed a novel as his shield. She wondered if it was the same book she’d read earlier this year. It had been authored simply “by a lady.”

  Jess’s eyes jerked in her direction. Apparently satisfied that Miranda wasn’t going to give away their location, she turned back to watching the edge of the desk.

  “It is,” Ryland answered.

  Silence dragged on for several moments. Miranda’s leg began to cramp. She thought about moving it, but a glare from Jess convinced her that she was better off in pain. Finally the aunt made a comment about having the carriage brought around and the door opened and closed once more.

  Jess’s arm shot out to hold Miranda still. The scraping sound of a page being turned echoed through the quiet study. Miranda glanced at Jess, who appeared to be waiting for some sort of signal from Ryland. Was his aunt actually still in the room?

  The door swung back open with a whoosh.

  “One more thing,” said the aunt.

  “Hmmm?” answered Ryland, sounding for all the world like a man absorbed in his reading.

  “When Gregory returns, tell him I’ve gone to Lady Chevelle’s dinner after all. He may join me t
here if he wishes.”

  “Why don’t you tell Price? He’s much more likely to see him than I am.”

  Did the woman hiss? Miranda wriggled her toes in her slipper, trying to stave off the prickly feeling spreading from her ankle.

  After a moment, light footsteps crossed the floor. The swish of fabric indicated the woman had yanked on the bellpull. “There. When that infernal butler comes, you can relay the message. If you insist on employing him, you can deal with him.”

  Footsteps crossed the room once more, and the door slammed shut.

  With nothing better to do, Miranda started counting. She had just reached ten when Jess slid out from under the desk, dragging the apron from Miranda’s mouth. With considerable effort, Miranda unfolded herself and followed.

  Ryland’s hand appeared, offering her assistance in rising.

  “What was that about? She never comes to this room.” Jess busied herself extracting the tea service from the cabinet.

  “I believe I made her suspicious with my friendly overture this afternoon.”

  A grin split the maid’s face as she set the tray back on the table. “An overture? Toward your family? Are you feeling all right?”

  Ryland shrugged. “It was Jeffreys’ idea.”

  Miranda watched the exchange with equal parts awe and foreboding. Free of her urchin disguise, Jess was indeed a beautiful woman. With a silk dress and the proper coiffure she would compete with Georgina in any ballroom in London. That she and Ryland were so familiar with each other was disturbing, to say the least.

  Jess poured more tea into the cups. “Jeffreys doesn’t understand that some families don’t get along. Not families like ours, anyway.”

  Miranda couldn’t handle any more. Jealousy unlike anything she’d experienced toward Georgina welled within her. This woman had more in common with Ryland than Miranda ever would. “You two seem awfully familiar.”

  An impish grin crossed Jess’s face. “It’s not surprising. We were married, after all.”

  Chapter 31