Lady Penelope's Christmas Charade, a Regency Romance

by Lilia Birney

  A loud commotion sounded in the hall, and the study door burst open. Clarice Dupont sailed into the room, trailed by Jane’s butler.

  “Madame Dupont to see you, ma’am,” he panted, trying to push past Clarice’s elegant and graceful figure.

  “I need no announcement,” she reprimanded him shortly. “I have urgent business to discuss with these two ladies. If you will excuse us.”

  Jane motioned for her butler to leave, and he did so, wounded dignity apparent in the rigid set of his shoulders as he quit the room.

  Clarice seized Penelope’s hands and sat beside her. “Your thief-taker is in danger.”

  Penelope’s heart lurched. “How do you know, Clarice?”

  “I was having dinner at home with the Duke, when some of his cronies stopped by,” Clarice replied, her large eyes wide with worry. “And I happened to overhear one of them speaking about the Gilded Lily. Of course, you know I pricked my ears up then, as I knew about your association with the Barclay Agency and the Lily. This gentleman, whom I had not seen before, mentioned that the Bow Street Runners now had enough information to shut the Lily down, thanks to a thief-taker who had informed on Lord Adam Cavendish.”

  “Cavendish hosted the stag party we attended,” Penelope gasped. “Pierce must have found something out on Lord Adam when we were in Derbyshire. Is he connected to the Lily?”

  Clarice nodded. “Yes. I asked the duke after they left how Cavendish was connected to the Lily. He has heard rumors that Cavendish owns the Barclay Agency and has a vested interest in the Lily. If his connection is found out, it will be a huge scandal, and if the Lily is shut down, then Cavendish will lose a fortune.”

  “So if Cavendish hosted the stag party, Penelope, then it’s likely that Pierce found the connection while you were at the party,” Jane supplied. Her eyebrows were drawn together and she drummed her fingers on her lap—the pose Penelope had come to recognize over the years as her “I am thinking as an author” pose. “So, in some way, Cavendish must have learned the truth about who Pierce is, and probably sent someone round to shut him up.”

  “There was a man named Jonathan Twist who spoke with me whilst we were on our journey,” Penelope remembered. “And he told me the truth about Pierce—he’s really Lord Pierce Howland, but gave up his title and denied his family connections to make a life as a thief-taker,” she explained to Clarice. “So he must be involved in this in some manner too. He told me he is a thief-taker just like Pierce.”

  “I don’t think Cavendish will kill Pierce. From what I know of the man, and what the duke said tonight, he hasn’t the courage to kill a fly. But even so, there is reason for grave concern.” Clarice leaned closer to Penelope.

  “Pierce was supposed to come by my townhome this afternoon, but he never arrived. He sent a lad around with a message to get ready and pack my trunk. He must have heard from someone—perhaps even someone like Twist—that Cavendish was out to get him.” She paused. “But Clarice—how did you know I was at Jane’s?”

  “I went to your home first, and your butler informed me you had come here. I flew over as quickly as I could. From what it sounds like, Cavendish has Pierce. I don’t know where, but I have my suspicions.” Clarice smiled, an encouraging glint lighting her eyes. “You had the courage to go to the stag party and chase after your maid. I think you probably have the stomach to find Pierce as well.”

  “I do. Do you see, Jane? At last, some advice that doesn’t involve tattling to the Runners.” Penelope’s spirits lifted and her heart began pounding with excitement.

  Jane huffed and lit up a cheroot.

  “Oh, I think we need to send word round to the Runners,” Clarice corrected Penelope. “I can get the duke’s help with that. They will listen to him quicker than they will listen to a handful of women.”

  “Very well,” Penelope agreed. “But I feel like I should try to find Pierce too. I don’t want to sit at home wringing my hands, waiting for the Runners to stop by and report their findings.”

  “I would think that Pierce is probably being held somewhere at the Lily. I mean, just think of it. The place probably has hidden stairways, thugs to guard doors—just about anything that you might need if you were trying to secret someone away.” Jane looked over at Penelope, her eyebrow arched. “So, the question is simple: whore or maid?”

  “If I may…” Clarice interrupted with a discreet cough. “It will be rather dangerous to sneak around the Lily dressed as a whore. Men there are accustomed to taking whatever pleasure they find from anyone who seems ready to supply it. No. I would say you should trade on the theory that to men of a certain class, all maids look the same.”

  “True, that,” Jane responded, slapping her knee. “No one will notice if we sneak in dressed as maids. In fact, they will probably order us about. So, what do you remember about the grounds, Penelope?”

  “I stood on a back porch stoop for an eternity, waiting for Pierce to let me in,” Penelope responded. “It must be the servant’s entrance. We should probably start there, though how we are to get in I haven’t a clue.”

  “We’ll just have to find a way once we get there,” Jane responded confidently. “Well, Clarice? It seems as though Penelope and I have our work cut out for us tonight. Can we depend upon you to engage the duke’s help and inform the Runners of what has transpired?”

  “Absolutely.” Clarice stood, wrapping her shawl securely around her shoulders. “The duke should be coming to visit again shortly. He always goes home after dinner to see to business at his home, and then he comes back to—ahem—sleep at my house.”

  Penelope could not suppress a chuckle. “The ideal man?”

  Clarice’s lovely mouth quirked downwards. “I suppose so.”

  After Clarice departed, Jane and Penelope ran upstairs to Jane’s bedroom and ransacked her wardrobe for appropriate attire. “How on earth do you have not one, but two maid’s costumes?” Penelope held a black gown up to her neck.

  “Um, well, fancy dress parties and the like.” For the first time ever, Jane looked uncomfortable—embarrassed even. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes downcast.

  “Or perhaps for other, more intimate reasons?” Penelope pressed on.

  “Enough,” Jane snapped, and Penelope couldn’t contain her grin. Obviously Jane had a gentleman friend who enjoyed playing games. Well, it was rather fun, after all. She had discovered that from her romps with Pierce.

  They donned their black gowns and starched linen aprons, tucking their hair under modest white caps. Penelope turned to Jane. Funny, she wasn’t nervous any longer. She was ready to go, eager to find Pierce. But some of Jane’s calm demeanor had rubbed off on her, and even her palms had ceased their perspiring. Every nerve she possessed was trained on the mission at hand.

  “Well, shall we go?” She motioned toward the door.

  “I’m ready if you are,” Jane replied with a nod of her cap.

  ***

  Penelope’s nervous energy returned as the coach neared the Lily. Suppose they were found out? Suppose that Lord Adam was waiting somewhere, looking for an opportunity to kidnap them? And worse still—what if Pierce wasn’t all right? Clarice could be wrong. They didn’t know Cavendish’s character that well. He might have killed Pierce already.

  That last thought sent a searing pain down her insides, and she turned off her racing thoughts. Better to focus solely on the present, rather than the might-have-been.

  The carriage slowed to a halt a block away from the Lily, just as she and Jane had planned. It was much better to sneak up on the Lily and pretend to be servants if they didn’t arrive in Jane’s coach. The keen wind bit through her shawl, and threatened to blow off her cap. Penelope tightened the shawl and held her bonnet on with one hand, and jerked her head in the direction of the Lily.

  They were coming up on the back side of the house, to the servants’ entrance she remembered. The night was so frigid that not a solitary soul lingered out in the yard. Even the stable lads must be cooped
up inside the barn, for no fire burned brightly outside. Only the dull roar of laughter and music emanated from the windows of the house. All the merriment was confined to the indoors.

  Her teeth would not cease chattering, though she clamped her jaw shut to still them.

  “A-almost there,” Jane panted. Ah, her teeth were chattering too. Penelope didn’t feel like quite so much of a weakling if Jane was freezing too.

  If the back door were locked, then they would have to simply wait on the stoop until someone passed by. Oh, if only Pierce had shown her how to pick locks. She could have them indoors and warm in a trice if she only knew how to manipulate the bolt just so.

  She pulled Jane over towards the stoop. “We have to wait here,” she muttered, her teeth clattering together. Out of an undying sense of optimism, she tried the latch. No luck. Of course it was locked.

  As they stood outside on the porch, Penelope flicked her glance around for shelter—any shelter that would protect them from the wind. The barn was off-limits, as the stable lads had likely gathered there. Unless someone came out to pass water, toss up their accounts, or see to some mundane household chore, they were stuck. She stamped her feet in frustration.

  Wait. That little garden shed—she hadn’t noticed it before. Of course, there was no fire in it, but it might be enough to shelter them from the cold until they could sneak into the house. It was merely an old potting shed—likely no one would even be apt to use it until spring.

  She tugged Jane’s arm and motioned for her to follow across the lawn. But when they arrived at the potting shed door, it was locked too—with a heavy padlock, quite ridiculously large for a structure so small and rickety.

  Why would they need such a stout lock on such a flimsy door? She put her eye to a crack in the wall, but could discern nothing except shadows inside. But something was calling to her. She needed to get in that shed.

  ***

  Pierce had long ago given up hope of escape. He rubbed the rusty blade against the ropes binding his wrists, as gingerly as he could, but his hands were frozen and clumsy. The warm trickle of his own blood and the sudden rush of pain that seared his wrist meant he missed his target—and by quite a bit. Twist had chuckled at him, and shrugged off the offer of help.

  “After what you just did to yourself? No thank you. I would rather freeze in dignity than bleed to death.”

  And so the old thief-taker had fallen asleep in his corner, after dropping from his knees into a fetal position in the dirt.

  He could do nothing except hope the oozing of his own blood would cease; that he hadn’t accidentally lacerated his wrist too deeply. In time, the bleeding stopped—or froze, ‘twas hard to tell which. His mind drifted and he half-dreamed, half-imagined Penelope there beside him, unbinding his wrists, kissing his wounds.

  He must have fallen asleep, for the next thing he knew, shards of glass showered the dirt floor of the shed, and a rock hit the floor with a heavy thud.

  He rolled over, wriggling to his knees. Twist slept on, either oblivious in deep sleep or near death from cold.

  A feminine hand, covered in white linen, glowed briefly in the moonlight. The hand moved gently around, dodging the bits of jagged glass still hanging in the pane, until it encountered the window latch. Then with one swift movement, his rescuer undid the latch and threw up the sash.

  A head appeared in the window, but the moon was behind her, and he could not make out her face. “Hello?” she cried. “Is anyone here?”

  He had gone mad from the cold. That was the only answer. For he would know that voice anytime, anywhere, the lilting tones that enchanted him from the first moment he met her.

  “Penelope.” It was a croak. The word wouldn’t even form properly on his frozen lips.

  “Someone is there! I heard a sound,” his rescuer cried to someone else. “Boost me, Jane. I need to get inside.”

  “Watch out for the glass, Penelope,” the other female voice cautioned.

  A woman’s form, curvy and instantly recognizable, appeared in the window pane. She wriggled inside the shed and crouched on the window ledge. “Who’s there?” she called once more.

  There was no denying it any longer. Penelope had come to rescue him.

  “Penny.” It was all he could manage, but he said it as loud as he could.

  “Pierce! Great God, it’s you!” Penelope jumped down from the ledge, and scurried over to his side. “Jane, Pierce is in here. And he’s hurt—oh, my darling, you’re hurt.” She peppered his cheeks with kisses, but he could feel none of them. “Pierce, you’re half-frozen. We must get you out of this shed and to some warmth without delay.”

  Jane boosted herself in through the window and leapt nimbly onto the dirt floor. “There’s another man here too.” She turned to Pierce. “Is this Twist?”

  He nodded. It was all he could accomplish. He was so bloody tired.

  Penelope went to work on the ropes binding his hands and feet, while Jane awakened Twist. As soon as Pierce’s ropes were cut, Penelope handed Jane the blade, and Jane cut Twist free. Then both women massaged their hands and feet until the blood began to flow once more. It hurt like the devil.

  “My coachman is waiting a block away,” Jane explained to them. “Can you walk that far?”

  Pierce nodded, leaning heavily against Penelope. Her warmth crept through him, feeding him, giving him strength.

  “We’ll have to go out through the window,” Penelope explained, chafing her hands against his cheeks. “They locked this place up like a king’s ransom was in here, which of course clued us in to where you might be held. Although really, I think one good blow would demolish these wobbly walls.”

  Twist merely nodded—he looked as ghastly tired as Pierce felt.

  “We’ll put the men out first,” Jane said to Penelope. “You and I are more limber, since they’ve been tied up in this dratted shed for so long. We can boost ourselves, but they might need our help.”

  The least he could do was help himself out of this godforsaken shed, seeing as how two women had rescued him. With a mighty heave, he pushed Twist through the broken window, and then braced himself against the ledge. Twist grasped his hands from the other side, and between the pair of them, Pierce managed to tumble to the frosted ground.

  “Halt, damn you,” a voice barked from the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Penelope froze as she wriggled out of the window. “How dare you order us to halt?” she demanded. “Who are you?” Was it Cavendish and his men? Oh, she hoped so. She would claw the bastard’s eyes out for what he did to Pierce. She pushed her way out of the frame and fell onto the hard-packed earth. Pierce put his arm around her shoulder and helped her to her feet.

  “Easy,” he muttered.

  “No,” she cried. “I am Lady Annand, and I demand to know—who the devil are you? Cavendish—is that you?”

  Two figures emerged from the darkness, one holding a torch that sputtered and flickered over the whole sordid scene—broken glass, bleeding wrists, half-frozen men, and women dressed as maids. The two men’s eyes widened as they took it all in. No, neither one was Cavendish. But even so, her heart would not slow down. It was leaping in her chest.

  “I’m Jannings, and this is Burkett, patrollers with Bow Street,” the man holding the torch replied. “We were contacted earlier this evening by the Duke of Clarence. It seems that you are in need of assistance—if you’re who we think you are.”

  Pierce spoke up, but his voice was a cracked whisper of his usual strong, deep tones. “I’m Pierce Howe, and this is Jonathan Twist. We were taken hostage by Cavendish for informing on him about the Lily.” Even that small speech seemed to exhaust him. His body, always so taut and muscular, sagged against Penelope.

  “My fiancé is badly wounded,” Penelope put in. “Please—help me get him to our carriage. I need to take him home so that he can see a physician without delay.”

  “Of course,” the two men replied in unison. Burkett wrapped his a
rm around Pierce’s waist and tugged Pierce’s arm about his shoulder. “How far away is the carriage?”

  “About a block,” Jane spoke up from behind Penelope. “But we can run ahead and fetch it closer.”

  “See that you do.” Jannings crouched over Twist, who had not risen from his position on the frozen yard. “These men need help as quickly as possible.”

  Penelope grasped Jane’s hand, and together they raced over the frosty grass, which crackled underfoot as they ran. Pierce is safe, her mind repeated over and over, forming a sing-song litany in her head. But he was not out of danger. Those men dealt with murders and crimes all day, every day, and their expressions were grave and still as they watched over Pierce and Twist. She had to get him home. If he didn’t recover now—she turned off the tumbling thoughts in her head. She could not think that far ahead. Just the mere thought of losing Pierce sent a searing pain through her middle.

  As they approached the carriage, Jane’s coachman leapt off the box and ran towards them. “My lady, are you quite all right?”

  “Yes, but the men are badly injured,” Jane panted, grasping his arm for support. “We must make haste.”

  The coachman bundled them in and jumped back onto the box, whipping up the horses. The carriage clattered into motion, and Jane and Penelope braced themselves against the floor so as not to be thrown about by the heaving and shuddering of the coach as they neared the Lily.

  “Drive up onto the lawn, towards the potting shed in the back,” Jane called through the opened window to her driver. “I don’t give a damn about leaving wheel tracks across their precious greenery.”

  The driver must have heard Jane’s orders even over the hoof beats of the horses, for they swayed off the gravel path and onto the frost-covered ground. He pulled to a halt in front of the potting shed, and Penelope, despite her best efforts, tumbled to the floor of the carriage.