Tom hesitated a moment, wondering if he should broach the subject of this Bianca Manning disappearance with his friend. In the end, he decided having more eyes and ears than just his own was important.
“Listen, Fin, I know you and my sister are just settling into your married life and all, but…well, I could use your help.”
Fin’s brow furrowed and his lips turned down into a concerned frown. “What is it? Are you in financial trouble?”
Tom laughed. “Oh, no. Nothing like that.” He retrieved the locket from his waistcoat pocket and dangled it in front of Fin.
Fin raised a single brow. “I don’t think I follow.”
“Look at the picture inside.”
Fin’s thumb clicked the clasp and the locket popped open. Frowning, he returned his gaze to Tom.
“Do you recognize her at all?”
“Afraid not.” Fin shook his head. “Should I?”
Tom shrugged. “Not necessarily, but I was hoping you would. She’s gone missing, and her fiancé has enlisted me to help him find her.”
Fin glanced up at him with unveiled surprise. “And where do the authorities come into play?”
“They don’t, because there’s plenty of evidence that says she doesn’t want to be found.”
“Aha. I see.”
“I can help.”
Both men jumped at the sound of Victoria’s voice behind them.
“Good God, Vickie,” Tom said, clutching his heart.
Fin only chuckled. “You get used to that after a while.” Then the mirth in his countenance fell away as he turned to his wife. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ve gotten yourself into enough trouble this year, and besides…”
Fin gave her a look that was supposed to indicate something secret, but Tom was not an idiot. That glow on his sister’s face was about more than her narrow escape from the gallows.
Vickie rolled her eyes. “You expect me to curl up and read books for the next nine months?”
“You? Never,” Fin replied. “But I don’t expect you to go haring off after some missing girl, either.”
“Who said anything about haring?”
Tom decided to step in before their argument drew attention. “I don’t need anyone to go haring off. However, if you somehow got yourself invited for tea over at the Manning house, that might be slightly more useful.” He turned his attention to Fin. “I’m certain your husband would approve of you taking tea in your delicate condition.”
Victoria’s eyes grew round. “How did you know?”
He leaned in to whisper, “You’re not exactly subtle, either of you. My most felicitous congratulations to both of you, though.”
A wide smile came to his sister’s face, lighting her eyes and turning her cheeks a rosy pink. “Thank you,” she said.
Though Tom missed Jamaica, he realized that moments like this one were why he returned to England, to his family.
“How is little Sally taking the news?” he wondered. Sally was one of Victoria’s many projects that had turned into their legal ward when her mother had passed away, leaving her an orphan. An exuberant eight-year-old girl with the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen and a delightful cockney, she was a welcome addition to the family.
“She’s thrilled,” Vickie said. “Praying it’s a girl so she can share her ribbons with her and teach her all about Gunter’s ices.”
Tom couldn’t help but laugh. “I had an entirely different reaction when I found out you were on the way.”
Victoria swatted him on the arm, but laughed nonetheless. “I will pretend you didn’t say that because I’m desperate for a little tiny bit of adventure. I will call on the Manning family tomorrow.”
~*~
Emil couldn’t keep the grin from his face as Bianca tried to eat without utensils. Clearly, it was foreign to her, but Emil found it endearing, the way she struggled to refrain from making a mess. Nothing like Sasha, that was for sure.
He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Sasha, not now. It was time to move on, and the light, lovely woman across from him was the furthest away from Sasha as he would ever get.
“You will get the hang of it,” he said finally when Bianca tossed her roll to the plate and dusted off her hands with a soft sigh.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable eating with my hands.” She gave him a half smile, and then realized what she’d said. “Not that it’s important! Of course, I’m leaving tomorrow, so…”
Emil wanted answers, and now was as good a time as any to demand them. “So, what is it you’re really doing out here in the woods?”
She blinked her blue eyes at him. “I told you already. I was lost.”
“Yes, you did tell me that.” He inched closer to her. “But now I want the truth.”
Bianca tipped her head down, clearly eager to break their eye contact. She stared at her plate for a moment, looked away, then back to her plate again. “I—I’m running away.”
“From?”
“My fiancé.”
Why this news felt like a blow to his gut, Emil couldn’t say. Why should he care that this English woman he barely knew was engaged to be married? It wasn’t as though…
“Would you care to tell me why?” he asked in an attempt to rid himself of that particular line of thinking.
She looked at him as if he were dinili. “Of course I don’t want to tell you. That’s why I lied in the first place. No one needs to know why I’m running, do they? Isn’t it enough that I don’t want to marry that…man?”
Emil was confused. “Is he not a man?”
“Of course he’s a man. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“The way you said man made it sound as if you were being ironic.”
“That wasn’t irony,” she said with a shake of her curls. “It was loathing. Contempt. Deep, impenetrable hatred.” She looked up and pierced him with her sapphire eyes. “There. Now you know why I’m running. I hate him.”
“Hate is a very strong word.”
“My father is a Shakespearean scholar; I know all about the power of words.”
In the spirit of irony, no one spoke another word. Not for a while anyway. They ate in silence, and Bianca seemed to suddenly lose the embarrassment of eating with her hands. She shoved the food in her mouth now, as if it might be some time before she’d have another meal.
Emil would never let that beautiful mouth go hungry, though.
“You may stay as long as you like,” Emil said after what felt like a lifetime of silence.
Bianca’s head snapped up to look at him, her hand paused on the way to her mouth. The food slipped between her fingers with an audible plop. “Are you certain?”
“I would never make a joke of this.”
“But what about Adora? It is her wagon I will sleep in.”
“Which is also my wagon,” he said, and enjoyed the uncomfortable look that passed over Bianca’s features. “But don’t worry. I know what propriety demands and what it means to the gaje. You may have my bed for as long as you need it.” And perhaps we may find ourselves there together one day.
Emil quickly tried to tamp down that thought, but images of her fair, slender body lying nude in his bed had already started to affect the more eager parts of his anatomy.
“But where will you sleep?” she asked, genuine concern marring her smooth brow.
He looked up at the darkening sky and waved a hand above him. “There is no better roof than the one God created.”
Bianca followed his gaze, clearly not as certain about sleeping outside as he was. When she tipped her head down again, she gave him a cheeky half-smile. “What about the wolves?”
Emil laughed. “I promise to sleep with one eye open, but if I don’t make it, look after my mother, will you?”
Four
Tom strolled into his sister’s residence, which happened to be right next door to his own, expecting to find her resting at this time of day. It was late afternoon and he knew she’d
be going to the Carson fete later on that evening. In her condition, it would only be natural to rest. However, as he passed by the drawing room en route to Fin’s study, he found his sister hunched over the escritoire in the far corner, furiously penning a letter.
“Vickie?” he said, pausing on the threshold.
Her head popped up and she jumped from her chair in one boisterous movement. “Oh, Tom! Just the person I wished to see.” She gestured to the settee for him to sit.
“I was just going to see Fin—”
“Oh, that’s fine. This won’t take long. Tea?”
“No, thank you.” He craved something a little stronger than tea. “Any rum on the side board?”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “Good heavens, Tom, go make yourself a bloody drink.”
“Gladly.” He made his way to the sideboard, wondering if his sister used such language openly with her husband.
Sherry, Claret… “Don’t you have anything proper for a man to drink?”
His sister gave an insolent shrug of her shoulders. “Fin keeps all the good stuff in his study.”
Tom settled on sherry and then took his place back at his sister’s side. “So, what is this all about?”
“I went to call on the Manning family.” She stopped speaking, clearly waiting for Tom to prompt her.
“And?”
“And they’d already fled to the country.”
Silence.
“Damn it, Victoria, get on with it! What did you find out?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That depends. What, exactly, do you plan to do with this information?”
Tom groaned low in his throat. “What does it bloody matter?”
“It matters quite a bit!” Victoria’s green eyes flashed at him with something of a warning.
“Look, I’m just trying to help a friend here, and I’m not in the mood for your games. You offered to help me find her, now bloody well tell me what you know.”
Victoria stood, shoved her nose in the air and walked stiffly back to the escritoire. Flabbergasted, he snapped his mouth shut as she sat down and began writing again.
“What the devil are you doing?”
No response.
“Victoria!”
“Please keep your voice down, I’m trying to write.”
“Fine,” he said, fed up with his sister’s games. “I’m going to see Fin.”
“He’s not at home.”
Of course he wasn’t, but Victoria wasn’t going to tell him that in the first place, was she?
“What do you want from me?”
“A-ha!” His sister finally turned around again, a wide smile on her face. “I thought you’d never ask.” She crossed the room to him again and sat down, eager to share her news. “Do you swear to follow my lead on this, Thomas?”
“Why should I follow your lead?”
“Because I’m the smart one.”
Tom rolled his eyes, but he decided to let that one go. To argue with Victoria was most always futile.
“Now, her parents don’t know anything, and they can’t know anything. If they do, they’ll bring her right back and make her marry that odious friend of yours.”
Tom couldn’t argue on the odiousness of Tisbury. “Go on.”
“Her sisters know everything. As a matter of fact, they helped her plan the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” Tom asked, sitting forward on the edge of his seat.
“Her escape, of course.”
The door to the drawing room opened and a maid rushed forth with the tea tray.
“Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Missy.” Victoria began to pour tea into her cup. “Are you sure you won’t have any?”
“No, I’m fine.” He just wanted to know where he could find this blasted runaway. “Where did she go then?”
“Well, that they can’t be entirely certain of.”
Tom threw up his hand in frustration. “Victoria, what good are you?”
She cocked her head to the side, calm as ever in the face of his fury, which, of course, made him even more furious.
“I’m a great deal of good, actually, if you’d just be quiet and listen.”
Tom took a deep breath in through his nose and then let it out, loudly. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll be quiet. If you could please just make your point.”
“She’s gone into hiding. Her plan was to find a gypsy camp that would take her in and hide her until…well, I guess until Tisbury finds another, more willing bride.”
The level of ridiculousness made Tom’s mouth drop open. “A gypsy camp? Is she bloody mad?”
Victoria looked affronted. “I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
“You would.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means this girl sounds just as harebrained as my thieving sister.”
“I thieved for a good cause.”
“A lot of good it would have done if you’d been strung up by your neck.”
Victoria opened her mouth to yell back, but then, much to his surprise, clamped her lips shut again. Good. Tom’s heart was racing, his blood coursing far too quickly through his veins. He didn’t care to go through this again, but the thought of how close his sister came to the noose had a power over him that he couldn’t control.
But blaming himself didn’t do either of them any good. Not now. She was alive, after all, thanks to Fin. There was no way to say that she wouldn’t have gotten into the same kind of trouble had he stayed home, in England. She probably would have deceived him, just as she’d done to Fin.
He closed his eyes and pinched the spot between his brows in an effort to alleviate the tension in his head. “I’m sorry, Vickie. I know you were only trying to do good.”
“No, you’re right. I was foolish, I see that now.” She smiled softly at him. “But this girl—this Bianca—she’s no fool. She’s simply taking charge of her life in the only way she knows how. Thankfully, taking up with the gypsies is not a punishable crime.”
“And if her parents find out? If Tisbury finds out? Will she not be punished by them?”
A worried crinkle marred his sister’s dark brow. “This is why they can’t find out. At least not now, not until…”
“What?” Tom sat forward. “Not until what, Victoria?”
“Well, that’s it, isn’t it?” she said, the turning wheels in her head were visible in her eyes. “Not until she has the protection of a husband.”
~*~
Bianca woke to heavy rain pattering on the roof of Adora’s vardo. At first, the rhythm threatened to lull her back into a deep sleep, but then she sat up with a start. Emilian! He’d be soaked to the brim by now.
She looked across the tiny space. Adora slept soundly, a soft snore causing her full lips to quiver slightly.
Bianca, having shared a room her entire life with her sister, Tempest (who was perhaps the lightest sleeper ever born) was quite adept at sneaking about without waking anyone else. Stealthily, she swung her legs over the side of the small mattress—Emil’s mattress.
Guilt stung her. She never should have allowed him to give up his bed for her. What if he caught his death out there in the cold and rain? Bianca would never forgive herself.
Quietly, she slipped on her half boots and pulled the coarse blanket around her shoulders before moving to the door. She opened it, and when it creaked, she looked back to make sure she’d not woken Adora. Thankfully, the woman didn’t budge.
Bianca turned her attention to the rainy tableau outside. There was no time to hesitate. She darted outside and eased the door shut, then turned around to survey the camp.
There was no sign of Emil. Blast! Where could he have gone? Didn’t he say he would camp just outside, by the fire? But, of course, there was no fire now.
She looked left and right, squinting through the onslaught of rain in her eyes. Perhaps this was a bad idea. Perhaps she should go back inside and dry off before she caught her own death. Clearly,
Emil was in no danger now.
She whirled to mount the small staircase, but the mud had caked under her left boot. She tried to pull it out of the murk when she lost her footing and plopped squarely onto her bottom.
That’s the last time I try to help a friend in need.
After catching her breath for a moment, Bianca attempted to lift herself out of the mud, but with little success. Her hands kept slipping and her feet fought to take purchase. Her dress—the only one she had—was destroyed after mere moments, covered in brown muck, and raindrops slid from her sopping curls.
What a supreme mess she’d found herself in.
However, the stunningly handsome gypsy who stood nearby, clearly trying not to laugh at her, further highlighted her humiliation.
Her stomach sank, and, despite the cold, pelting rain, her cheeks burned with her embarrassment.
“I guess you found a dry place to sleep,” she yelled across the distance.
He sauntered to her, impervious to the rain that soaked his shirt, emphasizing the vast, rippling muscles underneath. Bianca’s breath caught in her throat.
“Stop!” she yelled impulsively. If he came any closer…well, she didn’t know what would happen, but she did know she didn’t want him to come any closer.
He stopped in his tracks and raised his brows in a silent question.
“I-I’m fine. I can manage just fine.” Bianca attempted to demonstrate how fine she was by righting herself, though conditions had not improved in the last few moments and she slipped again.
Emil had clearly had enough of standing by while she struggled. He closed the distance between them and held out his hand. When she didn’t take it, he gave it a firm shake, and waited.
Oh, Lord. His hand was so warm, so strong. It made fire shoot through her belly, made her toes curl inside her wet, muddy boots. But not nearly as much as when he pulled her to her feet and then lifted her into his arms.
She wanted to protest. She wasn’t a child, after all—she did know how to walk. But the intensity of his gaze silenced her. The long wet hair that framed his face accentuated a strong and firmly set jaw. She’d not be successful in arguing with him right now, that much was obvious. Besides, any woman would be a fool to argue with such a hero. He’d come to her rescue, whether she thought she needed rescuing or not. It was just like a scene from one of the bawdy novels she had to keep hidden from her father. He approved of very little outside of Shakespeare and Marlowe.
The Daring Debutantes Series Boxed Set Page 15
