As Luck Would Have It (27 page)

“Are you serious?” Alex wasn’t referring to her guise of ignorance so much as her ridiculous use of the phrase, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” when they clearly both knew she was lying.

“Of course I’m not serious,” she responded calmly. “I am merely trying to be polite.”

“What the devil for?”

“I rather like you, that’s what for, and while I can’t depart a
secret that is not my own, I thought I might at least explain as much in civil terms.”

Alex felt his fists clench tightly at his side. He took a deep breath and made sure his words came out even and calm. Mirabelle didn’t respond well to intimidation or threats. “I like you very well too, Mirabelle. I’m also rather fond of Sophie. In fact, we’re both fond of Sophie. So, why don’t we—
why
are you shaking your head at me?”

“I’m not going to tell you where Sophie is. I can’t. I gave her my word.”

Alex decided a forward tactic might work best. “She may be in danger, Mirabelle.”

That certainly caught her attention. She looked at him askance. “May?”

“Is,
is
in danger. I’m certain of it.” Certain that she could be in danger, traveling alone. Absolutely positive she
would
be in danger once he got his hands on her. “So, please—”

“What sort of danger?” she asked, narrowing her eyes even further.

“The dangerous sort!” he snapped, suddenly beginning to see what Whit had been complaining about all these years.

She tilted her head suspiciously. “As in the ‘female walking unescorted for half a block in broad daylight, in a respectable neighborhood’ sort of danger, or ‘the ship is sinking and—’”

“The second sort, Mirabelle!” Alex cut in, exasperated.

Mirabelle studied his face for an agonizing ten seconds, and Alex was torn between admiration for her loyalty to a friend and the nearly irresistible urge to shake her until she started talking. The latter was a mere second away from winning out when she finally sighed and said, “She’s gone to London.”

“What! Why?”

“Keep your voice down. You can ask her that yourself. There are only so many promises I’m willing to break in one night.”

“Right.” He turned to leave.

“Alex? You might consider waiting for her at her town
house. It’s not the only place she could possibly be headed, but it seems sensible she might stop at her own home. Don’t you think?”

Alex grinned—he couldn’t help himself. He turned back and dropped a quick kiss on Mirabelle’s forehead. “Thank you.”

She smiled grimly. “Just bring her back safely. I’ll not have broken my word for nothing.”

He gave her a reassuring nod and then took off down the hall at a dead run.

Whit is an idiot
, he decided.
Mirabelle Browning is a lovely girl.

Alex and Whit saddled their horses themselves. Not only was it faster and quieter than asking for help, it also gave Alex something to do other than worry. He couldn’t allow himself to think about all the harrowing things that could happen to a woman between here and London. All the things that could happen to her in London. All the added danger she might face being cousin to a suspected traitor.

Later he would let himself feel. For the moment, panic at her disappearance and self-recrimination at his failure to keep her safe and sound at Haldon would only serve to distract him.

“I can’t believe she broke your nose,” he commented. He couldn’t conceive of a more effective, or enjoyable, way of distracting himself than tormenting his friend. “That must be a first.”

“No ith nod,” Whit grumbled. “Rememba da billiardth ball?”

“Good Lord, I had forgotten. Who would have thought the girl had such a fine aim?”

“Obwiously not I, or I woud hab mobed.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Moooobed. Em. Oh. Bee…you’re endjoying dith, awent you?”

Alex adjusted a stirrup and smirked. “Immensely.”

“Bathard.”

“Come again?”

Whit responded with a vulgar gesture.

Alex moved to the other stirrup. “You shouldn’t have let her jump out that window, you know. She could have been seriously hurt.”

“I wood hab liked to thee you twy and thop her.”

“She didn’t know about the bookcase door?”

Whit shook his head, then groaned and gingerly prodded at his nose.

“Amazing, I would have thought she knew every nook and cranny of Haldon Hall by now.”

Whit grunted noncommittally. “How did you find oud aboud Thophia?”

Alex grinned. “Mirabelle told me.”

That elicited a string of vicious, if not entirely coherent, curses.

“She really is a lovely girl,” Alex added. But as delightful a distraction antagonizing Whit was, Alex knew it was time to discuss more serious matters. He ran his eyes and hands one last time over the horse and tack. “Go to Loudor’s. I don’t think she’ll be there, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. If she is, send word to me and do what you can. I want you to go to William’s as well. Tell him what’s happened and, if necessary, see he puts some men out to look for her. Drag him out of bed if you have to.”

“Whad will you be doing?”

“I’ll check her town house first.”

“And if she’s ad neider of dose pwaces?”

Alex swung up on his horse. “Then we’ll contact everyone she’s met since coming to London. If need be, we’ll go door to door.”

Whit nodded in understanding. “Anyding ewse?”

“Just one….”

Sophie’s plan was twofold. First and foremost, she would seek out Sir Frederick and propose a marriage of convenience. After
that, she would make the short trek to Lord Forent’s home on foot and take a peek at the contents of his study. With any luck—and she felt she really should have some coming her way by now—she’d be back at Haldon Hall before the first light of dawn.

She alighted from her carriage a half block away with instructions to the driver to return to her town house in four hours. She hurried down the sidewalk, reaching her first destination just in time to see Mr. Weaver being led in through the front door.

Damnation. She couldn’t very well ask the man to marry her in the company of his lover.

She moved down the sidewalk until she could see around the house well enough to get a good look at the carriage and team parked by the mews. She scowled at both and swore under her breath. The horses pricked their ears in her direction, but appeared otherwise unimpressed with her temper.

Pulling her cloak tighter about her, she hitched the satchel she was carrying farther up her shoulder and headed off in the direction of Lord Forent’s. She’d finish her business there first, and hope Mr. Weaver’s carriage was gone by the time she returned.

The walk was a brief one, for which Sophie was exceedingly grateful. The streets of Mayfield were well lit, but the light failed to extend much past the pavement of the sidewalk. With the moon hidden mostly behind clouds, the houses loomed like giant mausoleums in the dark, and the expansive yards, with their perfectly trimmed hedges and silent fountains, reminded her of cemeteries.

She quickened her pace, hating to give in to her fears but knowing it was foolish to pretend they didn’t exist. When she reached Lord Forent’s, she stopped and stared at the house with resignation and dismay. Its yard was as dark and gloomy as the others. She really hadn’t expected to find it lit the way it had been the night of the ball, but one could always hope.

She retrieved a small lantern from her satchel, lit it, and
quickly scurried around the side of the yard to the garden gate she had noticed earlier. It was dangerous to use a light, but she had no choice. She just couldn’t walk through the garden in the pitch black. Good Lord, she couldn’t walk through her own bedroom in the pitch black. Sophie draped her cloak over her arm and held it in front of the lantern to shield the light from view of the house.

Picking her way along the gravel paths—and studiously ignoring a certain gazebo—she made her way to the side wall of the house and counted windows.

…four, five, six, there!

It was a good seven or eight feet up, but the house was fashioned of rough stone that jutted out in some places and sunk in at others, perfect for climbing. She set the lantern between a bush and the stone and covered the foliage with her cloak to hide the light. Hitching up her skirts to tie them in a knot above her knees, she quickly, if not altogether gracefully, scrambled up to the window and slid it open with ease.

Thank God. She didn’t know what the odds were of finding a window unlocked in Mayfield, but she had figured they were slim.

Twenty minutes later she was willing to entertain the idea that the open window hadn’t just balanced her luck, it had tipped the scale too far in the other direction.

How could there be nothing? She’d dug through every drawer and cabinet, and she’d found not a single scrap of incriminating evidence.

Ready to tear her hair out in frustration, she sat behind the desk and opened a ledger. Maybe she was looking in the wrong places. Maybe men like these kept their secrets hidden in bedside stands or safes hidden behind large portraits. Or maybe….

She paused in her mental rambling to stare at a familiar-looking set of numbers. She flipped back a month and found a similar entry. Then another month and another match. It went on and on. Nine of the last twelve months showed payments
to Forent in amounts identical to the funds Loudor had stolen from Whitefield. She’d gone over those numbers enough times to have the exact amounts memorized. And there they were, down to the last shilling.

She trailed her finger along the entry line and found the entries were attributed to Lord Heransly, the earl’s scapegrace son.

If they had been from her cousin, she might have attributed it to debts of honor. Lord Loudor was a notorious gambler. But these entries were from son to father. It made no sense.

She reached for supplies to copy down what she could of the entries but stopped short at the sound of movement in the hallway. She dropped the ledger, snuffed the candle, and raced to the window to throw her legs over the edge. She managed to crawl about a quarter of the way down, but in her haste and fear of being discovered, she made a misstep and lost her footing in the stone.

There was the rip of fabric, then falling, and then the hard impact of the ground.

Ummph!

It wasn’t a far drop, but unprepared for it as she was, she landed fully on her back, and knocked all the air out of her lungs. For what seemed like an eternity, she lay prostrate, stunned and gasping like a fish on land.

Perfectly typical. She’d been lucky enough to have found a window unlocked, and unlucky enough to have fallen out of it.

When her breath finally returned, she managed, against the protest of every muscle and bone in her body, to roll onto her stomach and pushed herself up to her knees. Relatively confident she wasn’t going to pass out, she climbed to her feet, grabbed the cloak and lantern, and ran.

She was almost to her house—having decided she would postpone her trip to Sir Frederick’s until she could fortify herself with a cup of something hot and a change of gown— when the disturbing feeling that she was being watched first
hit her. She stopped dead in her tracks and whirled to peer into the shadows, listening intently for sounds of pursuit. Nothing.

She stopped twice more, but each time she listened for footsteps behind her, she heard nothing but the still night air.

It was with immense relief that she mounted the front steps of her home and swung open the door.

“Aah! Oh God! Oh! A…Al…”

“Alex. My name is Alex.”

“Yes! I mean, of course it is…Alex.” Sophie closed the door and stood to face Alex. He was leaning against the stairwell banister—all muscle, tension…and anger. She dropped her satchel on the side table, made a token attempt to smooth her skirts, then having run out of things to occupy herself with, wrung her hands nervously. “What ever are you doing here?” Her voice was bright and cheery. Much, much too cheery.

“I could ask the same of you,” Alex replied.

“Oh, well…I live here.”

The look he sent her was icy enough to make her cringe.

“In London, you mean?” she continued with forced buoyancy. “Right. Well, I…er…I forgot something…something rather important…and I came back to retrieve it.”

“And that something would be?”

She really wished he would blink. That narrow-eyed stare was discomforting. “Ummm. Well, I’m afraid that’s personal.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me anyway.”

Well now,
that
was a bit much. She frowned at him, giving up all pretense of a normal conversation and said, “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. Really, are we going to be doing this all night?”

He blinked, finally, but moved not a muscle besides. “That’s up to you.”

“Excellent. I vote we don’t.”

Alex snapped. In one quick movement he had her by the arm and was forcefully dragging her into the front parlor. Shoving her ahead of him, he whirled around and closed the doors. Sophie gave a quick thanks for the several lit candles in the room keeping the dark at bay. Alex looked ready to explode, which was terrifying enough in and of itself.

“You,” he ground out, “will sit…” he lifted a small chair several inches off the floor before slamming it down again in front of Sophie, “
here
. I…” He lifted a second chair and placed directly in front of the first, “…will sit
here
. And
we
will continue sitting until I am completely satisfied that you have answered every one of my questions fully and honestly.”

“Um…”

“Now!”

Sophie sat. She didn’t care for his high-handed tactics, but now seemed an appropriate time to exercise a little verbal prudence.

“What in God’s name happened to your dress?”

Sophie jumped in her seat, startled by the sudden rise of his voice. She looked down and barely managed to stifle a groan. Her dress was covered hem to waist in mud. She picked at it absently a moment, noticing several tears as well.