Chasing the Heiress (29 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Why are we here, Clive?” Colin asked his youngest brother when he saw that the ballroom was already a rout.

“Because Sophia told us to accept, and we do what Sophie says?” Clive posited. “Besides, you should enjoy balls now. As an engaged man, you are happily off every matchmaking mama's list of eligible bachelors, so you can skulk around the margins of the ballroom with impunity. You
are
happily off their lists, aren't you?”

“Of course. What foolishness makes you ask that?”

“The way you have been searching the dance floor, even though we both know that Lady Hartley did not accompany you to London,” Clive said soberly, looking around the dance floor as well. “What does she look like?”

“Go away, Clive,” Colin growled.

“I was only trying to help.”

“Help somewhere else.” Colin started his retreat toward the front door, but took only two steps before he was pushed back to his brother's side by another wave of arriving guests. “Too many people.”

“Take the stairs there; they lead to the balcony.” Clive pushed ahead of him, taking the stairs three at a time. Colin followed, hoping to find an alternative way out. He passed three footmen on his way to the center of the balcony, where Clive already had stationed himself for the best view.

“Clive, have you noticed? Footmen at every door and corner. Is Prinny to be in attendance?” Colin nodded at the two footmen at either end of the balcony.

“That
is
strange. Perhaps it's to make sure the fiancée doesn't wander off. She isn't well known, and there is some talk of incapacity. But Barnes is apparently smitten.” Clive leaned over to wave at a classmate from Cambridge. “Look, it's Seymour, back from the colonies.”

“I find it hard to believe Barnes could be smitten with anything save a hefty wallet full of cash. Is she wealthy?” he said as he followed the line of Clive's wave, and suddenly he felt as if his lungs couldn't open, as if there was no air to breathe.

She was there, standing below him. He recognized the shape of her face, the line of her body. She was dressed in a dark blue satin, embroidered with tiny rhinestones that glittered in the ballroom lights. The embroidery gave the illusion of stars on a night sky. He felt the nearness of her as a sharp knife in his gut.

“Do you know the woman there in blue?”

“Her? That's the fiancée, Lady something or other. I met her last week.”

“Lady?” Colin wondered which detail was more noteworthy: the fact that she was here, that Clive had met her a week ago, or that she was of his class.

“Fairbourne, I think. Yes, that's it. Lady Arabella Fairbourne. Stunning, isn't she?” Clive shook his head. “Shame that she's dim.”

Colin felt as if he'd been given the gift of the gods: her name. “She isn't dim. Something is going on. Watch her.”

They observed together, shoulder to shoulder. Lucy offered a sweet but vague smile for everyone. She listened far more than she talked. She moved deliberately, with little grace, as if she was thinking about every step.

“You know, you may be right.” Clive pushed back from the balcony after several moments of observation. “It's the movement that clinches it, as if she isn't certain where her own feet are.”

“Introduce me.”

It took almost half an hour to reach her side, and when he did, it was no surprise that her dance card was almost empty. He took the next dance, grateful it was a waltz.

In the middle of the floor, protected by the crush of dancers, he squeezed her hand. “Come into the garden with me.”

“The footmen,” she whispered low.

“Ah. So it's you they are keeping in, rather than someone else they are keeping out.”

She said nothing. He led her gently but firmly in the steps of the dance, and in his arms, she began to relax. She made fewer mistakes, her feet seeming less disjointed from her body.

“After our dance, wait ten minutes, then excuse yourself to the lady's withdrawing room. The one on this floor, to the right of the entrance.”

She looked at him with blank eyes, but then her eyes focused on the front entrance, then moved to the right of them.

“Agree.”

She nodded just as the waltz ended, and he returned her to her former place, trying to look as bored in her company as possible.

* * *

As soon as he returned Lucy to her chaperone, an aged dowager already half asleep, Colin began to evaluate each of his options.

The lady's withdrawing room was at the end of a hallway. A footman stood at the entrance to that hall. Two more stood at the entrance to the ballroom, with another two at the entrance to the house itself. He counted back in memory: outside, four or five helped guests in and out of their carriages. A frontal assault would be difficult, if not impossible.

The ballroom was on the second floor. Even if she were well, the drop to the ground below one of the windows would be risky to attempt safely, and if she were drugged, as he believed, impossible.

The doors to the terrace—he hurried up the stairs and looked over the ballroom—were also guarded by one or two footmen. Who knew how many servants were in the gardens?

The front door—impossible as it seemed—was his best option.

But he had allies in the ballroom. He simply needed to gather them. First, he needed a female relative, one he could trust to reassure Lucy. Luckily, he knew exactly where to find one: the gaming room.

* * *

Ophelia Mason stood at the entrance to the gaming room, gossiping with a small crowd of married women. Her peacock feather plume was as good as a beacon to find her.

Smiling at the women, he pulled Ophelia aside. “I need your help. I'll explain later. At this moment, however, you feel faint and need an escort to the lady's withdrawing room.”

“Oooh, intrigue. Whom are we deceiving?”

“The footmen.” Colin nodded in their direction.

“Hmm. They are everywhere, aren't they?” Ophelia mused. “I can't understand it. Sidney told me that Prinny is in Brighton.”

Before they turned the corner and came into the footman's view, she slumped into his body, whispering, “Like this?”

“Exactly.”

He helped her past the footman without garnering a second glance. The footman was looking out into the ballroom, not down the hall itself.

“Lady Fairbourne is in the withdrawing room. Help her into the next room down. It's a study if I remember correctly. I'll be waiting.”

“To do what? Debauch the intended? That's not like you, Colin. Besides, she seems a bit dim.”

He felt his frustration surge. “I know her; she's not dim. I think she's been drugged.”

“Then, dear, she's been drugged for weeks,” Ophelia said, then stopped, “Oh, dear, you are serious. Not dim, then? I spoke to her several times in the last month. I regret now not having paid more attention.”

“Call her Lucy. Tell her you are bringing her to me.”

* * *

Lucy entered the withdrawing room, an antechamber with seating and a large mirror. She sat at one of the chairs, hands folded limply in her lap. The mirror reflected her in many colors, but she knew the position: despair. She closed her eyes.

He had come to her, in grey silk, elegant, and danced with her at a crowded ball, just as she had dreamed it. But it couldn't be him.

A hand touched hers, and she opened her eyes, trying to focus them. A woman with kind eyes knelt before her, and the colors wrapped around her.

“I'm Ophelia Mason. We've met before. At Lady Wentworth's ball last week.”

The colors turned into flowers. Rosemary for remembrance. Pansies for thoughts. Fennel and columbine. She knew the flowers weren't real. Nothing was real.

“Lucy? Colin said your name is Lucy.”

The woman said her name, her real name. The name he called her.

“My cousin Colin Somerville. He says he knows you. Do you know him ?”

She nodded.

“Here, let's see if this helps.” Ophelia poured cold water from the pitcher onto a linen handkerchief, then pressed it against Lucy's temples. The cold pushed the colors to the edges of the room.

She nodded.

“He wants me to bring you to him. He's in the next room. Will you come with me?”

The woman might not be real, but the cold was real. She could believe in the cold.

“Yes,” she whispered, hoping to keep the colors from returning. Ophelia took her arm.

* * *

When the door to the study opened, Colin stood before her, his eyes searching hers. Ophelia led her in, and he folded her in his arms.

“Lucy, look at me.”

“Do I know you, sir?” she spoke deliberately, making sure to form the words correctly. It was best not to give anything away. If she did, she would awaken in her room with the barred windows and locked doors. No, she had to find a way to make the dream stay.

“Yes. You saved my life.” He pressed his lips to hers, gently, but with remembered passion, and she stiffened, then melted into him. “Is that enough to remember me by?”

She pressed her fingers to her temples. “It's not safe. He'll know you've been here. He'll kill you and her.”

“My angel, my star. No one is going to kill me, or Ophelia.”

“It
is
you.” Her vision seemed clearer. “Can you help me? I can't think.”

“Can you refuse what they are giving you?”

She shook her head and pushed down her glove. He saw the still-pink scar at her wrist, the marks of restraints, and the bruises.

“Ophelia, get Clive, quickly. He's waiting on the stairs. Then, if you can, find Edmund and Aidan. If a footman asks where Lucy is, tell him Lady Fairbourne is ill in the withdrawing room, and you are finding her a doctor. That should gain us some time.”

* * *

Clive entered the room with Ophelia, Edmund following behind them.

“Whatever you are planning, brother, you better move quickly,” Clive advised. “Marner and Barnes have noticed she is missing from the ballroom and are looking for her.”

Edmund stepped forward and saw Lucy, her arm still uncovered. His face blanched. All of the brothers were unsympathetic to men who beat women, but Edmund felt it most strongly. The woman he loved had also been abused by her relatives.

“Ophelia, walk with Lady Fairbourne around the ballroom. Don't let her drink or eat anything. When you are done, introduce her to Kate, and have her do the same thing, then Ariel. Has Sophia arrived? Or Audrey?”

“If they haven't, I have other friends who will help.” Ophelia extended her arm to Lucy, “Come, we will walk to see if some exertion makes you feel better.”

“Keep her with you or someone you trust for the next hour,” Colin instructed.

Edmund glanced at the clock on the mantel. “The ball ends in an hour, brother. You haven't much time.”

“Half an hour, then,” he instructed Ophelia and Lucy before they slipped into the hall. “I have a plan, but it's a risky one. And we need the clothes from one of the postboys.”

* * *

As she walked around the ballroom with Ophelia's friends, the colors receded, and she felt more stable on her feet. But at the same time, she knew better what a danger Colin and the others were taking on themselves. By the time Ophelia escorted her back toward the withdrawing room, then slipped with her into the study, she was shivering with fear.

“We have some clothes for you, and Ophelia is going to help you into them, but you must change quickly. I'll be waiting outside the door.”

She leaned into his cheek and whispered, “Don't leave me.”

He looked at the clock. “Ophelia, watch at the door.”

He began to undress her, forcing himself not to remember the last time he'd held her, the last time he'd untied the strings under her bodice and at her waist. He focused on the ribbon first, untying it just enough to loosen the drawstring. Then he moved to the pins. He loosened the dress enough to slip it off.

He looked at her partially clad and wished to weep, then kill. He'd seen that she'd grown thin, but not how thin.

Within five minutes, Lucy had become a very pretty boy. The postboy's legs were longer than Lucy's, so they used the pins from her dress to fold the pants legs up. Colin had intended to bind her breasts as she had done in the camps, but there was no need. She was already so thin, and the shirt was tight enough that it, with the jacket, did the job suitably well. The only problem had been her hair. Curls and curls down the back of her neck. He'd considered cutting it off, but there was no time. Instead, at Ophelia's suggestion, they made her a turban out of a strip of petticoat to mimic the uniform of Lady Stanford's postboys.

“Lucy.” He lifted her chin so his eyes could meet hers. They were filled with fear and exhaustion. “We have one chance. Watch the floor as we leave. Don't look up; don't meet anyone's eyes. Hold on to Ophelia, and whatever happens, don't stop walking.”

They took their positions, Colin on one side of Ophelia, Lucy on the other. Ophelia pretended to lean on Lucy, all the while directing her steps. Edmund stood outside the study door, lounging against the wall. “The carriage is first in line. The twins stand ready, as do I.”

Lucy's feet were steadier, but she still moved as if she were uncertain. They passed the guard at the end of the hall to the withdrawing room without incident.

They neared the door to the ballroom just as Sophia's two cousins engaged in a loud disagreement and called on the two footmen at the door to adjudicate. Though the footman refused to move, it was enough of a distraction for the three of them to enter the main hallway.