Revealed (20 page)

They sawed at the pastry crust, until a large enough section could be lifted away, and they looked inside.

“What the—” Lord Whitford exclaimed, before shooting angry eyes to Marcel. “You moron! There are supposed to be white doves in here—
live
doves—not massacred blackbirds!”

“But . . . but . . . it iz impossible!” Marcel squeaked, his voice unaccountably high in his throat.

The crowd’s murmurs rose to full voice as questions abounded, feet shuffled, and feathered heads bobbed, as word was passed through the assembled guests that something was very, very wrong.

Lord Whitford, meanwhile, had turned purple.

“
This
is how you choose to embarrass me, you damned insolent Frog!” Lord Whitford raged from the dining room, as Marcus stepped back into it, wending his way back to Phillippa’s side. “When I found you, you were a gutter rat in Paris!”

“
Oui
—and you still pay me like one!” Marcel snapped back, his face agog with bewilderment and anger. “You pasty
Anglais
. You make me sick. Thinking you have the world on your strings!”

“Why you little ungrateful—”

“You have no taste! You’d eat
merde
if I told you it was
Français
!”

Lord Whitford went for the jugular. But Marcel, while of a height, was quicker, ducking Whitford’s hands and slamming himself forward into Whitford’s body, the force of which knocked not only the brawling couple off the platform and to the floor, but the now-mangled, open, massive pie.

The ceramic pie dish crashed and fractured as it hit the hard surface of the floor, sending shards, pastry, and blackbirds sliding across the polished wooden surface. One such bird came to rest at the feet of Lady Whitford who, upon seeing its broken neck and charred form, promptly fainted.

Then the melee truly began. Female voices shrieked and fell, several more women fainting dead away, as if in sympathy with poor Lady Whitford. Those women who did not faint began crying out for help for their friends, beckoning men to their sides to assist them, those that weren’t involved in attempting to either end or prolong the fight between Whitford and his famed chef. Marcus shot a look to his side, but Phillippa looked as if fainting were the sole thing she was not capable of.

“This is madness,” she said loudly so he could hear above the chaos. “The Whitfords will never live this down. I cannot imagine anything worse.”

That, of course, was when they heard the gunshots.

The crowd stilled. The noise continued, from out of doors, as if they were merely firecrackers on a cloudless night. Women who had fainted sat up and looked around, before remembering their prone positions. Then the real hysteria began.

Everyone began running for the exits, overturning plates and tureens of diligently prepared cuisine as they did so. Bumped and jostled every possible way, Marcus threw his arms around Phillippa and moved with the crowd.

They were swept to the front of the house and through the foyer, where startled coachmen quickly climbed up their rigs, and frightened aristocrats dove into them.

“Phillippa! Phillippa!” came a voice from behind them. It was Totty, being led out of the Whitford mansion by Broughton, who, while bewildered, seemed determined to keep his charge safe.

“Go,” Marcus breathed in her ear, “go with Broughton and Mrs. Tottendale. Let them get you to safety.”

“But what about you?” she asked, her eyes searching his face as another rushing individual bumped her further into Marcus’s protective arms. But he held her firm and then, with strong hands on her shoulders, gently levered her back.

“I have to . . . Phillippa, let Broughton be your hero.” And with that, Marcus let her go, turned against the tide of humanity, and felt her keen gaze on his back as he fought his way back inside.

Phillippa kept looking, long after Marcus had disappeared from sight. The fashionable world’s beautiful people spilled out around her, more than one threatening to shove her out of the way and into the trampled dirt that used to be the Whitfords’ front gardens. In fact, Mrs. Croyton nearly did, landing an elbow in Mr. Crawley’s stomach instead, so determined was she to get her three precious daughters to the safety of the tangle of carriages. Phillippa’s form would have connected with the ground had it not been for the saving presence of Totty and Broughton.

“Move on!” Totty barked, elbowing Mrs. Croyton out of the way, as Broughton pulled Phillippa to his side.

“Mrs. Benning, are you quite all right?” he asked solicitously.

“Phillippa, Mrs. Croyton would have killed you!” Totty said in sharp, admonishing tones.

“Totty, are you all right? Where’s Nora?” Phillippa asked worriedly.

“Never fear, Miss De Regis is with her mother,” Broughton answered.

“And Lady De Regis was the first person out the door,” Totty harrumphed.

“I found Mrs. Tottendale scouring the ballroom for you,” Broughton began, before he was rudely shoved from the back to get out of the way. “Mrs. Benning, we really should be leaving. My carriage is this way.”

Unable to resist the flood any longer, Phillippa, with one last look to the doors of the mansion, allowed Broughton to guide them through the crowd to his carriage and assist them inside.

Marcus moved like lighting through the corridors, now in complete disarray from the trampling of the party. He wove his way beyond the ballroom, back to the gallery, where less than an hour ago, a calm and composed Lord Whitford was proudly pontificating on his collection of firearms to Marcus and Phillippa. He located the case that contained Whitford’s most recent acquisition.

Or had.

Marcus knew what he saw. He had expected it and dreaded it. It was his proof.

Laurent was alive.

And the scrolled, silver-handled pistols belonging to the Blue Raven were gone.

I
N the wee hours of the morning, by a fire that was under strict orders not to die, Phillippa sat waiting and getting more and more annoyed with each passing tick of the clock.

He just left her there and ran back inside without so much as a by-your-leave. Now she had the off-putting sensation of actually
worrying
about the man, so much so that she had found her all-important beauty sleep impossible and was instead sitting in her downstairs salon by the fire, waiting for either a knock at her door or the sun to rise.

He would knock on her door, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t leave her in this awful, distracted state. Oh, she was going to look horrid tomorrow. Even if she slept into the afternoon, she would have dark circles under her eyes and very possibly a small crease where her brows came together. If she had such a wrinkle, she’d hunt him down, and if he was found in good health, kill him.

Tired of sitting, she stood and began pacing the Aubusson carpet its whole length, distractedly following the patterns in the woven wool, sort of dancing lethargically along to its colorful tune.

She loved this carpet. She loved her pink marble fireplace. She even loved that damn rosewood clock on the mantel whose ticks echoed off the rose-patterned wallpaper.

She loved her house. Rarely did she indulge in a full day at home, but when she did so, it was as if she had the fantasy palace all to herself and she could savor its delights. She danced behind the tall hedgerows, in between the blue hydrangeas and bright marigolds she’d ordered put in. A more cheerful garden one was not likely to find. She luxuriated in the massive claw-footed ceramic bathtub she had installed in the tiled and painted antechamber to her own mistress’s bedchamber. She was the one who had the entire interior of the house refurbished when she, upon inheriting it, found the entire second and third floors to be in complete disrepair. And she was the one who had decorated it flawlessly, when she discovered that those downstairs rooms that were not in use had been pilfered of their beauty for a few extra pounds.

She liked to think that she would have redecorated in any case, if Alistair had been as solvent as he had claimed, and she was setting up house as a woman who intended to make the grand, austere mansion on Grosvenor Square her home. If he had lived. But this was not Alistair’s house. She had never seen him here, they had never lived here as man and wife. Alistair Benning was a footnote in this house’s history. No, it was her home, exactly to her specifications. It merely bore his name.

While listening to the overwhelming tick of the clock, Phillippa almost didn’t hear the discreet tapping on the salon’s door. While contemplating the intricate carpet patterns, she almost didn’t notice that door slip open, and a dark-clad figure slip inside.

And she almost didn’t scream like a possessed banshee scared out of her wits.

“Holy Mother, woman, make the noise stop!” Mr. Marcus Worth said, his hands clutching at his ears, and then, when the noise did not cease as required, he braved further damage and moved his hand to her mouth. Finally, quiet reigned.

“It’s just me,” he whispered. “You’ll not scream again?”

She nodded.

He removed his hand. No sound emanated. Marcus relaxed.

Which turned out to be a mistake.

Unbeknownst to most people in her social circle, but as Marcus Worth was well aware, Phillippa Benning had an impressive right hook.

Luckily, she aimed it at his shoulder instead of his jaw, hitting him in solid muscle with an ineffectual thud and only minimal pain. He broke out in a grin, even as he exclaimed in a hushed voice, “Ouch!”

“Oh, shush,” she said, shaking out her hand from the impact with his shoulder. “That was for scaring me like that. I likely felt that punch more than you. The next time, I’ll aim for your stomach.”

Marcus shook his head. “No good hitting a man in the stomach, unless he’s got a soft belly.” Which Phillippa had to admit, he did not. “You’ll do greater damage if you hit lower or higher.”

“I’m well informed about the pain of a lower blow, but higher?” she asked, curious.

“If you can manage the neck, a solid shot could crush a man’s windpipe.”

“Hm. I’ll bear that in mind,” she replied, suddenly proper. Marcus took a few steps farther into the room.

“Your, er, scream did not wake Mrs. Tottendale, or the servants?” he asked, his eyes shooting to the parlor’s various doors.

“Totty could sleep in a battlefield. Very useful in a companion,” Phillippa answered, a bit more inclined to be kind to him. She was still peeved, of course. How dare he scare her first by running back into the Whitfords’ and then by appearing like a ghost (or infamous sneak) in the night, but she was too relived to see he was all right to stay flustered for long. “And as for the servants,” she continued, “apparently they can sleep through their mistress’s distress with ease, as well.”

“Good,” he said wearily and then collapsed onto a delicate pink chintz sofa next to the fire.

He was tired, she noticed, concerned. Deeply tired, bone weary. It was only four in the morning; oftentimes she came home at this hour. But obviously the excitement of the evening and the lateness of the hour had lent itself to an exhaustion that caused Marcus to drop the facade of good humor he normally wore. His eyes became lost in the fire, as the light drifted across his face and the small lines at the corners of his eyes.

She would commit suicide before she allowed herself wrinkles so plainly on her face, but Phillippa had to admit, even exhausted, those small lines looked strangely becoming on Marcus Worth.

“What happened?” Phillippa asked quietly, lowering herself to the chair opposite him.

He looked at her then, and on a great sigh, turned the length of his body toward her and decided to tell his story.

“The pistols were gone.”

She regarded him blankly for a moment, then she remembered. “The pistols—the ones from the gallery? The Blue Raven’s pistols?”

“Actually, they were Laurent’s initially. I suppose he has a right to them,” Marcus said with a shrug, his sense of irony peeking out from his weary frame. “Of course, he was supposedly shot dead with one of them, so ownership might be in contention.”