Revealed (47 page)

To argue would only have drawn the madman’s ire, so the Englishman nodded and carefully retraced his steps, back to where Sterling lay, his blood no longer flowing. He swiftly rifled through the dead man’s pockets, took his pocket watch, snuffbox, and any coin he had. Make it look like a bloodthirsty cutpurse. He refused to acknowledge that his hands were shaking, that Laurent’s coldbloodness scared him beyond reason. He was more than happy to remove himself from that man for the rest of the evening.

The rest of his life, if he had any luck in the matter.

A
RABELLA Arbuthnot Tottendale, affectionately known as Totty, was not an excitable woman. One could not live with Phillippa Benning and be excitable—unless one wanted to live with constant heart palpitations. Indeed, Totty had married, borne a child, had the misfortune of burying him, and then many years later buried her husband next to her son. She blamed none, brought no hue and cry, as she accepted these circumstances as facts of life. She, in fact, was generally happy, sociable, and catty—but in the most pleasant of ways. To worry Totty was akin to shaking a mountain: rare but possible, and only caused by the greatest of distress.

So the fact that Totty was becoming deeply alarmed by Phillippa’s continued absence should have raised some alarms itself.

And Marcus Worth, who had damnedably lost sight of Sterling a half hour before, was already on high alert. When he saw Totty scanning the pavilion, peeking into its alcoves, it was the final straw. He wound through the crowd to her side.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming away from his post, carrying a tray of champagne with him.

Totty kept looking wildly around before her eyes settled on Marcus’s tall frame. “Thank God—I can’t find Phillippa.”

Fear coursed through Marcus’s body. Phillippa missing . . . and Sterling . . . He gripped Totty’s elbow, guided her to the side of the room. “Are you sure?”

Totty favored him with a look generally reserved for the mentally addled. “Of course I’m sure. She told me—she made me promise—that I’d stay with her this evening. But I can’t find her now.”

Taking a deep breath, Marcus urged Totty to do the same. “When was the last time you saw her?” he finally inquired.

“When she went to dance with Broughton, I went to the ladies’ retiring room. I thought she wouldn’t miss me. Oh, I fear the worst, Mr. Worth. She’d been acting so odd of late, especially after your brother called this afternoon—”

“Wait. Byrne called on her this afternoon? Mrs. Tottendale, slow down, I don’t understand.”

Totty, in her frustration, knocked the tray of champagne out of Marcus’s hand, causing a loud clatter and broken glasses, not to mention a great deal of attention to come their way. “I’m not drunk. She made me promise not to drink.”

“All right,” he soothed, holding up his hands in a gesture of compliance. “She went to dance with Broughton, and you haven’t seen her since.”

“Yes, and I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not at the banquet. She’s not on the dance floor. She’s not in the card room.”

“Totty?” Nora’s voice broke through the crowd. “Is everything all right?”

“I can’t find Phillippa,” Totty said, turning to the young lady. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Don’t worry,” Nora patted Totty’s hand in a condescending manner, “I know where she is. Totty dear, shall we get you a new glass of champagne?”

“Where is she?” Marcus asked, drawing Nora’s eyes to him. She looked at him with utter distaste.

“You should grab a pan and clean up this mess,” she said sneeringly, dismissing him without another glance. When he didn’t move, she was forced to look up at him once more, this time, seeing past the livery and half mask.

“Oh, you’re . . . you’re that Mr. Worth. Couldn’t wrangle an invitation?” she taunted. “Phillippa told me about you; she said you followed her around like a puppy, that your slavering devotion has become more and more bothersome. Well, you won’t have the opportunity to bother her tonight. She is in the Prince’s private box—with the Marquis of Broughton.”

Totty seemed unsure whether or not to believe this. Marcus wished he could. But the fact that Sterling had eluded him at the same time as Phillippa’s disappearance was still too large a coincidence.

“Are you certain?” Marcus asked.

“I’m going to call the guard over for you,” Nora said, her eyes narrowing.

“Are you certain?” he gritted through his teeth, towering over the diminutive Nora.

But Nora replied with a laugh. “I saw her myself.” She turned, and announced to the whole room, “Phillippa Benning is with the Marquis of Broughton in the Prince’s box.”

“No, she’s not,” came a voice from the depths of the crowd. People shuffled to the sides, admitting Lady Jane Cummings to the fore.

“Well, of course, you would say something like that.” Nora scoffed. “You wouldn’t want everyone to know that Phillippa has won Broughton.”

Lady Jane sent Nora a withering look. She glided past her and moved to stand directly in front of Marcus. “I saw Phillippa go out into the park. She was following a man.”

“Lord Sterling is missing, too,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, this is ridiculous. Guard! Guard!” Nora cried, drawing only more attention to their situation, not any particular guards.

Lady Jane rightly ignored Nora’s remarks. “It was not Broughton. I did not recognize the man.”

Marcus looked from Totty to Lady Jane and back again. “Show me where,” he commanded Lady Jane. Then, to Totty, “Locate my brother, Byrne. He’s disguised as an old man.”

“At the card tables.” Lady Jane finished for him. At Marcus’s astonished look, she shrugged, “I spotted him earlier and figured you two were up to some trouble.”

The three moved quickly, leaving Nora outraged among broken champagne glasses and bemused guests. She shook quietly with rage, as a gentlemanly hand landed on her shoulder.

“Miss De Regis?” Lord Fieldstone said. Having overheard the child yelling for guards, he had moved across the room as quickly as his portly frame allowed, finding her alone among broken crystal. “Is there something going on?”

Nora looked up into that good gentleman’s face, spite and fire shooting from her eyes. “Yes, Lord Fieldstone, there is! Marcus Worth and, apparently, his brother have gate-crashed the Ball! And they have taken off after Phillippa, even though there is no way Phillippa followed a strange man into the woods—because she just wouldn’t! Not with Broughton at her heel!”

Fieldstone, beyond having to deal with the politics of his office, was a man of young family. Reggie, his eldest, was only ten. So he was, in many ways, used to the peculiarly involved ramblings of children and knew the best way to coax the whole story out of them.

“My dear,” he said in his kindest, most paternal tone, “you have obviously suffered a great wrong.”

Nora nodded, her eyes becoming huge.

“Don’t worry, we’ll right it. But I think it best if you start at the beginning.”

It did not take long to find the body. Lady Jane took them to the spot where she had seen Phillippa disappear into the gardens, and Marcus had followed the paths until the paths were no more. Byrne hobbled at his heels, Totty and Lady Jane behind him. When they spotted the grove of trees, Marcus’s instincts took over, and he headed for them.

“Byrne,” Marcus called out from the center of the grove. “Keep the ladies back.”

“Too late,” Byrne drawled, coming to stand next to his brother over the pale, bloodied form of Lord Sterling. They heard the gasps from Totty and Lady Jane. Byrne looked over his shoulder, met Lady Jane’s eyes, saw her clasping Totty to her protectively. “Jane, take Mrs. Tottendale back to the party, and tell them what we’ve discovered.”

Jane nodded and guided the still gasping Totty back the way they came.

“He’s dead.” Byrne said, as Marcus knelt beside the body.

“And his killers long gone.” Marcus mused. There were footprints in the soft soil, more than one set. “There were two men; they turned on Sterling.”

“Not just Laurent,” Byrne surmised.

Marcus squinted, focused only on those footprints. “They ran . . . this way.” He stood and followed the footprints to a thorny bit of underbrush and then past it, back toward the pavilion.

He found a patch of material, caught on a rosebush. He then found the scene of a struggle, and his mind went black.

They chased her. They caught her. And when he found them, they would die.

But how?

“Dammit,” Marcus breathed. “Sterling was our only lead. How are we to find them now?” he stood and began to pace. “How am I going to find her, Byrne? Laurent will show no mercy; he will hurt Phillippa. Before he kills her, he will—”

But before he could succumb completely to his black thoughts, Byrne came up and delivered a much-needed knock to Marcus’s temple, felling him to his knees.

“Take a deep breath, little brother,” Byrne said, as the stars cleared from Marcus’s eyes. “You need to think; its what you’re good at. Now, you were right about Sterling. But obviously, he wasn’t the only one. Who could it be?”

But Marcus wasn’t focusing on his brother’s voice. He was focused on the tiny glint of metal he saw underneath the shrubbery. He reached for it: a dulled, well-used penknife.

“Marcus!” Byrne’s voice penetrated his thoughts. “Who do you think? Crawley? Someone else from the War Department?”

“Yes,” Marcus answered, turning the knife over in his hand. “And I think I know who.”

Phillippa had the worst hangover of her life. At least, she supposed it was a hangover: the same dull throbs shooting down to the base of her neck, the same darkly blurred vision, mouth of cotton, and sore muscles. But all too soon she realized the sore muscles were from tight bindings at her wrists, ankles, and across her midsection. The mouth of cotton was actually a gag. And the dark blurriness of her vision was due to a sack of some kind, placed unceremoniously over her head.

Certainly her hair was a complete mess. But that was the least of her worries, as suddenly the memory of what she had seen and whom she had run from flooded back.

She brought her head up, began to struggle at her bindings. But it was no use. She was tied to a deeply uncomfortable chair, her wrists firmly secured to the solid wooden arms, her feet bound together and tied to the chair legs. She couldn’t move more than her fingers and toes.

Her movements drew attention, and she froze as she heard footsteps, felt the close breath of her captor on her cheek.

Unceremoniously, the sack was ripped from her head, leaving Phillippa blinking up at her captor.

“Bon soir,”
the Frenchman said, grinning like a jungle cat about to play with its food. “You are awake.
Bon.
”

It seemed a good idea to scream like mad. Unfortunately, the gag remained firmly in place, severely muting and garbling any sound that she could make, and she only strained herself into hoarseness.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “I’m afraid that strip of linen will have to stay in place. I have neighbors, you see. It would be
très
rude to disturb them.”

For the first time Phillippa allowed herself to look about the room, take stock of her surroundings. It was a sparsely furnished room but of good quality, with moldings and fresh wallpaper. There were candles on almost every surface, but the drapes were heavy, so no light escaped. What furnishings there were she recognized as French, a Louis Quinze settee, a Sun King inlay on a side table. But what interested Phillippa most was the wall she was facing. Tacked up on it were dozens and dozens of maps and drawings. Different sections of London, the layout of a grand house, the streets of Brighton, the hold of a ship. All of his plans, right before her.

She took in the wall as he leaned his lithe frame against the chair, infiltrating Phillippa’s space, forcing her to pull away as far as she could—which was not much. He fingered a curl of her hair at her brow. “So lovely, you are. But allow me to introduce myself. We will be spending so much time together.”