The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (18 page)

That the girl she held wasn’t her daughter.

“Ella!” she said, releasing her and stepping back.

“Lady Osborn,” Ella replied, tipping her head, and fixing her gaze on the floor.

The matron glanced around and then caught Ella by the arm, rattling her like a rag doll. “Where is my daughter?”

Ella bit her lip and tried to speak. She tried to confess the truth, but the woman was hurting her, her unforgiving grasp like a pair of steel pinchers.

“Never mind, I can guess.” Lady Osborn pulled her towards the door. “She’s run off with that wicked boy.”

Ella took a furtive glance at the ballroom, where Lord Ashe stood unmasked. She could see him scanning the room, looking for her.

The last thing she saw before Lady Osborn hauled her out the door was the startled expression on his handsome face as he caught sight of her.

But it was too late. Ella was about to pay the piper for her impetuous nature and there was naught her knight could do to reach her in time.

Ella took a deep breath when the carriage stopped before the Ashe townhouse.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t.

But now it was far too late to back out, for too many others had put their own employment on the line for her to disavow them.

Oh, Hazel, what did I let you do? she thought, as the handsome footman — one of three — opened the door and held out his hand to her. This was all Hazel’s doing — the elegant carriage driven by a well-appointed set of matching white horses, a coachman, and three footmen, all courtesy of the Marquess of Holbech, who was currently in Scotland at his hunting box and had no knowledge of his brand-new and as-yet-unmarked carriage being used in this manner.

But Hazel’s flirtatious romance with one of his footmen was enough to gain its illicit use. And, as it turned out, the Marquess’ old coachman had a romantic streak. He managed to rummage up some old, unremarkable livery for them to wear so they wouldn’t be identified.

“Remember, madam,” Hazel’s swain said quietly as he handed Ella down to the kerb. “Before midnight. We must be away.”

She nodded, drawing her cloak around her and pulling its hood down over her face. She ascended the stairs to the grand front door. Other guests were arriving as well and there was a bit of a queue to enter — for each guest had to present their invitation to pass inside.

As she neared the door, a familiar voice cut through the excited whispers around her. “I say, I have an invitation but it was stolen!” Lady Fitzsimon complained. “Now let us in!”

Ella glanced up to find the matron and her daughter standing before the butler, holding up the procession. Ella was glad for her mask, and did a second check to make sure her gown wasn’t showing under the concealing cloak. But still, if the lady recognized her …

Not that this was likely to happen, for Lady Fitzsimon was in a rare mood, facing down the Ashe butler like Wellington’s troops charging forth. She was going to breach this party if it took her all night.

The butler snapped his fingers at one of the footmen to continue checking invitations so the front steps didn’t turn into a crush.

Ella handed over her invite and held her breath until the man waved her inside, and began checking the invitations of the others behind her. She hurried along, Lady Fitzsimon’s shrill notes chasing her inside.

“I say, I was invited!” the matron complained, her voice rising sharply, almost hysterically. “I will not be denied entrance. If you would but tell Lady Ashe to come to the door, she would order you immediately to admit me and my daughter.”

“Madam,” the butler intoned, “Lady Ashe’s rules are simple. No invitation, no entrance.”

A tall, graceful lady and her equally noble husband came to a stop beside Ella. The woman glanced over her shoulder at Lady Fitzsimon and then back at Ella. “Dreadful woman. No manners.”

“Yes, quite,” Ella replied, imitating the same bored, elegant tones.

“Oh, heavens, I can’t recall where the retiring room is,” the woman said, before turning to one of the footmen. “Which way?”

He bowed slightly and then pointed up the stairs, not that Ella needed directions. She’d imagined the Ashe house over and over these past five years.

“Come along, my dear,” the lady said. “I do so hate going up alone.”

As they made their way up the stairs, Ella shot a glance towards the ballroom, searching for her knight errant. But in the crowd of guests, it was impossible to find him — then again, she remembered, he would be in costume.

Not that she thought he could hide his identity from her. Not even after all these years. Still, whatever was she going to say to him?

They went upstairs and, to Ella’s relief, Hazel and Martha were there, helping the guests and making small repairs to various ladies’ costumes. Madame Delaflote often hired them out, at a considerable profit, to provide these services.

Hazel nudged Martha when Ella arrived, and Hazel hurried over to help her take off her cloak.

The moment the cloak was removed, an awed hush came over the crowded room, as all eyes turned towards Ella. Her costume, her hair — done up in a cascade of curls that fell down to her back — the glitter of the silver embroidery, and the soft glow of a thousand seed pearls, caused a sensation.

“You made it in,” Hazel whispered, as she checked Ella’s back to make certain her wings were still intact.

“Yes, your friends played their part perfectly.”

The girl grinned. “This is the best lark—”

“That could end with us all being sacked. Lady Fitzsimon is downstairs determined to get in.”

Hazel waved her off. “Let her try. She hasn’t an invitation. As for being sacked …” The girl shrugged and then glanced around the room. Every eye was on the two of them. Well, on Ella. Hazel went back to work, with her nose in the air, setting Ella’s gown to rights. “We’ll not be sacked. For when you are Lady Ashe, Madame Delaflote won’t dare.” She knelt down and straightened the hemline. And with that completed, Hazel curtseyed slightly and said, “All is well, your highness.”

Ella’s eyes widened even as a gossipy trill ran through the room.

“A princess?”

“But from where?”

“Have you seen such a gown?”

Hazel sent her a cheeky wink and then there was nothing left for Ella to do but to go and face her past.

Lord Ashe stood in the ballroom and watched the parade of masked and costumed debutantes, ladies and likely brides stroll past.

But none of them was her.

And tonight was his last chance to find her. Not that he had much hope left. For every year, as each subsequent ball came and went, and she hadn’t arrived, he’d begun to wonder if she’d ever existed, his lady in green silk.

Where are you? he mused. We are running out of time.

Then a strange hushed air moved through the crowd, followed by a tremor of whispers. One after another, the guests turned towards the entrance to gaze at the latest arrival.

Ashe stilled as he spied the graceful lady making her entrance.

No, it couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be.

But then she turned her head and he spied something he had dared not hope to see. For on the back of her costume perched a pair of gossamer wings.
Fairy wings.

Ashe pushed his way forwards without thinking. He ignored the insulted gasps of his guests pressing his way through the crowd, even as speculative whispers whirled around him.

“A princess, I heard.”

“Russian, I believe.”

“Wherever did she get that costume?”

Then before he realized it, she stood before him.

“You!” he exclaimed. “I’ve found you!”

She smiled at him, her blue eyes twinkling behind her mask. “No, I believe I found you.”

“It doesn’t matter how you’ve come back,” he told her, catching her by the hand and drawing her into his arms. “I won’t lose you again.” Then, to seal his vow, his head dipped down and his lips captured hers.

The night from five years ago came back to him in rich clarity. It was her, the same sweet response, the same curves, the same soft sigh as he deepened his kiss and plundered her lips without any thought of propriety. And when he pulled back and held her at arm’s length, he could only exclaim, “Devil take me, my love, I cannot believe I have found you.”

“Believe again,” she whispered, raising her lips to his and again, they kissed, much to the shocked gasps of the company around them.

“I have imagined this so many times,” he whispered in her ear.

“You have?” She sounded surprised.

“Yes, of course,” he told her. “You left me bewitched and lost that night.”

“I did?” Truly, how could she be so surprised? Hadn’t that night meant as much to her?

“Yes, you did,” he told her with every bit of his heart, and an unabashed grin from ear to ear.

Her eyes sparkled beneath her mask. “And now?”

He grinned even more if that was possible. “I am still yours, my fey sweet love, if you will have me.”

“I …” she stammered, much as she had years before, and he realized he had to tread carefully lest he frighten her off yet again. He hadn’t another five years to wait.

The musicians struck up their instruments and Ashe smiled at her, holding her slim hand in his. “Come, you owe me this dance. One of many, I might add. I’ve been waiting all these years for your return.”

He unmasked himself then led her out to the dance floor, to the amazed and scandalized stares of his guests. For it appeared to one and all that the Ashe legend was about to come true and the viscount had found his bride.

More than one matron with an unmarried daughter in tow and her hopes now dashed for an advantageous marriage, cursed this interloper, this princess from out of nowhere.

Ashe led her out to where the couples were lining up for the first set and, when the music began, it was as if time had not moved a tick since the ball five years earlier.

“Your hair is red,” he teased as they came together.

“Are you disappointed?”

“No, enchanted. It is glorious,” he whispered. He knew what it felt like, but now he could see the ginger strands and honeyed colours. He imagined what those silken tresses would look like spread out over his sheets, unbound and cascading all over her naked shoulders. “The colour matches your unmanageable temperament, as I recall.”

She laughed. “You remember!”

“There is nothing I have forgotten,” he told her.

They turned and moved down a long line of dancers before being reunited at the end of the floor.

“I see you found new wings,” he commented. “Did you lose your other ones when you took flight last time?”

She shook her head at him. “I outgrew them. Besides, they were never mine to wear.”

“So I discovered when I went looking for you.”

Beneath her mask, her eyes widened. “You looked for me?”

“How could you imagine that I would not?”

Once again they made their way down the line of dancers and when they got to the end, she turned to him. “Do you know who I am?”

He grinned and shook his head. “And I’m not the only one curious to discover the truth, my fairy princess.” Ashe nodded to the circle of guests around the ballroom, all gazes fixed on the two of them. “I believe you’ve created a sensation, Your Highness.”

She leaned in a bit. “There was a mistake in the retiring room — a suggestion that I am a princess.”

“Are you?”

His lady love laughed, this time heartily. “Oh, good heavens, no!”

“I am glad of that.”

“Why?”

“Because I suspect there would be all manners of protocol and such to marrying a princess, and I have no patience now that I’ve found you again.”

She shook her head and glanced shyly up into his gaze. “And it doesn’t matter to you who I am?”

“No. I was destined to find my bride that night, and I did. You wouldn’t have been there that night if we weren’t meant to be together.”

She laughed, a musical sound that brought back memories for him. “When did you become such a romantic?”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “When you ran out and left me naught a clue to be found. You could have at the very least left me a slipper.”

“Or my wings?” she teased back.

“They might have helped, but I doubt the mothers of London would have appreciated me wandering about trying them on their daughters,” he said, before he leaned closer to her ear, “or asking them if their little girl had a cute bit of freckle on her—”

She swatted him playfully and danced down the line away from him. Ashe watched her every step and, when they rejoined each other, she said, “I see you haven’t lost a bit of your wickedness.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not in the least,” she replied.

They danced for a few more minutes in silence, just gazing at each other. To Ashe, she was lovelier than he remembered, from the gorgeous mane of red hair down to her slippers. She seemed less fragile than she had those many years earlier.

“Where have you been?” he asked. “And don’t you dare tell me you got married.”

“No, nothing like that.” She tipped her head slightly. “I went away. It seemed the sensible solution at the time.”

“Sensible? Not to me! And what do you mean, away? Away where?”

“Far away,” she told him. “I thought it best.”

“Best for who?” he said. “You stole my heart, you minx.” He pulled her close, closer than was necessary for the dance, and whispered in her ear, “Let me guess, you were deserting heartbroken men from one side of the Continent to another.”

She shook her head, lips twitching with mirth. “No. I haven’t been doing anything like that.”

“And when did you come back to London?”

“Six months ago,” she confessed.