Chapter 3
“Are you going to explain yourself, or must I guess what you are about?” the man challenged. “I am not really sure that I can.”
Cecily would have been mortified to be caught by a servant, but the person standing before her was another guest. In fact, she recognized him. He was the tall man who had left the performance earlier. He crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow, his dark blue eyes watching her with great interest.
How long had he been standing there?
Frightened and anxious, Cecily was still determined not to show this stranger her weakness. She did not even know his identity, much less how he came to be in here.
“It is none of your business,” she scoffed, lifting her chin and putting the reticule behind her back as though he might snatch it away from her.
Oh, please, please let him go away.
Then she could run to the cloakroom and hide. Maybe she would tell her grandmother she was sick and then wait in the carriage, although that would undoubtedly put the old woman in an even worse temper.
“I have no intention of telling anyone that you’re in here or putting food in your bag, whatever the explanation,” the man assured her. “It isn’t gallantry, incidentally. I simply wouldn’t want the bother it would cause.”
“Oh,” Cecily murmured, unsure whether to feel relieved or insulted. “Thank you, either way. Why are you even in here? You should be watching the performance with everyone else, not standing guard over the buffet.”
“If you had been watching the performance with everyone else, rather than raiding the buffet like a street gannet, you would know that the break has started and guests will be pouring through those doors in about five minutes,” the man countered.
“Anyway, I don’t care about what I should be doing, and you don’t either, by the look of things. ”
Cecily frowned. He seemed amused more than anything else, but his observation was insulting. Did he think she was stealing food merely for her own entertainment, like the elderly Dowager Marchioness of Endover used to do with silver teaspoons at her friends’ houses?
“I don’t think we have anything more to say to one another,” she told him with a good impression of dignity. “I should go now. We should not be found alone in here.”
“No wedding ring,” the man noted, glancing at her hand. “Yet you seem very confident for an unmarried young lady of good family, which is what you appear to be based on your dress, your speech, and your presence here tonight. Or am I wrong?”
Was he expecting a formal introduction? Surely, given the current strange circumstances, it would be better to skip one and never see each other again. At the same time, it might be safer to make it clear that she was not easy prey for a rake or a seducer, if that was what he was.
“My father was a baron, and my mother was the daughter of an earl—not that it has anything to do with you. They died many years ago. While relatives took us in, I have had to be very independent from a young age. I’m no fool, and you would do well to remember it.”
“I’m no fool either,” he returned with an amused glint in his eyes, taking a few steps closer to her.
Cecily fixed him with a wary look. As he approached, his height and broad shoulders became even more noticeable, causing her to tip her head back to keep eye contact. His handsome features were impossible to ignore. Being so close, he made an overwhelming impression.
But what did he want? What did he mean by his words or by engaging her in conversation at all? When she first noticed him earlier, his dark blue eyes had seemed like flinty stones. Now they looked like dark sapphires, with fire at their heart, and they were making her feel uncomfortably warm.
Cecily took a step back from this stranger, who seemed to have such a profound and confusing effect on her.
“I should not take you for a fool,” she told him, her heart beating faster. “Unless you persist in asking me more questions.”
At that, he chuckled and approached further. “For a woman stealing food from the Duke of Mildenhall’s table, you have quite the audacity in dealing with the sole witness.”
“What would you do in my position?” she demanded, willing the strange butterflies in her stomach to be gone.
“Since you have not told me your position, how can I know?” he pointed out. “I should certainly like to know you better…”
There was something in his voice when he spoke of knowing her that went straight to her core and made her shiver.
Was this an improper advance or an innocent remark? Well, as innocent as any remark could be in their present situation.
At that moment, they both heard the sounds of approaching feet and voices. Dear God, what would happen if she were discovered in here alone with a man? That would be far worse than only being found with an embarrassing bag of looted food.
“Quick, out through that side door,” the stranger said, taking her elbow and ushering her toward the door. “It leads to the servants’ quarters, but you can say you lost your way.”
“I… thank you.”
“Do not thank me. The entertainment you have provided is thanks enough. I shall now pretend that I have been overcome by hunger and was raiding the buffet alone.”
Cecily looked at him in consternation but quickly fled through the door he had pointed to, passing maids and footmen with trays and baskets along the way.
Though they looked surprised to see her, no one tried to stop her, and soon she reached a dim corridor near the cloakroom, trembling as she caught her breath.
Who in the world was that man? He had helped her escape, even if his motives were selfish, by his own admission. But why had he said he wished to know her?
Why had he come so close to her, even after learning that she was an unmarried woman?
Her heart was pounding hard, and her cheeks burned with an inexplicable heat sparked by the man, even though he had never touched her. She knew she should have left the moment she realized the situation was improper, but she had not.
Surely, he had known how improper it was, too.
Yet he spoke as though he was merely asking her to dance, or to walk with him in the park.
He had almost sounded like a suitor, not that she had ever encouraged any of them further than such simple invitations.
At six-and-twenty, she had never even kissed a man.
Why should she think of that now?
Cecily took several deep breaths and went to the cloakroom to stash her bag away. On her way back to the buffet room, she stopped at the retiring room to check her appearance, re-pinning a few stray golden-brown curls and smoothing the blue silk evening dress that was old now but fitted well.
“Where have you been, Cecily?” Lady Holt exclaimed angrily when Cecily returned to the buffet room and found her there, sitting stonily over a cup of lemonade and an already empty plate.
Her grandmother and uncle never let themselves go hungry, Cecily observed with disgust, even if they were prepared to inflict hunger on her and Mary.
“My stomach was upset,” she lied. “I could not return to the performance.”
Thankfully, Lady Holt seemed satisfied with this explanation, although displeased in general with everyone and everything, as she so often was.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “My own stomach was turning with that dreadful music. We will not be staying for the second half, Cecily. Come, help me stand, girl.”
However, Cecily’s attention was focused elsewhere, her eyes inexorably drawn to the tall, dark-haired man in conversation with the Duke and Duchess of Mildenhall, over by the table where the salmon was laid.
“Cecily? Are you listening to me? Stop staring at the food and help me up. If your stomach is that troubled, it’s best that you don’t eat anything anyway. Hot milk will be enough when we get home.”
Lady Holt’s beady eyes had followed Cecily’s gaze to the table, but she had thankfully misinterpreted the cause of her distraction.
“Very well, Grandmother,” Cecily agreed with apparent meekness.
She turned her face away as the unknown man raised his glass toward them as though they were old acquaintances.
“Ha!” Lady Holt exclaimed as Cecily helped her to her feet. “Now there’s a surprise.”
Cecily’s cheeks burned self-consciously, and she prayed her grandmother would not ask her why the stranger was greeting them.
“The Duke of Greyhaven is out in society again, I see,” Lady Holt continued. “That’s him over there, the dark-haired man beside our hosts, raising his glass to us. Nathaniel Winslow. I’m surprised he remembers me after so many years.”
Nathaniel Winslow, the Duke of Greyhaven. Now the stranger had a name.
“Oh,” Cecily murmured, relieved but concerned to find that her grandmother knew the man, even if apparently the acquaintance was slight. “When did you last see him?”
She hoped that her grandmother would not want to renew the acquaintance and force her into an embarrassing charade of pretending she had never spoken to him before.
“Let me see… It must be eight or nine years ago now. Yes, it was at his wedding. What an odd occasion that was!” Lady Holt chuckled to herself at the memory.
“At his wedding?” Cecily repeated, unable to entirely keep the indignation from her voice. “He is married?”
“Yes, Cecily, people generally do get married,” Lady Holt confirmed witheringly.
“It is the done thing and the most respectable state for ladies and gentlemen of rank and wealth. Tell your sister that if you really wish to help her. Now, run to the cloakroom and get our things, and then we’ll go home. ”
I cannot believe that he is married! Cecily thought to herself as she left the room, far more deeply offended by this fact than she should be.
* * *
Back at Holt House, Lady Holt supervised Cecily drinking a mug of hot milk, presumably from a well-founded suspicion that she would otherwise take it upstairs and share it with Mary.
There was no need for that, however. Cecily had already thrust her coat and bag at one of her favorite maids as soon as they arrived home, telling her to take them to her bedroom and put them in the wardrobe. Mary’s food would be waiting upstairs.
Their uncle was thankfully not yet back from dinner at his club, so after bidding goodnight to her grandmother, she was free to go to bed and find her sister. As she climbed the staircase, candle in hand, her mind drifted back to the strange but fascinating Duke of Greyhaven.
She wished there was someone she could confide in about the events of the night and ask for their opinion.
Mary was too young, both in years and in spirit, to truly understand or offer any sensible advice.
Nor was her discretion guaranteed, despite her best intentions.
She was quite capable of speaking too loudly on delicate subjects, forgetting that their grandmother’s ears were still sharp.
Of the young women Cecily knew from all her years in London, most now married, there were none to whom she could admit her shameful behavior at Mildenhall House. Knowing that her uncle opened her correspondence at will, she had never really made close friends or shared confidences with anyone.
The Duke’s manner of speech, and certainly his actions, were out of kilter with what was normal and acceptable in society. He had admitted that he didn’t care about what he should or shouldn’t do.
What did his wife think of such goings-on?
Annoyed, Cecily shook her head. How he conducted his marriage was really none of her business, and if the Duke attended events as rarely as her grandmother said, there was a high chance that they would never meet again.
With this reassuring thought in her mind, she went to her room and retrieved the bag of food before tiptoeing two doors down to Mary’s bedroom and rapping lightly on the door.
“Mary?” she said quietly after receiving no answer.
Under different circumstances, Cecily would just have assumed that her sister had gone to sleep early, but this was not a regular week, and Mary was scarcely sleeping for worry that their uncle would force her into such a disgusting marriage.
Quietly turning the handle, she stepped inside with her candle, grateful that no one had locked Mary in. At least they had avoided that indignity, so far.
In the bed, a person’s shape was visible beneath the blankets, very still and unmoving. Perhaps she was mistaken, and Mary really had gone to sleep early. However, something about that shape drew her attention, and she moved closer for a better look.
“Mary?” she whispered, already suspecting what she would find when she whipped back the covers a few seconds later.
Beneath the sheets lay only a pile of pillows arranged in the shape of a human body.
Mary is gone!