Chapter Seven
Millie’s heart thundered in her ears as loudly as the applause just a few minutes before.
She mingled with the milling crowd, and, to keep herself from Willard’s detection, she kept her head lowered and, with slightly bent knees to lessen her height, she mimicked the movements she’d observed the man in the pit using earlier in the evening.
Sidling proved more effective for her than for him as she made her way through the corridor outside the box. Being smaller, she was able to slip past several groups of gentlemen and ladies without causing too much stir.
Behind her, the door to the Eltenham box clattered.
“Damnation!”
Willard’s cry—a shocking, openly uttered oath—echoed against the walls. Every eye turned to him. Every eye but Millicent’s.
She used the distraction to duck behind a column.
A moment of stunned silence followed. Then, slowly, murmurs rose again as men returned to their conversations. Of course, most men would ignore a gross infraction made by one of their own. The ladies, on the other hand, remained wide-eyed and frozen, gazes fixed on Willard.
Where was Lady Eltenham? Wasn’t there anyone present to whom she could turn?
Frantically, she studied faces.
Unfortunately, she recognized none. Perhaps she should have paid more attention when Lady Sarah had been pointing out the people she should know.
“Me boys, Me boys…”
She pressed herself against the wood painted to look like stone. Across the corridor, she recognized the man who’d been seated next to her leading the pack of Willard’s friends out of the lounge she’d passed on the way in.
“…High time we return,” he continued. “He’s expecting us. We’ve our own parts to play.”
Low laughter rumbled among the men. She backed away.
“What about his mum?”
“Out cold on the bench.”
“Dastardly.”
“As ‘ole Will says, why ask when you can ensure?”
Merciful heavens! Willard had planned for them to get caught. Betrothed, indeed. Millie gritted her teeth. She would wager he hadn’t spoken of marriage to Adrian at all.
“I say! Is that Willard!? What’s he doing, lads?”
She cast a panicked glance over her shoulder.
Willard was making his way through the crowd, grabbing every dark-haired young lady, one right after another, and forcing them to face him.
She’d never thought he’d be this obvious in his pursuit.
Was he mad? She almost did not recognize him—his mouth and his eyes were both grotesquely distorted by wrath.
She tightened her grip on his knife, then resumed weaving her way back through the crowd in the direction she’d just come. She chose a lady with generously sized skirts to use as a shield while Willard seized yet another lady’s arm. Then, she scooted him by quickly without his notice.
She’d survived yet another close encounter. Now, however, she was heading away from the lounge, away from the stairs, away from safety, dash it all!
But surely there must be another way out of the theater?
Obviously, she could not trust the public to keep her safe. Willard didn’t care if he made a scene. Her only chance was to find a place to hide herself for a time. Hide and think.
And the only place in this direction was the royal box. Although the royal box would likely have a second egress. Private stairs, perhaps, on the other side…?
She peered through a group of people toward the box’s ornate entry. Though empty tonight, the box was guarded by a very large, impassive man.
Quickly and carefully, she closed Willard’s knife and then slipped the thing into the hidden slit in her dress where she’d tied her reticule. A blade certainly was not going to help her make her case for assistance. Then, she approached the guard with a panicked smile.
“Please, sir. I urgently—”
“Miss Wainwright?” he queried, glancing over her shoulder.
She frowned. “Yes…”
“Hurry.” He stepped aside and indicated she should pass. “And don’t you worry. No one else will get through. Only you and Lady Sarah are expected.”
Lady Sarah? Millie hadn’t even known Lady Sarah would be here tonight, And why would they be expected? …Why and by whom?
“Lord Willard?” She asked.
“No, Miss,” the guard replied.
For now, anyone Not Willard would have to be enough.
She ducked between the curtains shielding the entrance and into a chamber that wasn’t, as she’d expected, the box proper, but a receiving area.
Just before the guard closed the door and plunged her into complete darkness, she glimpsed a second to her left, likely leading to the box, and one straight across, which could be the second exit.
Holding her arms out in front, she made her way across the room.
But her progress came to an abrupt halt.
She’d stumbled into something large. Something male.
She inhaled, intending to scream and then…
Bergamot. Clove. Leather.
Immediately, she recognized the scent.
“Neville?” Confusion suspended her reaction. “Is that you?”
“Thank heavens!” he exclaimed in a whisper.
Definitely Neville.
“Good God!” His hands came down on her shoulders. “You had me frightened!”
With a gentleness at odds with his tone, he gathered her into his arms. She hadn’t realized just how cold she’d become. He, on the other hand, was warm. Warm as the lambskin blanket in Adrian’s curricle.
She’d been panicked. Frantic, even. Neville sounded as if he’d been so, too.
Inexplicably, his concern left her reassured.
If her horror, her fear had been real, then so was this sudden, comforting quiet. This darkness. This wordless recognition. This bond born of long acquaintance. She knew Neville. Her body knew him, too.
No matter how fraught their interactions had been, she could predict his conduct. As her sense of familiarity renewed, she relaxed against his chest. That same, solid chest she remembered huddling against.
Suddenly, they weren’t in any retiring room, royal or not. They were in a yew maze. Sheltering from spread wings of onyx darkness, the same warm, bewildering sensation winding into her limbs….
This time, however, Neville wasn’t thrusting her away. Instead, he was clutching her close. Indeed, his strength was the only reason she could still stand. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and, with his other, repeatedly rubbed soothing circles into the small of her back.
Safe. She was safe.
“Millie…” He pressed his brow against hers. “Why the devil didn’t you heed my warning?”
Her sense of warmth and shelter evaporated. She went stiff and cold again.
But Neville did not seem to have noticed.
“I was so afraid!” he exclaimed.
The circles he’d been making against her back ceased, and she felt the pressure of his hands, one between her hips and the other between her shoulder blades. Then, a light pitter-patter of his touch rained over her back, as if he must check, and then check again, to make sure she was real.
“I was determined to reach you, but I didn’t think I could—”
Reach her? From where?
“—and yet, I was able to rescue you, after all, praise God!”
Rescue?
Neville thought he’d rescued her? He hadn’t even known she’d be here!
“You?! You…” She sputtered.
She couldn’t yet put together a sentence, but now, her feet were firmly on the ground. And, this time, she was the one who thrust him away.
“What the devil are you doing in the royal retiring room, Neville?” She repeated his foul language. “And just what do you mean by this…this outrage?”
She could think of no stronger word.
Only outrage captured the internal and external waves of mortification crashing down about her. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and held fast in the darkness, just as Neville had held her a moment before.
She was so furious she started shaking.
Furious not just at Neville, but at Willard, at those sorry excuses for gentlemen Willard counted as friends, at an entire world of men who saw women as flowers to be plucked…
cut down and then used to adorn men’s fancies, whims, and dreams as just easily as the bud Willard had clipped from the bower. What could a cut flower do but wither?
Willard.
She could practically taste her loathing.
She tore out the silken rose Willard had placed over her ear and cast the vile, fake thing away.
“Outrage?” Neville repeated, sounding as bewildered and angry as Millie felt.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Having to dance last night with Willard had been Neville’s fault. She wouldn’t have stepped out onto the floor at all had Neville not been striding across it looking as if he was about to throw her over one of his massive shoulders.
She would have hit Neville in one of them if she’d been certain where he stood.
“Outrage,” Neville muttered. “You’re one to talk. I specifically warned you that Willard was dangerous.”
“No,” she refuted, able to think clearly now. “You urged me to have caution. You said Willard was not the kind of man people believed. That is not the same thing as saying he’s dangerous.”
Dangerous. Threatening. And oddly, strangely powerful. Even now, she wasn’t sure how he’d gotten her to play directly into his hands.
But in the end, she’d thwarted him, she must remember.
Thwarted.
Instinctively, she placed her hand over his knife.
“Millie?” Neville queried.
“Sst!” She silenced him. “I’m thinking.”
She should have heeded her own instinctive discomfort and left the Eltenham box the instant she realized Willard and she were alone. How many times tonight had she noticed, but not honored, her own discomfort?
She’d known something was wrong with him. She’d known but had not accepted what her instincts had told her. If she had, she would never have accepted Willard’s escort in the first place.
Willard had nudged her step by subtle step right into his trap. And he’d done so by making her doubt her own mind. By being one thing while seeming to be another.
Why had he chosen to toy with her? Only for sport? He certainly hadn’t been in earnest when he’d called her his betrothed. Only when he said he expected obedience had he been speaking the truth. Oh heavens. How much worse could this night have become?