Chapter 39
Noelle had scarcely made it home and changed into a day dress, sans wig, when a caller showed up with flowers. She made a show of keeping him waiting downstairs. It wasn’t Fitz, or the staff would have told her.
The man stood as she entered the family drawing room. “Lady Noelle,” he greeted, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers and a broad smile.
“Sir Edward,” she returned, turning to her brother who eyed the other man skeptically.
“Before either of you ventures to ask, I’m not leaving,” Jasper commented from behind his newspaper.
“Noted, my Lord. I came to call because I heard from a friend,” the hopeful suitor said as he took a seat in an armchair once she had alighted upon a settee, “that Lord Ludlowe had gone missing.”
“Oh?” she kept her voice casual as she poured tea into a teacup and handed it to him on a saucer, “I hadn’t heard. Gracious of you to call to inform me, then.” Her voice was full of none of the sarcasm or ire that she had in mind.
He blushed. “Well, I thought that, as his betrothed, you ought to know that his trunks were seen being carried out of Pomfrey House in Fitzrovia this morning.”
Her head spun. Had Sir Cranmer already removed Fitz’s possessions from the home he’d just shown her, in a bid to start moving in?
Adelaide would play the long game. Adelaide would give nothing away and use the man before her as a pawn if it meant saving the man she loved.
She leaned forward jovially, “My good sir, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had been spying outside the home of my betrothed. Or perhaps you’re that gossip columnist who writes under an alias,” she sipped her tea as if in thought, “Wherever did you come by such information?”
“I have my sources.”
I’m sure you do, she thought, Sir Cranmer.
“Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t share them with me at any rate,” She said to him, a feline smile an insinuation that perhaps he should, almost like a dare. She heard Jasper’s newspaper rattle from across the room.
The would-be suitor leaned forward, taking her hand. Jasper lowered his newspaper immediately to glare at the other man, who cleared his throat and pulled back. “My apologies, Lady Noelle.”
“What else brought you here today, Sir Edward?” She looked at him with slitted, hopeful eyes.
He moved to sit next to her. “I came because…well, I heard some other things as well that I am sure are untrue given a woman of your unimpeachable character…because I felt compelled to offer my aid.”
“Your……. aid?” She hesitated on the word as though it were heretical.
The knife she often carried on her person was upstairs, for once she was glad her elder sister had seen fit to insist she leave it.
Her fingers itched to bury it in his skin until he gave her a more satisfactory answer.
She worked to hide such machinations from her features.
“Yes, my lady. I can’t imagine what made Lord Ludlowe abscond and abandon you in such a cowardly manner, leaving merely a note to explain his absence and nothing else. But should you have need of my good name to restore you, I am prepared to bestow it.”
Noelle could feel Jasper’s eyes on her even if the man beside her ignored his gaze.
“I see,” was all that she said in reply.
The man beside her took her hands in his as though he willed her to say more. By all outward appearances, he’d been most generous with his offer. She waited him out.
“I know we haven’t had the lengthiest or most exciting courtship, but I…I am fond of you. We could have a partnership built on shared interests and respect. I would be a good husband to you.”
“Husband,” Noelle whispered the word as though it were an incantation that could bring the man that she really wanted to fill that role back to her.
“Yes, my lady,” Sir Edward whispered.
She nodded. Then stood. The other man followed, straightening his suit as he stood.
“Sir Edward, I appreciate your proposal. Really, I do. You have…surely…given me much to…to think on. I will give you an answer presently. I need some time to consider, as I’m sure you can understand.”
He nodded without any sign of disappointment. “Take all the time you need, my lady,”
He turned to the Earl, “My Lord,” he nodded, and then departed.
Her entire family descended upon the drawing room within a matter of minutes.
Their voices all seemed to float into one unanimous sound.
She couldn’t pick apart the words that were said, as so many opinions were stated that they all coalesced.
Noelle closed her eyes and pressed her face into her hands, circles and stars shooting behind her eyelids into her skull.
“Enough!” she shouted. Her chest heaved with exertion and lack of sleep, a single tear escaped.
Jasper, Henry, Lawrence, Moria, Olivia, and Bridget all turned to stare at her.
While Kathleen had been mostly bedridden at the end of her pregnancy, Noelle felt sorry for causing her a moment’s discomfort, and had waited till her eldest sister had gone back upstairs to say her peace.
Noelle began pacing, fidgeting with her hands clasped at her midsection.
Where was Fitz?
It had been nearly 72 hours. They couldn’t keep the rest of the ton from finding out and ruining her reputation much longer.
The combined efforts of men from Henry’s boxing club, Lawrence’s connections via many nighttime haunts he frequented, Moria’s overheard gossip over the tea she’d attended, Kathleen and Olivia’s questioning of servants, had overturned little.
Except for one puzzle piece that would not leave Noelle.
“I need to say something.”
The family watched Noelle and barely even blinked.
“My earlier conversation with Sir Edward revealed something…enlightening.”
Jasper stepped forward; his brow furrowed. “That he’s an insufferably presumptuous ass?”
Noelle shook her head. “I was already acutely aware of that. He mentioned that Fitz left me with a note. How could he possibly have privy to such a detail?”
She heard audible intakes of breath that her words had set in motion. “I want to set a trap for him, but I will need your help.”
Objections and voices were raised. They quietened when she held up a staying hand.
“Please trust me,” she beseeched, “I was able to carry off the publishing of an entire novel and inhabiting a completely separate identity without any of you catching on.”
It was Moria’s turn to step forward, “I caught on. Even with your mask on, I knew it was you.”
Noelle tilted her head to the side. “You were there…and, you did?”
Moria nodded. “Well, it was Fitz that gave you away. He seemed rather proud. The way that he was watching Adelaide…I’d seen that look before.”
“Oh,” Noelle breathed, tears almost catching hold of her again. She had to focus on getting Fitz back. Lawrence and Bridget at the same time both held out a handkerchief for her, but she shook them off.
“Please,” she breathed, “I believe Sir Edward can lead us to him.”
Amidst the plans for the trap that was to be set, the entire ton received a handwritten invitation to a ball. The ink was the most royal of blues, the paper the finest quality, edged with gilt. The unmistakably regal and self-important colors of the house of Pomfrey.
The ball was to be held that evening and promised a spectacle. Noelle knew that Adelaide would have relished this particular unfolding of events.
The fire crackled in the grate, pulling Noelle back to the present.
“Sir Cranmer must be behind this last-minute ball,” Noelle said.
“What if he’s not?” Moria posited, her hand on Noelle’s arm.
“What do you mean?”
“What if it’s Fitz?”
Noelle gasped, her hands shook as she pulled out the note that Fitz had left for her in his room.
She squinted at the words with one eye as Moria leaned closer.
The words danced. She snatched a pencil and scratch piece of parchment from the desk in the study and sat back down, leaning her back against Moria’s chair as she placed the paper on a book propped against her knees.
Glancing back and forth from paper to Fitz’s note, she wrote down the words that stood out, the ones capitalized or written backwards or slanted:
Mdm Blackshear Fitzroy St
“Oh, you clever, vexatious man.”
The answer had been there all along, in his handwriting, and she had missed it.
Noelle immediately grabbed her sister’s hand and led her downstairs.
Before she could speak, Moria squeezed her hand once for reassurance before saying: “Let me.”
She was a swirl of commands, for bonnets, shoes, a carriage, an escort. Noelle touched the little sheath Moria had sewn into the lining of her dress to make sure her small knife was on her person. It rested against the leather, her own piece of armor.
“Now, that’s settled. Where are we going, my visionary?”
Noelle smiled at her; hope surely painted on her features. “For once,
I’m following Fitz’s instructions.”
Moria followed her into the carriage, shaking her head. “I hope you know just how fortunate a man you are, Viscount Ludlowe.”