Unmasking the Thief, page 16
Francisco looked at her at last. “Where indeed. What ambitions are these?”
Emma grimaced and took his arm, urging her to walk with him around the perimeter of the dance floor. “Political ones, of course. And the money to carry them out. I don’t suppose you’d like to wean the girl off him?”
He raised one amused eyebrow. “You want me to marry her?”
Emma laughed. “You could do worse, financially speaking, though I see you have set your sights on a different lady. Who is she?”
“Who?”
“The woman dancing with Calton?”
“I have no idea. Calton owes me a monkey.”
“I believe he’s good for it. Champagne?”
Obligingly, Francisco swiped a couple of glasses from a passing footman and gave one to her.
Her fingers brushed his. The expression in her eyes as she delicately placed her lips over the rim of her glass was all but indecent. “When are you coming to see me, Francis?”
“I’m seeing you now.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Am I to play hide and seek with Thorne for your favors?”
“Thorne is beginning to bore me. Besides, he is otherwise engaged.”
Francisco raised his glass to her. “So am I, Emma. So am I.” With a slight bow, he stepped back and walked away.
His quarry now, at least until the next waltz, was young Archibald Holles of the radical tendencies.
He found the boy skulking against a pillar, watching Catherine Dove dance with a young man he didn’t know.
“Holles,” Francisco murmured.
Being well brought up, Holles straightened at once and bowed. “Sir.”
“You and Miss Dove have become friends,” Francis observed, shamelessly stealing Holles’s place against the pilar but facing the other way so he could not see Matty dancing with a nobleman far better suited to be her husband than he.
Husband? Where the devil had that come from?
“Indeed,” Holles said frostily.
“Don’t freeze me out. I haven’t come to scold or applaud you. Actually, I want to pick your brains about something else entirely.”
“You do?” Holles looked both alarmed and impressed.
“I thought I saw you at a political meeting last week. Near the docks.”
“I often attend such gatherings.”
“I know, which is why I’ve come to you. There were several meetings that same night.”
“Were there?”
“Yes, and I think you know that. You are an educated man, more than a cut above most of the people who attend these gatherings. Have you ever been asked to organize such meetings?”
Holles frowned, looking suddenly wary. “Why do you ask?”
Francisco lowered his voice, though there was no one near enough to hear. “Because I am worried.”
Holles’s lip curled. “For the established rich and powerful?”
“No, for the protesters,” Francisco said bluntly. “If you know who is trying to coordinate this march next week, I wish you would tell me.”
“So you can have them arrested?”
“If necessary,” Francisco admitted. “No, don’t flounce off, Holles, this is serious, and you could prevent a catastrophe.”
Something of his tone must have penetrated the boy’s pride, for he paused before he had quite flounced. “What do you mean?”
“Do you see here, in this room, the person organizing these protests? The man who asked you to lead one?”
Holles stared at him. “Of course not.” He shuffled slightly, then admitted reluctantly, “I’ve never met any leaders beyond the speakers at each meeting. I don’t know where or who the timings come from. But at the last one, I had a note shoved into my hand, and I met with one of the speakers, who asked me if I could easily raise a band of students and well-born youth for the march. Sir, what is this about? What is it to you?”
Francisco made a decision. Too much of this situation was already arranged in darkness. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that you’re being set up for slaughter. Not by ignorant-but-well-meaning enthusiasts for change, but by someone ruthlessly seeking personal power that will benefit no one else.”
Chapter Sixteen
When her dance with His Grace of Dearham had ended, Matty felt she should at least try to rediscover her mother or Marion. She would rather have hunted down Francisco, but pride forbade it. Instead, she was making for her mother’s position with the dowagers, where she also glimpsed Marion with a distinguished-looking escort, when a gentleman stood up almost in front of her.
He looked vaguely familiar—darkly and rather dramatically handsome—so she nodded in return to his amiable smile and, since he didn’t move out of her way, prepared to go around him.
“We must have met since I know who you are, Miss Mather,” he said. “Rollo Darblay.”
She paused guiltily. “Of course! I’m so sorry, there’s such a sea of faces tonight—”
“No need to apologize,” said Hope Darblay’s brother amiably. “Allow me to walk with you a few moments.”
“Certainly,” Matty replied. Darblay had a certain reputation, but since she had already danced with famed rakes Dearham and Calton, she saw Darblay as no greater threat.
“I owe you considerable thanks,” Darblay said quietly. He gestured with his hand, drawing her attention to a familiar opal ring. “You don’t need to say anything. I know you won’t land Hope in the soup.”
She glanced up at him warily, and he held her gaze. “She told you.”
“Eventually. I just wish she had done so at the time! You understand my gratitude is not for the ring but for what you risked to help my sister and keep her safe.”
Matty flushed uncomfortably. Darblay was clearly determined to say the words, though they were sincere for all that.
“I’ve said this to Hope and Catherine, and I’ll say it to you, too. If she gets into any more scrapes, please come to me? I’ve been getting out of my own for years, so I have plenty of practice. And I’ve a lot less to lose.”
“I don’t anticipate further troubles of that nature,” Matty said. “I believe they both got a fright.”
Darblay looked grim for an instant, obviously possessing a clearer picture than Matty of the dangers stalking naive young girls at Maida Gardens, particularly with one of them in not terribly convincing male garb. Then he shrugged. “There was no harm done, thanks to you. I ask only that you don’t take such risks again. I’m not an ogre, and I’ve no idea why my sister thought me one.”
“I think it was more understanding of what they had done than fear of you that kept her silent. How is your father, sir? Hope tells me he is under the weather.”
“Not too clever, but I daresay he’ll bounce back. Evening, Francis.”
And just like that, the moment was upon her.
He had come up on her other side, as though from nowhere, his mere presence flooding her with awareness, so that the words of sympathy she had meant to say to Darblay dried in her throat.
“Good evening,” Francisco said. He had come to a halt, and somehow, Matty and Darblay did, too. “Sorry, Darblay, I’ve come to steal your companion for the supper waltz.”
“Don’t you think you might be too late?” Darblay challenged.
“No, it’s a long-standing arrangement.”
“And yet the lady says nothing.”
They both looked at her, and for a moment, she almost bolted. If she had been sure her legs would obey her, she would have.
“The lady,” she managed, “could not get a word in. Though I don’t recall any mention of supper, I believe I did promise a waltz to Mr. Francis.”
“Then I must bow out gracefully,” Darblay said, inclining his head. “And Miss Mather?”
With her hand already being drawn through Francisco’s arm, she glanced back at Darblay.
He smiled. “My thanks again.”
“If only he knew,” Matty murmured as she walked a little shakily at Francisco’s side, “that it was you I had to save his sister from.”
“Nothing is ever quite as it seems. Which is what makes life so interesting. Is everything well?”
“Thorne is here, being most attentive to my sister and to me. I could almost believe him to be a changed, much kinder person.”
“Except?” Francisco prompted.
“Except before tonight, he had hardly been near my sister, with the excuse of being busy elsewhere.”
“I suspect that’s true. I understand he has disappointed another lady, too.”
She looked at him somewhat sharply, wondering again how close he was to Lady Carntree. Only then she noticed the exhaustion in his eyes and the shadows beneath. “You are tired. Go home and sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”
A smile flickered. “I don’t want to sleep. Or even talk much. I want to dance with you.”
The butterflies in her stomach leapt. It didn’t matter how foolish she was. She wanted to dance with him, too. Wordlessly, she turned into his arms as if it was the most natural place to be. He held her for one still instant before the music began, and he stepped forward, turning her to the rhythm of the waltz.
He said, “You are even lovelier than I imagined.”
“You have met me before,” she said dryly.
“Not in colors. I dreamed of you in colors, but still, you take my breath away.”
The words were so much what she wanted to hear from him that she could not afford to take him seriously. “What nonsense you talk. You must be very tired indeed.”
“The ballgown does not make you beautiful.”
“I know.” And it shouldn’t have hurt.
“You always were. But the gown, at last, is a fitting setting for you. I am glad to see you shine here.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No, though I would like to be. I would like to drink wine with you, Matty Mather, and talk about our lives and solve the problems of the world together.”
“What would that achieve?” she asked harshly, for his words struck a chord, meeting her own desire to know him as he truly was.
His smile was twisted. “Another fantasy. Shall we just dance before my blathering mouth truly offends you?”
He held her gaze, and they danced until the tension seeped out of her. “I am not offended,” she admitted. “I am just… I am not used to compliments, and I don’t know why you say these things. I don’t know… I don’t know you.”
“Therein lies my only hope. Does it hurt you to spend time with Thorne?”
“It hurts me that my sister will think I am working against her.”
“Does she love him?”
Matty considered. “I think she would like to. She is flattered, as I once was, and enjoying her status of an engaged lady. But she is miffed when he does not call. She does not miss him.” As I miss you. Please, God, don’t let me have said that aloud…
He nodded thoughtfully, dancing her nimbly around a couple who had strayed too close. Though she had enjoyed her previous dances of the evening, this was what she had truly longed for. Him—his natural grace, the exciting hint of exuberance beneath his confident, controlled steps.
That un-nameable recognition she had felt during their waltz at Maida Gardens hit her once more, making her ache and yearn. And yet, at the same time, pure contentment seemed to rise up from her toes, intensifying into pure happiness so that for no reason except that she could not stop it, she smiled up at him.
And slowly, almost wonderingly, he smiled back.
*
Emma, Lady Carntree, was not having an enjoyable evening. Despite knowing that Thorne would neglect her for his gullible betrothed, she had looked forward to the Wennings’ ball, hoping at least to eclipse her hostess, who had once held such sway over the ton. And preferably laugh with her more sophisticated friends at the unpolished Mather girl making a fool of herself before the entire ballroom. That would punish Thorne nicely.
Her other ambition, only half-admitted, was, since her husband had retreated to the country in ill health, to entice Francis back to her. For though she liked Thorne’s power in the world, it was her ex-lover’s power in the bedchamber that she craved most, and not just to annoy Thorne. He had left her before she was ready to let him go. There was unfinished business between them, and no one had ever made love to her so adventurously, so intensely, so relentlessly satisfyingly. Bringing him to heel would be the perfect end to what she planned to be a delightful evening.
But it was not proving to be delightful at all. Lord and Lady Wenning had greeted her as gracious hosts, but the earl’s eyes had not lingered on her, and the countess’s had shown no chagrin, nor even much interest in the daring new gown she wore over dampened petticoats. Of course, Emma had maintained her little court of mostly youthful admirers, but as soon as she had left her post by the door, there had always been a larger crowd around Grace Wenning, even as she had rustled about her duties as hostess, introducing dance partners and doing the pretty by the dowagers and gouty old gentlemen.
Thorne himself, bent almost double over the insipid girl he intended to marry, had looked straight through her when she had ventured a smile of wicked pity. And so far, the wretched bride-to-be had not even supplied any amusement, let alone made a fool of herself.
Emma was already at a low point when she finally saw Francis arrive, looking outrageously handsome in immaculate evening dress, like a tamed pirate with his bronzed skin and wayward curls. As he sauntered across the room, closer to her, she saw that he looked tired and a little distracted. Well, she knew a few tricks to cheer him up.
He had paused in front of the French window to the terrace, a perfect position for a swift turn under the stars. So, she had joined him there. He didn’t even notice until she spoke, for his gaze was on the dance floor—on an unknown woman in blue dancing with Lord Calton. But Emma could detect no threat in someone so understated and past the first flush of youth. He was, she presumed, merely gazing into space.
Or so she had thought until he had brushed her off like an importunate fly.
For a little, she revived her evening by flirting outrageously with Rollo Darblay, and she might well have forgotten her huff had she not, only a little later, seen Francis waltzing with that same lady in blue. And not only dancing. He had never looked at Emma with such an expression, never once smiled at her like…that.
A sharp spike of jealousy shot through her, consuming her. Everything was wrong, damnably, impossibly wrong, and she would not tolerate it.
Emma, waltzing at the time with a dull but devoted swain who was more or less speechless at his luck in landing her for the supper dance, all but dragged her partner off the floor in the wake of Francis and his partner.
Her plan was simple. To force an introduction to the woman who had won his wayward attention, eat supper in their company, and make the lady in blue fully aware of Francis’s relationship with her. That this relationship had ended two years ago no longer weighed with her. She truly felt outraged, almost betrayed. Or so she convinced herself. Certainly a desire to lash out, to hurt, roiled in her stomach, curling and reaching like a snake ready to bite.
It was all a matter of timing. So, while she charmed her swain whose name she could not even recall and gaily instructed him as to which morsels to place on her plate, she watched Francis’s progress. He seemed in no hurry and was making the unknown woman laugh, damn him.
She was also delighted to notice Sir Anthony Thorne not far behind her, attentively helping his betrothed to the delicacies of her choice. She smiled at the thought that he would see her sitting with Francis, for she had no objection to making Thorne a little jealous, too. And more to the point, she knew that, for some reason, he did not like Francis, was even suspicious of him. Thorne did not like people with any mystery behind them. He liked to know exactly who they and their antecedents were. And their politics, of course. Francis never spoke of either, and yet was accepted by the noblest and the highest of sticklers.
Francis and his lady had left the buffet tables and were walking across the dining room toward an empty table with four chairs. Perfect.
“Oh, we have more than enough to eat,” she informed her partner, with one peremptory tug on his arm. “I must sit down.” She sailed away from the food as though searching for just the right table, for she wished to come upon Francis face to face and exactly the right place. This required a burst of speed, which rather took her devoted swain by surprise, though he kept up gamely.
She contrived the encounter with almost perfect timing, arriving somewhat breathlessly at the still empty table for four, only a couple of seconds before Francis would have reached it.
He halted at the table in front, an expression of faint surprise on his face as he saw her. She smiled and set down her plate.
“Good evening once more, Francis.” She gestured to the empty chairs while her partner obligingly held one for her to sit, which she did, smiling invitingly at her prey.
“Good evening,” Francis said politely. He set his plate down on the table in front where, for the first time, Emma noticed Rebecca and Ludovic Dunne, whom she knew to be friends of his. Rebecca, once Lady Cornish, was beautiful and had once been considered delightfully scandalous. But her third husband, though a gentleman, was a mere solicitor, however feted. Surely Francis was not choosing…
Francis moved toward Emma, though he was not looking at her. Was he embarrassed? Afraid? He should be.
He turned his back on Emma and held the chair beside Dunne, who had risen to his feet.
The lady in blue, close up, was not insipid at all. Instead, she radiated quiet elegance and character. She was, in fact, quite beautiful. She inclined her head to Francis with a hint of humor and smiled at Dunne before swirling into the seat beside him.
As Francis took his place beside Rebecca Dunne, there was nothing for Emma to do but smile brightly at her swain and pick up her fork. He had not even acknowledged her invitation to sit with her, had not deigned the civility of introducing his supper partner. As though Emma were nothing to him and never had been.
That understanding that she could not be acknowledged in public as more than an acquaintance did not pierce her anger. Neither did the fact that the Dunnes were his particular friends, and there had clearly been an arrangement about supping with them. Emma felt slighted and furious.
