Unmasking the Thief, page 25
“Lord Dominic certainly ran like the wind before Thorne’s bullies. We should make sure he is unhurt.”
“I’m fine,” Lord Dominic said cheerfully from the gate, where the soldiers were waiting to haul off the bewildered Thorne. “Managed a rather clever throw of one of them, though I say it myself, and then Renwick’s other fellows were on them. My only regret is I didn’t see your great unmasking, Francis.”
“It was superb,” Lord Wenning murmured as he strolled up, kissing his fingers. “Perfect in every way. You could have heard a pin drop when they saw his face. Although the subsequent fury weaving through the crowd was downright alarming. Halland and young Holles are calming them down, and Dearham’s reassuring them that the soldiers are not interested in arresting them. For one thing, there aren’t enough of them.”
“Dearham is?” Lord Dominic said, amused, and Wenning stood aside to give him a view of the scene. “Well, well, who would have thought our Loose Fish would turn into such a responsible pillar of respectability?”
“I would,” said Ludovic Dunne, joining them. “My compliments, Mrs. Francis! An excellently aimed and most elegant foot.”
“It did the trick,” Matty said modestly.
Dominic said, “The charges against Thorne will stick, will they not?”
Ludovic exchanged glances with Francisco.
“Truthfully,” Francis said ruefully, “they will probably cover it up. Force him to retire abroad with an excuse about his health and hold a bi-election.”
“I’ll push for even a closed trial and prison,” Ludovic said, “but I doubt the powers that be will want all this laundry aired. Francis is probably right.”
“Either way,” Francis said to Matty seriously, “he won’t bother you or your family again. And now, I believe, we shall bid you gentlemen goodnight.”
Wenning blinked. “Don’t you want to stay until all is cleared up and the crowd disperses?”
“Lord, no,” said Francisco. “I just create the chaos and leave the clearing up to others. Protects my anonymity, don’t you know?” He bowed sardonically and placed Matty’s hand in his arm as they walked away to the laughter of their friends.
“After tonight, your anonymity may well have gone for good,” Matty warned. “Dornan draws what he sees, and you did play a vital role in revealing Thorne’s face. Yours will be right beside it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Francisco said. “I’m retiring, remember? My superiors already know.”
Matty felt a pang of guilt leaving the others to do the calming and dispersing. But in truth, it also felt good to walk away, to realize they had brought down a bad man and prevented disaster, and that now she could walk in sweetly scented gardens with her husband.
It was, indeed, their wedding night.
She hugged his arm to her. “What would you like to do now?”
He glanced down at her, smiling. “I would like to waltz with you once more and then take you to bed.”
She had no quarrel with that and smiled back, just a little shyly. He paused, though not to kiss her—there were, she thought irritably, too many people around—but to retie her mask and whisk the domino round to cover the luxurious blue of her evening gown.
Back in the pavilion, it was as if they had never been away. Dancing and drinking, flirting, and not very surreptitious fondling all carried on as before. The orchestra still played waltzes. Francisco led her to the dance floor and took her in his arms once more.
She sighed, relaxing into the dance and into him. Contentment began to steal over her, a sort of pleasurable exhaustion.
“You kissed me on this dance floor,” she recalled, smiling. “In public. I was outraged.”
“So you should have been, though you weren’t. Not entirely.”
“Sadly, that is true,” honesty compelled her to admit. Who cared? They were masked. “You could do it again. If you wished.”
“With half of our friends watching, I would not be so crude. I have a better idea. Let me take you to bed, and we can do all the kissing we want in private.”
“Suddenly, it seems a long way back to Covent Garden.”
“We’re not going to my rooms in Covent Garden. We have much closer rooms bespoken at Renwick’s Hotel.”
Of course, there was a new hotel here, catering largely to the wealthier traveler. “That is very clever of you,” she said, “only Mrs. Dove sent my things on to Covent Garden.”
“No, she didn’t. I had them brought here instead, along with a few others that are my wedding gifts to you.”
“Francisco, when did you have the time to arrange any of this?” she said weakly.
“There is always time for the important things.”
She smiled as the music stopped. Her contentment had developed an edge of excitement.
“Shall we?” he asked, releasing her and offering his arm.
She took it. “We shall.”
They left the dance floor, Matty lost in the look in his eyes. Somewhere, she had the impression that the path to the nearest door was lined by masked, smiling faces that were strangely familiar, but her attention was too fixed on her husband to be sure. Together, they walked along a pleasant path and up the hill to a gate that led to the hotel entrance.
“Good evening, sir, madam,” the liveried porter greeted them, opening the heavy door to the wide, gracious entrance hall. A smart young man at the desk also bade them a civil good evening by name, so clearly Francis was known here.
He conducted her up a flight of wide stairs and along a carpeted passage to the room at the end. He unlocked the door with a key taken from his pocket, and she walked inside. A single lamp burned low in a sitting room.
The door closed behind her. She heard the key turn and listened to her fast-beating heart. Over it, she imagined she could hear, very faintly, the continued music of the pavilion orchestra. Francisco brushed past her, turning up the lamp, before coming back and removing her domino. He dropped both their cloaks over a chair and set about lighting the other lamps.
As he progressed into the room beyond, she followed at a distance, stripping off her gloves while she watched him light the lamps in the bedchamber, which was dominated by a huge, canopied bed with a step reaching up to it.
He turned and pulled back the curtains on one window, then held out his hand to her. “Come.”
She went to him, taking his warm, familiar hand as though to remind herself who he was. Only then did she look out on the view from the hill over the sweep of countryside beyond. With the light from the moon and the glow of the torches and lanterns from the Gardens, it looked almost like a painting.
“It’s pretty,” she murmured. “I didn’t expect that.”
“We can make our stay as long or as short as you would like. We can arrange our wedding journey from here or go back to London first.”
“Can we decide tomorrow?”
“Or the day after. We need do nothing at all until we wish to. Are you hungry?”
The magnificent wedding breakfast had not been so long ago, although she had been too excited to eat much of it. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no room in her for food.
She shook her head. “Are you?”
He bent his head nearer. “Yes. But only for you.” His mouth covered hers, hot and tender and sweet, and she raised her arms to hold him, to caress his cheek and run her fingers through his hair.
The kiss deepened, but still, he did not rush her, merely stroked her back and her hair, causing pins to tumble to the floor. It was she who impatiently untied his cravat and tugged at his coat. But as he shrugged off the latter, she realized her gown was partially loose.
He smiled, throwing his waistcoat after the coat and, in one swift movement that had her heart racing, jerked his shirt up over his head and took her back into his arms. She kissed the hot, velvet skin of his chest, running her hands over the muscles corded in his arms and shoulders.
He lifted her, and somehow, her clothes slid away, and she was naked beneath him on the huge bed.
“Tonight,” he whispered, “we give a whole new meaning to pleasure garden.”
A sound escaped her, half laughter, half desperate need, as she arched up, pulling him into her. “Love garden,” she corrected huskily as they began to move together. “After all, how much pleasure can a woman take?”
He smiled, bringing her deliberately to an astonished wave of joy. “Lots,” he promised. “Lots and lots.” And for the rest of the night, he proceeded to prove it to her. And she to him.
Epilogue
Six months later, Francisco walked across the courtyard of his hacienda in southern Spain, until, from the archway, they could see out over the vineyards. The grapes were all in for the year, but the sight was still beautiful, the sun still warm, and the woman pressed to his side more precious than ever.
“We have laid a few ghosts here,” he said at last. “Thank you for that.”
They had come for a week and stayed nearly two months.
She rested her head against his shoulder. “If you are at peace with your home, then I am content.”
He was at peace. Of course, he could never forget what had happened here in the past, but now it was Matty’s face he saw everywhere, in his mind as well as in every room and garden. He had come to realize that he had let the past define him, who he was and what he was prepared to do.
But between them, there had to be honesty.
“Thorne is dead,” he said casually.
“I know. I read it in the English newspaper in Lisbon.”
She did not ask if he had anything to do with it. That alone proved she knew he had. The authorities would never have allowed Thorne to live. But it did not trouble her. She believed in Francisco. She trusted him. And he would spend his life making sure he lived up to that trust.
“Is it time to leave?” he asked.
She considered, then laid his hand against her abdomen. “That rather depends on where you would like your child to be born.”
She caught at his breath in so many delightful ways, this bright, wonderful woman. When he realized he was in danger of crushing her, he loosened his arm and pressed his lips to her temple instead.
“Then you are pleased?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, my love, how could I not be pleased? I am ecstatic! And I think we should go home to have the child closer to your family.”
She stood on tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you. I am sure Marion will be expecting soon, too, if she isn’t already.”
Marion had married the gentle Lord Danvers, much to Mrs. Mather’s joy. Francisco knew Matty was missing them and was anxious to look in on the Doves, too. Francisco also looked forward to returning to England. It had been a wonderful half-year abroad with her. Seeing the world afresh through her awed eyes gave him new appreciation, feeding his continual happiness.
Of course, in six months, there had been low points, too. One of them had been when they heard about the massacre the newspapers were calling “Peterloo.” In August, the cavalry had charged protesters in Manchester and killed and maimed many people. The disaster they had prevented in the spring had happened on a smaller scale anyway.
While Matty had mourned the unknown dead, Francisco had wondered if he could not have prevented the slaughter. If he had stayed in England, in touch with events, could he not have turned this around, too? Was it selfish and plain wrong of him to reject the work for which he was so well suited?
Matty, putting her arms around him, had convinced him otherwise. Understanding without any need of explanation, she had said simply, “You are not that man anymore. And the responsibility was never yours.”
And she was right. She was nearly always right.
“Come then,” she said, lifting his hand to her lips and kissing it. “Let us go home.”
About Mary Lancaster
Mary Lancaster lives in Scotland with her husband, three mostly grown-up kids and a small, crazy dog.
Her first literary love was historical fiction, a genre which she relishes mixing up with romance and adventure in her own writing. Her most recent books are light, fun Regency romances written for Dragonblade Publishing: The Imperial Season series set at the Congress of Vienna; and the popular Blackhaven Brides series, which is set in a fashionable English spa town frequented by the great and the bad of Regency society.
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Lancaster, Mary, Unmasking the Thief
