Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

If Adam never saw another hedge maze again, it would be too soon. That Mr. Colby fellow had vanished through the same gap through which Adam had exited, before he had made what might have been the greatest mistake of his life, and though Adam had been running and running in circles, he could not catch up to the Peeping Tom who had definitely misunderstood the situation.

“Stop where you are!” Adam called out. “I am a duke, and if you do not obey me, you shall receive due punishment for your insolence!”

He cringed, hating the words as they came out of his mouth, but he was desperate.

Up ahead, he thought he heard footsteps slowing to a halt. Listening more closely, he could definitely hear heavy breathing. The bastard had stopped.

Thank goodness.

Adam held his sides and proceeded toward the sound of labored breaths. He liked to think of himself as an athletic sort of gentleman, but it had been a long time since he had been forced to run so much. Usually, he preferred to take his exercise in the bedchamber.

Finding himself back at the center of the hedge maze, he squinted into the gloom, realizing that Mr. Colby must be hiding somewhere. After all, he could still hear the ragged breathing.

“Come out, this minute!” Adam demanded, too tired and anxious to bother with politeness.

Shamefaced, a half-dressed figure emerged from a recess in the hedgerows, followed by an equally disrobed gentleman. A fellow that Adam vaguely recognized from the gentlemen’s clubs of London.

“Bloody hell, Catherine!” Adam groaned, clenching his hands into fists. “You are not who I am chasing. Pray tell, have you seen a rather toady-looking fellow run this way?”

Miss Eastleigh clutched her gown to her chest. “My sweet, you must allow me to explain,” she tried to say, but Adam did not wish to hear it.

“You found another slice of entertainment while you were waiting for me. I understand, Catherine, and I neither mind nor care, but I really, really must find this man!”

Miss Eastleigh looked somewhat wounded as the gentleman who had stolen her affections hurried to fasten the buttons of his trousers. “Mr. Kingston and I have known one another since we were children. We had not seen one another in years. I—”

“I do not care, Catherine! Enjoy one another. I approve, I give my blessing,” Adam snapped. “Now, did you, or did you not, see a squat, little man running this way?”

The gentleman, Mr. Kingston, cleared his throat and pointed toward the southernmost entrance back into the maze. “He ran that way, Your Grace, not a moment ago.”

“Thank you.”

Adam huffed out an exasperated breath and hurtled on, wishing more than ever that he had just instructed Miss Eastleigh to meet him at his carriage. Better yet, that he had not gone to the first ball of the Season at all.

Though, she was amusing.

He ran, his ears pricked up for the sound of that spying worm’s footfalls.

Beautiful, too.

She was not the sort of lady he would normally approach, which made the situation all the more ironic. Generally speaking, he found that exceptionally pretty ladies tended to be either quite mad or lacked any thought or intellect between their petite ears. Yet, the lady by the lake had not just been exceptionally pretty, she had been one of the rarest beauties he had seen in many, many years. And rare beauties were dangerous, especially if they possessed wit and intellect.

“Mr. Colby!” Adam barked, chasing the lady by the lake out of his mind.

Her golden hair, like a halo around her head, and her fiery hazel eyes, the color of summer meadows, could not distract him. Nor could the plump, pink bow of her lips, or the smooth perfection of her skin, glowing in the moonlight. And he certainly could not allow himself to think of her narrow waist, which his arm had slipped all the way around with room to spare, or the firm swell of her frankly outstanding backside as she had bumped against his loins when he had first pulled her to him, not knowing who she was.

You still do not know who she is.

And it would be better for everyone if it remained that way. He spurred his legs to run faster, for if he did not catch Mr. Colby and threaten him into silence, he would have a nightmare to contend with instead of the bittersweet daydream of meeting a beautiful stranger by the lake… and getting punched in the nose.

A dangerous woman, indeed.

His stomach dropped as he spotted Mr. Colby up ahead. Lights glowed beyond him, the maze giving way to the stretching lawns that led up to the house, and he had just broken free of the labyrinth.

The little toad was headed straight for Bainton Manor.

* * *

“What were you doing?” Nancy muttered, dragging her cousin around the side of the manor, stumbling her way along the darkened path that would, hopefully, lead them to the front of the house.

Marina cursed under her breath as she nearly tripped on a stone. “I was watching the cygnets, as I told you. Why did you not follow me?”

“I had no desire to see sleeping birds,” Nancy replied, knowing she only had herself to blame.

After the punch, she should have returned to the manor or gone in search of her cousin and then returned to the manor. She should not, under any circumstances, have lingered in the company of a ridiculously handsome gentleman who had just accosted her, thinking she was someone else.

A lover…

If she could have struck her brain, she would have done, for it had been acting foolishly ever since the Duke had fled the lakeside.

Marina cast a sideways glance at her cousin as they struggled on. “Has something happened, Nancy? I suspect, though I may be wrong, that you have not suffered a sudden headache.”

“No, but I am at risk of causing my family one,” Nancy replied, shaking her head.

It had been a feeble excuse to begin with when she had finally gone in search of Marina and found her halfway underneath the pagoda, but she had not been ready to admit the truth.

Marina brought Nancy to a halt at the corner of the manor’s eastern side. The torches that illuminated the long driveway flickered up ahead, casting silhouettes of the waiting carriages.

“What happened?” Marina asked, holding Nancy by the shoulders.

Nancy bit her lower lip. “Did you not hear me calling for help?”

“I heard someone shout ‘fire,’ but I was by the water. No fire could reach me there,” Marina replied. “Nor did I smell any burning, so I assumed it was a jape of some kind.”

Nancy sighed, realizing her mistake. “I think… I think I might be in some trouble, Cousin,” she said, before diving into the rest of the story. She spoke quickly, fearful that she might not be able to finish the tale, with her body shaking so violently. “The Duke is athletic. I am certain he has caught up to Mr. Colby, but…”

She could not continue, for if she spoke her worries aloud, it might conjure them into being.

“You are certain it was the Duke of Stapleton?” Marina’s voice was grave, her expression even more so.

Nancy tilted her head from side to side. “I am not certain of anything, but that is the introduction he offered.”

“Oh, Nancy,” Marina whispered, gripping her cousin’s shoulders tight. “If it really was him, and Mr. Colby breathes a word of what he saw, I fear you are in more trouble than you know.”

Nancy swallowed thickly. “Why? Who is this man?”

“The bane of society,” Marina replied, her tone chilling. “Have you never read a single scandal sheet?”

Nancy shook her head. “I was never allowed. My mother and sister would hide them from me.”

“You could read any one from the past decade, and you would find his name there,” Marina went on, every word adding weight to the rock of dread in Nancy’s stomach. “There has not been a Season in all that time where he has not ruined the reputation of several ladies—older, younger, married, affianced, no woman is safe from him.”

“And I… was just caught with him,” Nancy murmured in a daze. “They will not believe the truth. They will think me another one of his… conquests. Oh, Marina, what shall I do?”

Marina ushered Nancy toward the driveway and the carriages. “We shall hope, and we shall pray, that the Duke has silenced Mr. Colby. If he has not been able to, then we shall… think of something. My mother has many powerful connections, she will be able to silence any rumors once she has sobered up.”

“I will have to tell her?”

Marina smiled. “I shall tell her for you. First, I must find her.” She opened the door to their carriage, not bothering to wait for the footman. “Stay here and do not move until I return with Mama. Wrap yourself in blankets, try to stay warm, for you are shivering, my dear cousin.”

“I will not move a muscle,” Nancy promised, slipping a blanket around her shoulders.

With another encouraging smile, Marina hurried back to the manor as if there were snarling hounds on her tail, leaving Nancy alone with her increasingly dismal thoughts.

I vowed to find love of the rarest kind. I owe it to Joanna to find it. I cannot waste the gift she gave me. Oh, please let this all be a terrible dream.

She squeezed her eyes shut and curled up in the corner of the carriage, her heart jolting every time she heard voices or footsteps nearby.

“I miss you,” she whispered, sending the message out into the night, where it might reach her sister and her mother, so many miles away from her. “I should never have stayed behind.”

* * *

Nancy was drifting somewhere on the brink of sleep when the carriage door finally burst open and Marina appeared, shoving her mother up the steps and into the interior. Her aunt Eliza collapsed onto the squabs with an almighty sigh, a drunken grin on her face as she spread out across the velvet upholstery.

“What a glorious ball!” Eliza crowed, folding her hands across her stomach as she stared up at the carriage roof. “I cannot fathom why we are leaving so early, for I have not yet had my fill of amusement.”

Marina clicked her tongue. “You have had your fill and everyone else’s,” she chided as if she were the mother. “I imagine the other guests were relieved to have some peace from your caterwauling.”

“Nonsense. I was a revelation,” Eliza insisted, giggling like a debutante. “Lord Bainton himself was looking at me very appreciatively.”

Marina groaned. “Silence, Mama. You are embarrassing Cousin Nancy, and yourself.”

“Why should anyone be embarrassed?” Eliza said, snorting. “I am a widow of means, with enough youth left to hold a man’s attention. Where is the embarrassment?”

“Lord Bainton is married, and Lady Bainton was standing right at his side while you were fawning over him,” Marina scolded. “And every time poor Lord Bainton tried to escape you, you continued to corner him. I do not imagine either of us shall ever receive an invitation from them again.”

Eliza crinkled her nose. “So, am I to remain alone for the rest of my days? I will not do it, Marina. Why, I might even snare myself a gentleman before either of you do!” She cackled as if the thought delighted her. “Indeed, where were the two of you?”

“Evading trouble of our own,” Marina said, casting Nancy a pointed glance.

“Is it too late?”Nancy mouthed, tapping her ear to say, “Did you hear something said about me?”

Marina’s brow furrowed, her expression sorrowful. “Time will tell,”she mouthed back, though they need not have worried about speaking aloud, for Eliza was already fast asleep, snoring loudly.

Besides, by tomorrow morning, there was a good chance that all of Society would know what Mr. Colby thought he had seen by the water’s edge.