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A Midsummer Night's Sin
Kasey Michaels


Three unrepentant scoundrels infamous for being perilous to love… Handsome as the devil and twice as tempting, Robin ‘Puck’ Blackthorn lives for the pleasures of the moment. His only rule – never dally with an innocent woman. But when an encounter at a masquerade ball leaves him coveting the one woman who refuses to succumb to his charms, Puck realises that some rules were made to be broken…Scandalised to discover that the masked man with whom she’d shared a dance is the ton’s most celebrated rake, Regina Hackett vows to keep her distance. Yet when her dear friend vanishes, it is to Puck that Regina must turn.And as they embark on a dangerous journey through London’s darkest alleys, Regina will discover that beneath Puck’s roguish façade lies a man who will stop at nothing to protect her…










Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author

KASEY

MICHAELS

‘Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.’

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

‘One of the finest Regency writers does it again with a charming and fun trilogy starter … Wit, humour and cleverness combine to create an utterly delicious romance.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Taming of a Rake

‘Michaels’s new Regency miniseries is a joy … You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.’

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

‘Michaels has done it again … Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.’

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

‘Michaels demonstrates her flair for creating likeable protagonists who possess chemistry, charm and a penchant for getting into trouble. In addition, her dialogue and descriptions are full of humour.’

—Publishers Weekly on This Must Be Love

‘Michaels can write everything from a light-hearted romp to a far more serious-themed romance. [She] has outdone herself …’

—RT Book Reviews on A Gentleman By Any Other Name (Top Pick)

‘[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.’ —Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie


Dear Reader,

Did you ever meet someone who just made you feel good, glad to be around him, glad to be alive? Someone you just have to look at in order to smile, feel good about yourself and the world in general? Rare, wonderful people.

Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, known affectionately as Puck, is one of those special people. Sweet, loveable, mischievous Puck.

I didn’t know all that, of course, when he first invaded my subconscious, but once I “met” him—well, I was hooked. He made me smile, he made me laugh—he made me look around at life and see the good about everything. He reinforced my belief in happy never-endings.

What possible defences could a young woman like Regina Hackett raise to avoid succumbing to Puck’s charms? How can you look at a man who smiles into your eyes and asks, “Do you love life? I do. I love life!” and be able to just walk away?

Oh, how I love Puck. I hope you do, too!

And then please watch for Much Ado About Rogues to read about Black Jack Blackthorn, Puck’s brother—and the definite flip side to his fun-loving sibling!

Happy reading!

Kasey Michaels


A Midsummer

Night’s

Sin









Kasey Michaels

THE BLACKTHORN BROTHERS






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To the two astonishingly accomplished women

my sons married, Susan and Tammy, with love


What revels are in hand? Is there no play,

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream




PROLOGUE


HE DIDN’T FOLLOW fashion, he made it. He had the air of the finest salons of postwar Paris about him, fairly reeked of suave sophistication. When he’d taken to growing his blond hair nearly to his shoulders, half of the young fashionables had rushed to do the same, a few going so far as to resort to hairpieces.

He rode a strawberry roan stallion with a white diamond-shaped blaze. Sales of strawberry roan stallions soared, as did the profits of one Jacques Dupuis, former jockey and a true artist with whitewash.

He could make a violin weep, turn a pianoforte naughty and played the flute because he thought it amusing. Unemployed music masters found themselves beleaguered with demands for lessons, and those who would term any music “a beautiful noise” hadn’t yet had their ears abused by the efforts of dozens of tone-deaf young French fops.

He shunned the theater, and tickets sales plunged. He made a joke, and all of Paris laughed. Young ladies dreamed of him, young men fought to be seen with him. Hostesses showered him with invitations … to their parties, to their boudoirs.

They called him Puck, the name delighting them. He was so very unacceptable, yet welcomed everywhere.

He was le beau bâtard Anglais, the beautiful English bastard, the beloved pet of Paris Society, and completely, wholly delicious.

And now he had said his adieus to the openly distraught Paris and returned to the land of his birth, just in time for the new London Season.

Where he was known only as Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn.

Bastard.

PUCK POSED AT THE mantelpiece in the lavish drawing room of the even more lush mansion in Grosvenor Square, the very heart of fashionable Mayfair. He appeared nonchalant in his fine French clothes, his cravat a masterpiece, his tailor’s appreciation for his client’s fine physique evident in the exquisite cut of the broadcloth jacket and form-fitting trousers molded to his long, lean body.

He wore his most ingratiating smile with the ease of long practice and concealed the intelligence in his fascinating blue-green eyes. Everything depended on how he handled the events of the next few minutes, yet to the casual observer, he seemed affably stupid and as dangerous as a dandelion.

In truth he was on his guard, wary of these two gentlemen, whom he knew to be considerably more complex than just another pair of boring Englishmen, who might be able to trace their ancestry back to the Great Flood but couldn’t be trusted to otherwise know enough to come in out of the rain.

They’d been playing a game for the past quarter hour, speaking of this and that and the other thing, each pretending the other was anything but what they were. Who’d win this dance of wits and deception was anyone’s guess, but Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn invariably preferred to wager on himself.

“I do admire the English countryside,” Puck remarked, apropos of nothing that had been said thus far. “The area around Gateshead, for example, is quite laudatory. Why, I could wax on about the place for hours.”

Handed that sort of encouragement, Baron Henry Sutton at last cut through the aimless, polite banter, which Puck had known the man had been itching to do since his arrival.

“You’d blackmail us?” The baron looked to his friend, one Richard Carstairs, and said, “And there it is, Dickie. The bastard’s attempting to blackmail us.”

“Oh, hardly, my lord, although I must remonstrate just a little, as I see no reason to bring the circumstances surrounding my birth into the thing,” Puck protested, stepping away from the mantelpiece and further into the game. “I was merely reminiscing on my earlier brief acquaintance with Mr. Carstairs here, when we were both passing a lovely evening in Gateshead last year. Charming place, if a bit off the beaten track for a gentleman such as Mr. Carstairs. Jack, however, one might discover anywhere, mostly when one least expects to, and up to mischief, of course.”

Dickie Carstairs, a fair-skinned, round-cheeked fellow, whose rather soft body hinted that his main love in life would most probably be a toss-up between his cook and his next meal, turned to the baron, his eyes gone wide. “Hear that? He brought up Jack. Nobody’s supposed to know about Jack. His brother, for God’s sake. Bound to be as wily. Told you we shouldn’t have come here. Summoned. I don’t much care for that.”

The baron, clearly the sharper of the two, both in looks and in manner, turned to glare at Puck. “Your brother will hear of this.”

Puck’s smile only broadened. “Oh, yes, indeed, I’m convinced he will. Jack seems to hear about everything, one way or another. He’s uncanny that way, don’t you agree? We call him Black Jack, inside the family, that is. He’s the most romantic of us. Give him my best, would you? And how is— What was the fellow’s name? Ah, now I remember. Jonas. And how is Jonas? I would imagine the nasty man is toes-up in some unmarked grave somewhere far from London and a more civilized English justice, but then, I have a dramatic bent of mind sometimes.”

“If you’re hinting that we took him out and—”

“Dickie, that will be enough,” the baron said silkily. “All right, gloves off, Mr. Blackthorn. Clearly you’re aware that your brother and Mr. Carstairs and myself occasionally perform some small services for the Crown, as they become necessary.”

Puck held up his hands. “Rather a disposal service, I would think, and damned handy into the bargain. But, please, no more details. I would much prefer we remain friendly.”

“There’s nothing of friendship about it. You sent us notes revealing just enough information to bring us here, and now you want something in return for your silence. Correct?”

Puck picked up the crystal decanter and gracefully went about refilling his guests’ wineglasses. “Well spotted, sirs. Yes, that’s exactly what I would like. Something in return for forgetting certain events that transpired in Gateshead last spring and your presence there. Nothing earthshaking. A piddling thing, actually. I would like a small—not infinitesimal, yet nothing grand—entrée into London Society. A few introductions, taking time to be seen conversing amicably with me in the park, perhaps an invitation to accompany you two grand and socially acceptable personages to a sporting event. I feel confident I can take it from there.”

“Do you hear that? Do you hear that! I will not!” Dickie Carstairs exploded angrily. “A bastard, foisted on the ton? With our blessing? Unheard of!”

The baron waved his companion to silence. “Your brother Beau tried that, years ago. Tried it twice, as I remember.”

“Yes, I know, and with varied results.” Puck took up his place at the mantelpiece once more.

He had them, he knew he had them. When they looked at him, they had to see enough of Beau to know he wasn’t the sort to bow and scrape, and enough of Jack to think twice about doing anything to … upset him.

“I am not my brother Beau, gentlemen. Nor am I my brother Jack. We are all sons of the Marquess of Blackthorn, all born on that same, sadly illegitimate side of the blanket, but we are not all the same person. Beau, bless him, once assumed he needed acceptance. Jack rejects all of Society. Privately, I believe he thinks you’re all fools.”

“And you?” the baron asked, his eyes narrowed.

“And I?” Puck shrugged, elegantly, in the French manner. “I ask little of life, actually. I simply wish to enjoy myself and my fellow man. I am a rather entertaining sort, you know. Why, you might even find yourselves liking me. Now, would either of you care for more wine—Dickie, I see your glass is empty again—while we discuss our initial foray into the social whirl? I might suggest Lady Fortesque’s masked ball, set for this Friday evening. A trifle risqué, I understand, both the ball and Lady Fortesque, and most of the Haut Ton will avoid both, but certainly not above my touch, don’t you think?”

The baron, clearly a man who had weighed Puck and found him impossible to ignore, put down his wineglass and stood, signaling for Dickie Carstairs to do the same. “Isobel will most probably be delighted with the notion of such a scandal. I’ll see that an invitation is delivered later this afternoon.”

“Perfect,” Puck agreed, clapping an arm over Dickie Carstairs’s shoulders as he escorted his visitors to the door. “I will see you both at the ball then, won’t I?”

“But … but it’s a masked ball. How will you recognize us?”

“I won’t have to,” Puck told Dickie, thinking the man was a most strange choice for an assassin, as no one ever would have suspected him of having an adventuresome soul. “You will recognize me, approach me. I am, you see, pour mes péchés, rather singular.”

“For your sins? I don’t know if I like that,” the unlikely adventurer said, frowning as he looked Puck up and down. “I’ve been wondering if you commissioned that waistcoat here or over in Paris. Damned fine. I probably don’t have the belly for something like that. Or too much belly for it, at any rate, but if you could give me the direction of your tailor, I’d—”

“Oh, for the love of— Come along, Dickie,” the baron said on a sigh and grabbed the man’s elbow as Wadsworth personally handed over their hats and gloves and held open the front door for them. Neither man slipped him a copper for his troubles, but that was the quality for you, cheeseparing, when recognizing a servant’s assistance in a monetary way had saved many a man from having his hat and gloves mysteriously and permanently misplaced.

Once the door closed behind his departing guests, Puck looked to the butler. “That went rather well,” he said, displaying his pleased and pleasing smile. “Do you have anything interesting for me, Wadsworth?”

“Yes, sir,” the former soldier said, reaching into his pocket. “Found some scribbled note in the fat one’s hatband and copied it out here for you. Doesn’t seem to mean much of anything.”

Puck took the folded scrap when it was offered. He would never understand why so many men thought hatbands such a safe hiding place, but wasn’t it nice to know that Mr. Dickie Carstairs was so predictable. “Really? That would be too bad, wouldn’t it? In any event, you’re a jewel beyond price, Wadsworth. I’ll take it from here. Thank you.”

He unfolded the scrap and read its brief contents as he returned to the drawing room.

My apologies. Impudent rascal! Humor him, please. He’s harmless. Saturday, usual place and time. New assignment. J.B.

Puck smiled as he crumpled the scrap and tossed it into the fireplace. “Ah, Jack, and won’t it be lovely to see you again….”




CHAPTER ONE


THE LARGE TOWN HOUSE in prestigious Berkeley Square had come to Lady Leticia Hackett via her maternal grandmother in lieu of a dowry, and tied up in so many clever legal strings that her ladyship’s high-living, deep-gambling father could not sell it to settle his debts.

Reginald Hackett, Leticia’s loud, crass, uncouth, shipping-merchant husband, had come to her courtesy of that to-let-in-the-pocket father, the Earl of Mentmore, bartering her good name and impeccable lineage to the highest bidder, a climbing cit who suffered from the delusion that his deep pockets could buy him entry to Society.

Her daughter and only child, Regina, was a gift from the gods and the only reason Leticia didn’t imbibe more wine than the considerable amount she did.

The two women were closeted in Regina’s boudoir, the single room in the place, other than his wife’s bedchamber, Reg Hackett dared not enter. The last time he’d had an itch he wanted scratched without the bother of leaving hearth and home for the mistress he kept in Piccadilly, Lady Leticia had unearthed a small silver pistol from beneath her pillow and taken off his left earlobe with a remarkably precise shot. If she’d been sober, she probably would have missed him entirely.

He didn’t enter his daughter’s bedchamber because, although other than using his brain to lie, cheat and steal his way to a fortune, he wasn’t what anyone would term a particularly intelligent man, he did know enough to realize that Regina despised him.

And that was all right with Reg. His daughter was a commodity, rather like a full hold of India silks safely pulled up at the London Docks that he would sell at inflated prices to idiots who would otherwise be forced to do without. That’s what business was all about. Buy at one price, sell at another, higher price. He’d bought his well-born, titled lady, and now he would sell her whelp to a title.

The girl was pretty enough, if she kept her mouth shut, and Reg had a strong desire to be related by marriage to one of the premier families in England. Thank God she hadn’t been born a boy. He wouldn’t have known how to shop a boy any higher than he’d shopped himself. Regina should snag him an earl, at the worst, even if a duke was out of the question. When you’d been born in a gutter, being able to point to an earl and say “mine” was as good as ten thousand prime shares in the Exchange.

Reg was right about his daughter’s looks. She seemed to have been hatched entirely without his help, for she bore no physical resemblance to the man save a small mole just above the left, outer corner of her upper lip, which looked just fine on her, he supposed. For the rest of her, she had her mother’s dark brown hair with hints of red to it, eyes so blue they were startling and made dramatic by long, curling black lashes and winged brows above a straight nose so aristocratic it made Queen Charlotte’s look like a plum pudding in comparison.

Oh, yes, Regina was a beauty, all right. Cold as her mother, but what else was to be expected? As long as she kept her legs crossed until he got her bracketed to a title, that’s all Reg would ask of her.

“Turn around for me, darling,” Lady Leticia said, waving her wineglass in her daughter’s general direction. “It’s your first Season. We can’t have too daring a neckline.”

Regina looked at her reflection in the pier glass and put both hands to her neckline, tugging it higher. Her mama, bless her, had always been a little bit embarrassed about her daughter’s fairly ample bosom. She’d gone so far as to say it wasn’t ladylike and was a sure sign of the inferior blood passed along to Regina by her paternal grandmother.

Regina had never met the woman, who had died before Regina was born, but if there were anything wrong, lacking or overdone in Regina, blame could always be laid on her father, her grandmother or “inferior blood.” When she was five and accidentally broke one of her mama’s favorite figurines, she had been quite astonished when her mama had not accepted her declaration that, “I didn’t do it, Grandmother Hackett did.”

“The neckline is fine, Mama,” Regina said as she turned around, doing her best to “back” her breasts into herself, which she did by rounding her shoulders forward. “I’m very nearly acceptable.”

“You are completely acceptable,” Leticia declared hotly and then took another large swallow from her wineglass. “They have to accept you, they’ve no choice. I can trace our family bloodline back to—”

“Back to the fifteenth century, and the family fortune all the way to last Tuesday, when Papa once more had to pay off more of Grandfather Geoffrey’s and Uncle Seth’s gaming debts before they both could be tossed into debtors’ prison. Yes, I know.”

“Impertinence is not a trait you inherited from my side of the family,” Leticia said sulkily, reaching for the wine decanter. “The blue suits you, by the way. A wonderful match for your eyes—which you will keep lowered, if you please, along with your chin. Debutantes are shy. Gentlemen are piqued by shyness.”

“I can’t imagine why. I should think they’d be bored spitless. Thank you, Hanks,” Regina said as her maid clasped a single string of perfect pearls about her throat. She then crossed the room to her mother and bent down to kiss the woman’s thin, papery cheek, holding her breath because her mama thought to cover the smell of spirits with copious amounts of perfume, which in reality only made things worse on both counts. “Aunt Claire and Miranda will be here shortly. I should go downstairs now. Will you be all right?”

With a sidelong glance at the cut-glass decanter, Leticia nodded her head. “I have company.”

Regina opened her mouth to remonstrate with her mother but thought better of such a useless exercise. Instead, she looked enquiringly to Hanks, who winked at her. The wine had been watered. Good. After the first decanter, Leticia’s palate must turn numb, as Regina’s watering of the second (and sometimes third) decanter had yet to be noticed.

“Then I’ll be on my way. I believe Miranda said something about our hostess’s fine desserts, so I’m taking my largest reticule along with me so I can bring home a sampling for you.”

Leticia brightened. “Lemon squares. If it’s Lady Montag’s soiree, there will be lemon squares. Simple, but her cook is wonderfully talented.”

“It’s not too late to accompany us,” Regina suggested, wishing her mama would go out in Society more than she did. Cousin Miranda was a pleasant enough companion, but prone to recklessness and, more than once, had to be scooted out from behind some potted palm and away from some half-pay officer when it was time to leave.

“I’m certain your aunt Claire will prove sufficient as chaperone. Now go along. Hanks and I will be fine. Won’t we, Hanks?”

“Yes, my lady,” the maid said, dropping into a curtsy.

With one last, warning look at Hanks, Regina picked up her reticule and shawl and headed for the staircase, arriving in the foyer just as a footman announced that the elaborate Mentmore coach awaited her in the Square. The Mentmores hadn’t had a fine crested coach until Reginald Hackett had purchased one for their use during the Season, with the caveat that his Regina was never to be taken about town in anything else.

She hastened outside and was handed up into the dark coach, seating herself on the rear-facing seat, beside Miranda’s maid, Doris Ann. “Am I late or are you early?” she asked her cousin and then frowned as she noticed that her cousin was alone on her seat. “Miranda? Where’s Aunt Claire?”

Her cousin’s laugh tinkled (Regina might have said tittered, but everyone else thought it delightful), and she patted at the golden curls that were Regina’s secret envy. Anyone could have dark brown hair, but Miranda’s locks were extraordinary and highly in fashion at the moment, as were her fairer-than-fair skin, petite stature and, it would appear, her nearly flat chest.

“Mama is enjoying a rare evening at home as Aunt Leticia is serving as our chaperone this evening,” Miranda explained, and then the tinkle-titter was repeated.

Regina’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not amusing. I told Mama Aunt Claire was accompanying us.”

Miranda gave a dismissive wave of her tiny hand. “As if you’ve never lied to her before. And if you haven’t, then it’s high time you started. Not that Aunt Leticia probably remembers half of what anyone says to her, what with the— Oh, I’m sorry, Reggie. I talk without thinking, I do it all the time, don’t I?”

“You do a variety of things without thinking,” Regina told her, squeezing her hands together on her lap. “Now tell me where this coach is heading before I knock on the roof and have it turned back to Berkeley Square.”

“No, you can’t do that! I can’t go alone, and I simply must go. You complain that no one wants you save for your papa’s money. Well, nobody wants me at all. Papa may be a viscount and Grandfather Geoffrey an earl, but the entire world knows we’re all next door to paupers. Oh, Papa will find some rich merchant for me, I suppose, as Grandfather did for Aunt Leticia, if no one more suitable falls madly in love with me before the Season ends—but not as rich as Uncle Reginald and probably twice as crude. Before that happens, I want to have some fun. I’ve been planning all week. Doris Ann, show her.” She motioned to her maid, who then reached down to the tapestry bag at her feet. “What do we want with a horrid, boring recital, when we can go to a ball?”

“A ball? I’m not dressed for a— What are those?”

“Dominos,” Miranda said proudly, grabbing at a mass of emerald-green silk and pulling it onto her lap before Doris Ann passed a similar silk creation, this one in scarlet, to Regina. “And the masks, Doris Ann. Show her the masks!”

One after the other, two half masks were lifted from the tapestry bag and handed to Miranda and Regina.

“Aren’t they glorious!” Miranda exclaimed, holding hers up to her face. It was cunningly flirtatious, almost catlike, sewn all over with closely set green glass stones that matched the emerald silk, with larger stones topping off the many curving tips, which fanned up and out at the sides and top, rather like emerald flames. “See? These satin ribbons tie behind the head. They’re both pretty, but I really like this one best, if you don’t mind?”

“You look like a cat,” Regina said, looking down at the mask in her hands. “And I mean that in the nicest way. Mine’s … white.”

“Ivory, Regina,” Miranda corrected. “It’s shaped much like mine, except for that part that covers your nose, and isn’t that the most gorgeous lace? And all those tiny seed pearls curling all over? And those tiny little silken rosebuds? And the lovely satin ribbons? Oh, stop frowning, Reggie. It’s pretty!”

Regina looked at the mask again. Yes, there were rosebuds, three of them. One at either side of the mask and a third that, once she had it on, would be smack in the middle of her forehead. She plucked them off even as Miranda eeked in protest before breaking into a wide grin and clapping in delight.

“Then you’ll go?”

Regina looked down at the mask. She fingered the decadent scarlet silk puddle in her lap. She wavered.

“I’m certain I was told that masquerade balls are not as acceptable as they once were.”

“Well, of course they’re not, silly, or else I wouldn’t have had to steal the invitation from my brother’s desk, now, would I? But since Justin is out of town at some boxing mill, in any case, why should the invitation go to waste? Besides, the hostess is Lady Fortesque, and I know Justin has spoken of her more than a few times, so the whole thing is still … reasonably acceptable.”

Regina fingered the silk once more. Scarlet. Debutantes did not wear scarlet. They didn’t wear masks, either, she felt fairly sure. She knew for certain that they didn’t attend balls without a parent or other chaperone present.

“What happens at a masquerade ball?”

Miranda shrugged. “I would suppose that everyone hides behind their masks until such time as they’re told to take them off. Not that we’ll do that, of course. We’ll be long gone by then. But while we’re there …” She paused, probably for dramatic effect. “While we’re there, we tell no one our true names, and we’re free to dance and flirt and— Oh, Reggie, please say yes!”

Being a debutante was boring. It probably was supposed to be boring, so that everyone would quickly find someone suitable, marry and never have to do it again. Being a Hackett, daughter of the poor, martyred Lady Leticia and the totally unacceptable Reginald, Regina had endured her share of impolite stares, snide innuendo and even a few horrified mamas, who had physically escorted their sons in the opposite direction when there was a chance of having to stop and exchange pleasantries with the wealthy but socially inferior Miss Hackett. Except for those titled but poor as church mice peers who might entertain lowering themselves to courting her father’s money. Those she avoided, much to her papa’s chagrin.

To be able to dance—yes, and to flirt—without anyone knowing her name? To not be the coarse, jumped-up shipping merchant’s daughter or even the sad, drunken Lady Leticia’s daughter, just for a few stolen hours?

Sensing that her cousin was wavering, Miranda pressed her case. “We’ll be wearing these lovely capes to conceal our clothing. Doris Ann and I found them in the attics, and they don’t even half smell of camphor, not since we aired them. Can you believe my parents once actually were young enough to have worn them and these masks aeons ago? That’s why you get the scarlet one, since Papa is so short and you are so horridly tall, like your father. But not everyone is so boring as to just wear dominos and masks. Some of the guests will come in complete costumes. There will be knights and shepherdesses—all sorts of fanciful things. Why, who knows, Reggie. Perhaps by the time midnight strikes, you will have kissed a devil. Isn’t that beyond anything exciting?”

“Neither of us will be kissing any devils,” Regina said, holding the mask to her face as Doris Ann tied the satin ribbons to keep it in place. “We’ll stay for an hour, no more than that, and then make a late appearance at the recital, just in case your mother or mine ever chances to speak to the hostess. We will be late because one of the coach horses turned up lame. Also, Miranda, you will not leave my side, nor I yours, for more than the space of a dance. Agreed?”

Miranda was already struggling to push her arms into the sleeves of the concealing domino. “Oh yes, yes, agreed! Most definitely agreed!”

“And if we’re caught out, I’ll tell everyone it was all your idea, and that you kidnapped me.”

“Reggie! You wouldn’t!”

“No, probably not,” Regina agreed. “But I was just now remembering the time Mama and I visited at Mentmore and you blamed me for tossing you into the ornamental pond.”

“And they believed me and not you,” Miranda said, tying the strings of the domino under her pert little chin before pulling the hood up and over her hair. “That’s because I look so sweet and innocent and you look … well, never mind.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Regina said as the horses drew to a halt outside a large building lit with flambeaux that cast strange shadows inside the coach. “I look so what?”

Miranda fidgeted on the seat. “Well, Mama says decadent, but Papa says exotic. And Justin …”

“Yes? My idiot cousin Justin says what?”

“He says you always look like you’re ready. And stop looking at me with your eyes all gone wide that way because I don’t know what that means, but Mama said he shouldn’t talk like that in front of me. Come on, Reggie. If we only have an hour, let’s make the most of it.”

“I suppose now I have Grandmother Hackett to blame for something else,” Regina grumbled as she tied the strings of the scarlet domino around her throat and covered her hair with the hood. “All right, I’m ready.”

HE WORE HIS DARK blond hair parted on the side and allowed it to hang loose to his shoulders, covering the thin, golden strings that secured the mask to his head. It had been fashioned for him by the premiere costumer in Paris, following Puck’s own design. It fit him perfectly, as he’d submitted to the molding of what some would call a death mask so that the costumer could work with an exact model of his customer’s bone structure.

It was a three-quarter rather than a half mask, smoothly curving down over his nose and cheekbones and rising to his hairline, all of it hugging his face. The design was simple: no lace or frills or jewels or feathers for Puck. Instead, the impact from the mask—and it was considerable—came from the paintwork applied to its smooth surface.

His inspiration had been a Catherine wheel. Eight widening, pie-shaped wedges of dramatic color emanated from the center of the wheel, located at the bridge of his nose, rather in a pinwheel design, yet all sleek and of a piece. Painted gold gilt wedges cut down the right side of his nose and across his lower cheek, up and over his right temple, the left side of his forehead, out from his left eye and across his upper cheekbone. The reverse for the other four “blades,” all of those painted in deepest ebony.

All one saw of his face beneath mask and flowing hair was his wide, full mouth, his leanly sculpted chin and a pair of amused blue-green eyes.

The result was mesmerizing. He’d planned for mesmerizing.

And he hadn’t stopped with the mask.

He was dressed all in black, even to his waistcoat and the lace at his throat and cuffs. He wore a full, knee-length, black silk courtier’s cloak lined with shimmering gold and carried a long, ebony stick bearing black streamers and a gold serpent-head top. A ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg and ringed by diamonds nestled in the spill of black lace that was his cravat. He carried a shallow, wide-brimmed, black musketeer hat adorned with a fat, curled black feather.

Paris had exclaimed over him when he’d first donned the costume; the lovely Lady de Balbec most of all, he recalled with a smile. She’d pleaded with him to leave the mask on, even as she eagerly peeled away his clothing and pulled him down on top of her, coyly begging the “masked stranger” not to ravish her. Women had the strangest notions at times, but that’s what made them all so delightful.

Tonight, as in Paris, in a ballroom filled with uninspired dominos and devils, kings and harlequins, milkmaids and fools, he was as startlingly different as night from day. He knew he’d draw attention. Why else had he bothered to come?

As he saw the Baron Henry Sutton (black domino, black mask—how very uninspired) and Mr. Richard Carstairs (court fool, down to the bells on his hat and shoes), Puck swept one side of his cape back and over his shoulder, exposing the shimmering gold silk, flourished his hat and made them both an elegant leg.

“Gentlemen, my honor,” he said smoothly.

“Yes, yes, the bastard’s honor,” the baron groused. “What in blazes do you call that rigout?”

“Sin, gentlemen,” Puck drawled smoothly, making a small business out of adjusting the black lace at his cuffs. “I call it Sin.”

Dickie Carstairs lifted up his mask and scratched at the side of his nose. “He has a point there, Henry. Doesn’t exactly look like a day in May, does he? Can we go now? These bloody bells are giving me a headache. Or do we have to introduce him to anyone?”

“Unfortunately, that is the purpose of the exercise,” the baron said, casting his gaze out across the large ballroom.

Puck did the same. It was a rented room, as even Lady Fortesque wouldn’t dream of hosting such an affair in her Portland Square mansion. She’d been quite clever in the way she’d employed screens and tall, obscuring plants to cut the boxy dimensions of the place while at the same time providing privacy and secluded couches for those who wished a romantic dalliance.

Servants wearing satyr masks circulated with trays bearing gold-painted glasses filled with heady mead, and they were hard-pressed to keep the trays full, as whatever courage hadn’t been obtained by concealing one’s face behind a mask could be found in a glass or two of the potent, honeyed brew.

He saw a tall man dressed all in furs paying court to a bewigged and patched Marie Antoinette. There was a scattering of other costumes, but for the most part, the guests had covered themselves only with dominos and plain-to-clever masks.

After all, concealment was the order of the evening.

“All right, over there,” the baron said after a moment. “Let’s begin with the good king Henry Tudor, shall we? He’s actually Viscount Bradley, and no, he didn’t have to stuff his doublet with straw, although there may be some sawdust in his stockings, to give him a leg. He’s horse mad, if that helps.”

“It does. I shall apply to him for advice about setting up my stables. And who is that with him?”

“That’s Will Browning,” Dickie Carstairs informed him quietly. “Wildly popular. If he were to accept you, you’d at least be able to count the Corinthians as your acquaintance. But he won’t. No title but still too high in the instep for you.”

“He’s forever jumping a fence or shooting pips out of playing cards or milling down a man at Jackson’s, but he prides himself most on his fencing,” the baron added.

Puck ran his gaze up and down the tall, rather athletic-looking figure. “Does he now?” he said, smiling. “Then I shall have to challenge him to a friendly competition, won’t I?”

The baron shrugged. “Why don’t you just do that. Once you’re stuck in bed recovering from the pinking he gives you, Dickie and I won’t have to be bothered introducing you to anyone else. Come along, let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Over the course of the succeeding twenty minutes, Puck was introduced to no less than ten gentlemen of the ton. He was utterly snubbed by two, shook hands with three, three more had served with Beau on the peninsula and expressed delight in greeting the man’s brother. He had arranged a meeting on Sale Day at Tattersalls with Viscount Bradley, who had attended Eton with his father, and a fencing match with Mr. Browning, who had taken Puck’s measure, just as Puck had taken his, and declared that he looked forward to cutting such a brash upstart down to size.

Puck had, of course, failed to mention that he had studied with the famed Motet at the Académie d’Armes de Paris. Some things should be a surprise.

Now Puck was bored.

“You two fine gentlemen know no women?” he asked as Dickie Carstairs snagged another golden cup of mead from a passing satyr. “I do not ask that you introduce my unacceptable self to your sisters or your wives, who would not be in attendance tonight in any case, but are there no females present who might find it within their sympathy to invite me to their next small party?”

“Lady Fortesque,” Dickie offered. “But you probably already met her as you came in. Harriette Wilson and her sisters and a few other courtesans are probably somewhere about and a clutch of canaries from Covent Garden and some low-born actresses, as well. If you’re looking for a tumble, nothing beats an actress, I say. The good ones even make you believe they like it. What?” He rubbed at his side, where the baron’s elbow had just jabbed him.

“Jack’s mother is an actress,” Henry Sutton said quietly and then bowed to Puck. “My apologies, Mr. Blackthorn. My friend appears to have left his brains at home this evening. However, to answer your question, no, as far as I can see, Lady Fortesque confined her invitations to the gentlemen and then populated the room with … amenable barques of frailty, if you understand my meaning.”

Puck allowed himself to be forgiving. “There are considerably more men in attendance, I did note that, yes.”

“And now there will be two less, although I am sure the number of females will swell once, as Mr. Carstairs so rudely pointed out, the theaters close down for the night. I can already see where this evening will go and do not wish to be any part of such public debauchery,” the baron said, bowing once more. “Enjoy your first taste of London Society at its most base, Mr. Blackthorn.”

Puck returned the bow, offered his thanks and watched as the two men took their leave, Dickie’s arms gesturing wildly as he most probably asked the baron what he’d said that was so upsetting. Dickie Carstairs, Puck had decided, most probably drove the wagon and dug the holes after Jack and the baron had dispatched the targets; he seemed qualified for little else.

He should probably go, as well, as the idea of enjoying himself in this overheated, painfully obvious setting for anonymous yet public liaisons did not appeal. He’d never been at a loss for female companionship when he’d wished it, and the very last thing he wished would be to bed an actress. He’d seen where that sort of folly could lead.

Puck turned rather abruptly, his mind having taken him somewhere he preferred not to go, and all but cannoned into one of the guests.

“I beg your pardon, I was not— Well, hello, beautiful lady.”

“How would you know? I’m wearing this ridiculous mask.”

Puck was taken aback by this pert answer nearly as much as by the clear disdain in the young woman’s voice; he hadn’t been dismissed out of hand by a female since he was thirteen. But that reaction faded quickly as his attention was captured by the most amazingly clear blue eyes framed by lashes so long and dark he could scarcely believe them real.

And that mouth. Not only pert, but wide, and lush, and definitely inviting. There was a small brown mole—no, beauty spot—at the upper-left corner of those sensuous lips, which only added to the overall impression of sensuality. Of carnal knowledge and the pleasures of sex. A woman wasn’t born with a mouth like that without knowing what it was for or how to use it.

He put his hands on her shoulders, noting that she was rather tall for a woman, and boldly inspected the rest of her.

She was slimly built, her scarlet silk domino hiding most of the curves he felt certain were there but unable to conceal the fact that the breasts beneath it were wonderfully full and high and, he was equally certain, Heaven to touch, to tease, to taste.

Best of all, she was here. He leaned forward, smoothly insinuating his mouth beside her ear so that she’d be sure to hear him above the hubbub around them.

“We’ll dance, you and I,” he whispered, sliding his hands down her arms, cupping her slim waist beneath the domino even as he took her right hand and raised it to his lips.

Her fingers were cold, although the room was stuffy and overly warm, but she did not move away from him. Her gaze did slide toward the middle of the floor, where couples were gathering as the musicians struck up a waltz.

“No, not here. You’re much too exquisite for this motley crew,” he soothed, and then twirled her about, deftly maneuvering them toward the opened French doors and out onto the narrow, moonlit balcony.

Once there, seeing that the rather crude benches to either side of the doorway were occupied by amorous couples who didn’t seem to mind an audience, he let go of her waist but not her hand, turning her about to lead them down the wide shallow steps and into the meager, flambeaux-lit gardens.

She didn’t protest but just lifted her skirts and followed where he led.

It took some doing, but he finally managed to locate a small clearing devoid of other occupants. There was no bench, but the grass seemed plentiful enough, and there was always that stout tree trunk to lean her against as he got to know her better.

Know her body better. Intimately.

He already felt sure he knew her enough.

She was here, wasn’t she? She was apparently willing. What more did he need to know?

“What is your name, scarlet lady?” he asked her, looking into her wide, unblinking eyes, feeling himself becoming lost in those clear, swirling depths.

“I’d first know yours. Is it Mr. Black or Mr. Gold?” she said, showing spirit yet again.

Puck laughed. “It’s neither. My name is Robin Goodfellow.”

The truth was rarely believed, and it wasn’t now.

“Oh yes, I’m quite sure that’s correct. And I am Titania, Queen of the Fairies.”

“Ah, fair Titania,” Puck allowed, quietly surprised that she would know the characters from Shakespeare’s farce until he realized that she must be an actress. He was about to break his most sacred rule and tumble an actress. “Then you do not believe me?”

“No more than you believe me, no. But does it matter? I don’t imagine you’ve brought me out here for an exchange of names.”

“And why have I brought you out here?” he asked, even as he lifted the silken hood back and off her head, revealing a mass of artfully placed curls nearly black in the dim light.

“I’m not entirely certain. I was rather thinking it was to kiss me.”

“To kiss you,” Puck repeated, taken aback. She said the words as if they were dangerous in the extreme. “And you came here to be kissed?”

“I didn’t think so, no. But now that I am here, I may as well be hanged for a sheep as well as a lamb, don’t you think? I’m convinced my—my companion is taking full advantage of this rather exciting bit of freedom. The masks, you know. A stranger’s kiss in the moonlight.”

Puck’s brain was sending out alerts his libido pushed aside as ridiculous. She was an actress, that was all. She was most probably playing the coy maiden in hopes that the novelty would excite him.

And her ploy was working, probably even better than she had hoped. His mind was being seduced by her feigned naiveté, while the rest of him was growing hard with a base passion he hadn’t experienced since he’d been a randy youth who could have embarrassed himself at the mere thought of touching a female breast.

“Then, my queen of the fairies, we will begin with a kiss.”

Because he thought she would wish him to play along with her small charade, and because the idea of doing so only increased his growing passion, Puck lightly cupped her chin and leaned in to put his mouth to hers.

Oh, and she was good. She did not disappoint. She allowed the kiss, but did nothing to encourage him to deepen it. She did not put her arms around him, did not immediately begin to grind her body against his, the sure signal of a professional who wished the act over and done and several gold pieces slipped into her purse.

But she’d miscalculated, badly. Her supposedly untutored mouth presented not only a challenge, but a frisson of delight that went straight to Puck’s manhood, which now strained against his trousers.

A kiss. A single kiss, and he was ready to set her up in her own apartments, give her anything she wanted: diamonds, pearls, her own carriage and stable. One kiss, and he was the fool he laughed at, enslaved by a woman whose cold-blooded profession it was to jumble the wits of idiots like himself.

Idiots like his own father.

He lifted his face away from hers and looked into her magnificent eyes.

He saw no guile. No greed. No reaction at all save what might be termed confusion.

Oh yes, she was good.

But he was better.

This time he didn’t approach her gently. He swooped, openmouthed. He took her into his arms, his lips slanted across hers, his tongue probing, his teeth nibbling, his hands traveling down her back and then coming up and around to cup her lush breasts. He insinuated his right thigh between her legs, pressing upward against her sex.

He kissed her mouth, her throat, bent her back over his arm to press his lips against the smooth expanse of skin above the neckline of her gown.

And all the while, he crooned to her in French. How lovely she was. How he was being made mad by her virginal game playing. What he would do to her to reward her, how he would do it, how she would know she had never been made love to before, no matter how many men she’d had.

And she whispered back to him: “I have a hat pin poised to stick in your ear, and I will do it if you do not release me at once.”

The words were clear, and they had been pronounced in flawless French.

Puck hauled her upright and put her away from him, staring at her in astonishment. This was no whore for hire. He’d been duped. By God, had he been duped? And by some idiot slip of a girl out for a lark?

“What did you say?”

“Nothing half so horrible as you did, I’m sure,” she answered as she pulled her domino shut and raised the hood back over her hair. Her hands shook, but her voice was firm and clear. “I’m leaving now. Do not follow me.”

He held his arms out to his sides to prove himself harmless, once more smiling, surprisingly under control. “I wouldn’t think of it, I assure you. Only first a word of warning, you little tease, as next time you may run into a different sort of bastard. One that would be at pains to demonstrate how ineffectual a hat pin can be. And something else. Never threaten before striking, but merely strike, or you may never get the chance. Now run away, little girl. Run until you’re safely home and under the covers.”

She didn’t wait for him to repeat himself but only lifted her skirts and ran back down the path toward the lights of the ballroom.

Puck followed after her at a walk, trying to remember what he’d said to her and what he’d suggested, believing her to be something she was not. He wondered if he’d scarred the girl for life.

She’d certainly made an impression on him, one that would be difficult to shake.




CHAPTER TWO


WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? Why did I allow her to join the dance?

Regina whirled about, went up on tiptoe, pushed past goatherds and devils with pointed tails, searching for an emerald-green domino.

Where is she!

She’d have to stop crying, or else she wouldn’t be able to see anything. She had to stop thinking about what had just happened … what could have happened. That man! So wickedly handsome, so dangerous in his black and gold.

What had she done?

Had she lost her mind?

The things he’d said! And she’d listened, fascinated by the words, shamelessly intrigued by his touch … and her reaction to both.

Regina clutched at her suddenly queasy stomach, wishing back the sweet, honeyed drink she’d downed earlier almost as if it had been water, for it had been so hot and stuffy and even rather smelly in this horrible ballroom. What had been in that cup? Nothing too terrible, surely. It was only honey….

She fought down the urge to cup her hands to her mouth and loudly call out Miranda’s name, knowing she could not cause a scene, draw attention to either one of them. They would both be ruined if anyone knew they had attended this clearly unsuitable ball.

Why, there were people kissing people everywhere she turned. Giggling and touching each other in lewd ways as they passed by each other in the dance. It hadn’t been like this when they’d first arrived, but now it was. As if every tick of the clock served to strip away another fetter of society, leaving only the baseness beneath.

“Here now, my pretty, hold there while I take a look at you.” A large man wearing the costume of a highwayman, complete with a brace of pistols tucked in the sash around his waist, had grabbed her arm and showed no signs of letting go. “I’ve come for all your valuables. Pass them over, starting with a kiss from your fair lips.”

Never threaten before striking, but merely strike, or you may never get the chance. Regina plunged the hat pin into the fleshy back of the man’s hand and ran off when he yowled in pain and immediately let her go.

She wasn’t sure which level of Dante’s Inferno she was in, but she needed to get out. Now.

She looked behind her, terrified that the man who called himself Robin Goodfellow might be following her, but he wasn’t there. Nobody she knew was there, not that she knew him.

If only she could find Miranda!

At last, she made her way through the maze of screens and plants and couches to the main entrance and the small antechamber where a few maids and such were seated, ready to assist their mistresses if necessary.

“Oh, Miss Regina, you’re here! Thank the Lord!” Doris Ann clasped Regina’s hands in hers, squeezing them so hard it was painful. “She’s gone. My Miss Miranda is gone!”

Regina tugged her hands free, not without effort, and tried to calm the maid. “Nonsense, Doris Ann. She’s misplaced, that’s all, and most probably on purpose. When did you last see her?”

“But I never did,” Doris Ann said, sniffling. “Not since we first got here. It’s nearly midnight, and you said one hour, Miss Regina, and it has been nearer to two. And she promised me. She promised she would listen to you, if you’d only come with her. I thought you both were gone, seeing as how you didn’t want to come in the first place, but now you’re here, and she isn’t, and I thought for certain she’d be with you and—”

“All right, all right, let’s be calm, Doris Ann,” Regina said soothingly. “I’m aware that we have been here well over the agreed upon hour, but if I was … detained, then surely it must be the same with Miss Miranda.”

“I popped my head in there when no one was looking, and there’s strange and wicked goings-on in there, Miss Regina. I heard two of the other maids talking, you understand. You should neither of you have come here.”

“And we’ll be leaving the moment we find Miss Miranda, I assure you. Now, this is what we’ll do. We’ll go inside the ballroom and look for her. You go to the left, and I will go to the right, and— Doris Ann! Don’t you dare shake your head no to me.”

“I tain’t going in there. There’s wicked goings-on in there.”

“Yes, you’ve already said that. But your Miss Miranda is in there somewhere.” Or out in the gardens somewhere. “You do love her, don’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Regina. But there’s wicked—”

“Do you wish to tell Miss Miranda’s parents you were a part of this? That you helped Miss Miranda find the dominos and masks, that you knew what was going to happen tonight and did nothing to stop it? That you came home without her?”

Doris Ann licked her thin lips. “I am to go to the left, you said?”

Regina breathed a sigh of relief. At least she would have help. “Yes, to the left. And if you find her, bring her right back here. Grab on to her if you have to, and don’t let go until she’s back here. Do you understand?”

Doris Ann nodded, looking fearfully toward the ballroom. “Oh, laws. They’re taking off their masks, Miss Regina. Weren’t you and Miss Miranda to be long gone before they took off their masks?”

“Oh, God …”

How could she go back into the ballroom now that people were removing their masks? They would wonder why she kept hers on, and with everyone behaving so badly, it was even possible some forward person would try to remove hers for her.

But she had to find Miranda. Even if it was just so that she could wring her neck.

“Is there a problem?”

Regina recognized the voice and realized that the man who called himself Robin Goodfellow had found her, was even now standing directly behind her.

“No. Thank you.” She kept her back to him. Had he taken off his mask? If he had, was he as handsome as she’d thought him? Would he still be laughing at her? Would he expect her to take off her own mask? Had he really meant what he said when he’d been kissing her, speaking to her in French while he thought she didn’t understand? Could she ever look at him after she’d heard what he’d said, knowing that she knew that he knew that she’d understood him?

“All right, then. I’ll leave you to it, whatever it is.”

No! Don’t leave!

“Mr. Goodfellow—wait.” Regina bit her lip for courage and then turned to face him, ridiculously relieved that he still wore his mask. “I … I seem to have misplaced my companion.”

“Ah. So she—or he—disappeared while you were otherwise occupied?”

“Don’t be any more obnoxious than you can help, if you please,” Regina said irritably. “You know that I’m not who—what—you supposed, and not without reason, because I know I was behaving badly, so I do not fault you for that, and I will apologize for … for leading you on or whatever you think it was I may have been doing— Doris Ann, stop crying! But it is of extreme importance that I find my cous—my companion, and that she and I leave this place at once.”

He jerked his head back slightly. “E-gods, you mean there are two of you? And yet not with a whole brain between you. All right, please allow me to offer my assistance. How is she dressed?”

Regina clasped her hands together in front of her, trying to keep them from shaking. This was serious. Miranda could be anywhere, doing anything. Just look at what she had done, and she’d never considered herself to be half so stupid as Miranda!

She quickly described her cousin and what she was wearing.

Robin Goodfellow—really, how could she think of him as any sort of help when he’d told her such a ridiculous name—shook his head. “No, sorry. I pride myself on being more than mildly observant, or I did until about a quarter hour ago, but I don’t recall any petite blonde dressed in an emerald-green domino. Or wearing such a singular mask. Perhaps we should try the gardens?”

“She wouldn’t be so foolhardy as to— Oh, never mind,” Regina said as Robin Goodfellow grinned at her in a way that had her palm itching to slap his face. Even wearing that very strange and intriguing mask, she knew that the fellow thought life was one huge lark. Maddening, that’s what he was—but her options weren’t all that thick on the ground at the moment, and Doris Ann could hardly be counted as one of them. She had no choice. “Yes, let’s try the gardens. Doris Ann, you stay here while I go with Mr. Goodfellow, and if she returns here while we’re gone, you have my permission to sit on her!”

Robin Goodfellow took Regina’s hand and led her back into the ballroom, where at least half of the candles had been snuffed out and, although the orchestra played on, no one was now dancing along with the tune.

“It will be nearly impossible to locate her in the dark like this,” she complained. “Why on earth would they have removed half of the— Oh!”

She quickly squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face against Robin Goodfellow’s shoulder, although the memory of what she’d seen had probably already been burned into the back of her eyes for all time. Had the woman no shame? Clearly not. Not if she allowed herself to be leaned forward over the rear of a couch while her full skirts were lifted and the man standing behind her was grunting and pushing himself at her like some barnyard animal, his breeches at his ankles. Three other now unmasked men were standing about, glasses in hand, watching, raucously cheering him on, clearly awaiting their turn.

“What appears to be the— Ah, so you saw that, did you?”

“No. Look away,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.

“Well, at least he’s dressed as a goat. And they’ve formed a queue, assuring the strumpet of a profitable evening,” he said. “And now, young lady, you know why your mama warned you never to accept an invitation to a masquerade ball. Especially one hosted by the infamous, not to mention lascivious, Lady Fortesque.”

Regina raised her head, fighting the bizarre impulse to look behind her once more, because she couldn’t possibly have seen what she’d just seen. “I highly doubt she would have thought that was because I would see my own father in the queue. Please, I can’t stay here.”

Robin Goodfellow stood his ground as she tried to drag him away. “Your father? Which one is he? No, never mind. Let me at least hazard a guess here. You don’t wish for me to totter on over there, tap him on the shoulder and ask him for his assistance. That could be awkward.”

Regina’s bottom lip trembled, and she knew she was either going to laugh or dissolve into strong hysterics. She was losing her mind, that’s what was happening. “Please.”

“My most profound apologies. But now, at least I don’t think you’ll faint, will you? I’d take you back to your maid, but I need you to help me identify your cousin, should we find her.”

“I know,” Regina said, wondering how much good she would be in the search as she refused to raise her gaze above the shoe tops of the other guests. “Just please don’t leave me.”

He took her hand once more. “I won’t,” he said, and she believed him.

A half hour later, following a sometimes embarrassing, if oddly educational, search of the gardens, they returned to the anteroom carrying an emerald-green silk domino and the remains of a half mask missing some of its green glass stones.

Regina could barely put one foot in front of the other. They’d found the—dear Lord, Robin Goodfellow had called what they’d found evidence—at the very back of the gardens, near a gate that led to an alleyway, and he’d noted that there looked to be signs of a small struggle.

In any event, in any case, Miranda was gone.

Regina plunked herself down in the chair beside a terrified Doris Ann, put her masked face in her hands and at last gave in to despair.

Her cousin was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Abducted.

“Stay here,” Robin Goodfellow told her and then placed his hand on her shoulder and waited until she managed to nod that she’d heard him. “I’ll take this domino and mask with me and show them around to the servants. There has to be someone who remembers seeing your cousin earlier in the evening. Maybe that someone remembers who she was with at that time.”

“Miss Regina?”

Regina raised her head and carefully eased the mask away from her face enough to wipe at her wet cheeks. “We’ll find her, Doris Ann.”

“Yes, Miss. But if we don’t?”

Regina’s entire body sagged at the question.

She would have to tell Mama, who would cry and bring up Grandmother Hackett again. Papa would be livid that she might have destroyed his dream to marry her to a nobleman. They’d have to tell Aunt Claire and Uncle Seth. They’d be aghast, terrified.

And everyone would blame her.

Not that such a minor thing mattered. What mattered was that Miranda was gone, God only knew where and to what purpose.

Regina picked up a green glass stone that had fallen into her lap.

And she hadn’t gone voluntarily.

She squeezed her hand around the stone and closed her eyes, began to pray.

“Regina?”

She looked up at the sound of her name, frowning before she remembered that Robin Goodfellow must have heard Doris Ann refer to her as such. She quickly got to her feet. “You’ve learned something?”

“A little. We need to go now.”

“Go? But I can’t leave. What if Miranda comes back? She’d need me to be here.”

“She won’t be coming back.” He signaled for Doris Ann to come with them and led them outside to the street, where a strange coach awaited, a footman holding open the door, the steps down and waiting. “On my honor, such as it is, after a very brief stop at my residence for a change of shirt and cravat, I am taking you directly home, wherever that is. I will accompany you inside and speak with your mother and whomever else you wish me to speak with, telling them whatever story the two of us manage to conjure up on the way. I’ve already worked out the broad strokes, but I will leave it to you to fill in the details.”

“But … but we have to tell them the truth.”

“Only as a last resort and only if you make a botch of the lie. Remember, your father was in attendance tonight. I doubt he’d be best pleased to know his daughter had been here, as well,” he said, handing her up into the coach. “How trustworthy is the maid?”

“Doris Ann?” Regina’s mind was whirling. He had just said he was driving her to his residence? So that he might change out of his shirt? Was she being abducted now? “Doris Ann will not be questioned. She’s only the maid.”

“And lucky for her that she is. Aren’t you, Doris Ann?”

The maid bobbed her head in agreement.

“And she won’t say a word to anyone, or else she will be escorted out onto the street without a reference, if not tossed into gaol. Will you, Doris Ann?”

The maid shook her head so violently her mobcap flew off.

“Good. I located the coachman and groom without much difficulty, and they have been persuaded to believe they have been beset by a band of cutthroats who dragged your cousin off at pistol point before disabling the coach, which is why it will not return to your cousin’s domicile until morning. Damned uncivilized place, London, even in the finest neighborhoods at times. I’m surprised anyone is safe. Related to the Earl of Mentmore, are you?”

Regina’s head was spinning. “How … how …”

“The crest on the door. Only an idiot would arrive at Lady Fortesque’s ball in such an easily recognizable coach. How do you think I located the correct coach so easily? You’re not very proficient at intrigue, are you?”

“But you are?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am, luckily for you. And now that we’re settled on that head, my coachman has been instructed to drive straight to the mews behind my residence, where you will remain with the coach while I nip inside to rid myself of this betraying costume. You have between now and the time I return to come up with any missing details sufficient to the problem. I suggest you think in terms of where you were, why you were farther afield from wherever you should have been, why you have no chaperone and why you weren’t taken, as well.”

“I … I stabbed the man who had hold of me. With my hat pin, the one Mama says all chaste young ladies always carry with them. And … and he let me go.”

“Very good, for a beginning,” Robin Goodfellow complimented as the coach pulled into a narrow alleyway and stopped just outside a stable. “Perhaps even too good. You’ve the makings of a commendable liar, Regina.”

“Yes, I know. It’s in my blood,” she said forlornly as he opened the door and jumped out, even before the coach had come to a complete halt.

While Doris Ann sat sniffling, Regina did her best to concentrate on the fib—the great, big, whopping lie—she would tell her mother. Except that her mother had been left alone with her “company,” and even if the wine had been watered, by this time of night she would be of no help to Regina or to anybody.

And her father? Regina felt her stomach turn over inside her. No, her father wouldn’t be at home when she arrived in any case. How she loathed the man. He was as base and as common and as uncouth as … as any man who would sink to attending such a licentious ball.

She reminded herself that Robin Goodfellow had been there.

This did nothing to lighten her mood, which was rapidly descending into the very depths of desolation.

Yet Miranda’s brother had received an invitation. There were bound to have been other men, supposed gentlemen of the ton, in attendance.

Were all men so base?

It really was too bad she had no desire to enter a nunnery….

“Miss Regina? How can we go home without Miss Miranda? Her mama will be that upset, and his lordship will go spare, he really will.”

Regina reached up and at last untied her mask, tossing it out of the dropped-down coach window with some force. “My uncle Seth will have every right to go—that is, to be angry. Terrified. But we must think of Miss Miranda, Doris Ann. We will think of her, and we will be brave. If not entirely honest,” she added, squeezing the maid’s hand.

“Yes, miss. And how will you explain Mr. Goodfellow?”

Regina opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again before making a decision. “He said he would handle the broad strokes. We’ll leave that up to him, shall we? Now quiet, please, I hear footsteps. Yes, here he comes.”

Regina sat forward on the cushion seat and squinted into the darkness, waiting for him to step into the moonlight so that she could finally see his face without that extraordinary mask. She probably would one day convince herself that it was the mask that had destroyed her common sense, that its odd design had somehow enthralled her into doing something she would otherwise have never considered. That her compliance had nothing to do with his pleasant, cultured voice or the way he had placed his hands on her shoulders and nearly caused her heart to stop or the mischief she’d seen in his intelligent blue-green eyes.

It was either that or believing that Grandmother Hackett had taken up permanent residence on her shoulder.

“Oh …” Regina blinked, looked again. “Oh, my goodness.”

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Now that she could really see him. He was still dressed mostly in black, but his shirt and his faultlessly tied cravat were startlingly white in the moonlight and he had tied back his long, blond hair somehow. He was English, she was certain of that, but he had a nearly foreign look to him: so very neat, sophisticated, compellingly romantic. The gold-lined cloak was gone, as was the beribboned walking stick that had dropped to the ground when he’d been kissing her, to free his hands so that he could— No, she would forget that, too. She would forget all of that!

He stopped, bent down and picked up the discarded mask before opening the door of the coach. “Lesson number two, fair Titania. Never leave incriminating evidence strewn about for all to see. If you’d kindly pass over the two dominos and your cousin’s mask? Ah, thank you. Gaston!”

A second figure appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and Mr. Goodfellow tossed the evidence at him as the fellow exclaimed in French, scrambling for the green mask, which had eluded him and fallen to the ground.

“My apologies, Gaston. I have no experience in throwing clothing. Only in catching it, si vous prenez ma signification. Burn them, and stir the ashes,” he instructed the servant, who then hustled back into the shadows.

Inside the coach, Regina had recovered herself sufficiently to roll her eyes at the man’s outrageous behavior. But any feelings of superiority vanished immediately when he bounded into the coach and plunked himself down beside her.

He looked good. He smelled delicious. This was no boy; this was a man. Very much a man. And he was gazing at her in open appreciation.

“Stop looking at me that way. My cousin has gone missing,” she reminded him.

“And yet I have not been struck blind,” he responded just as quickly. “You are as beautiful unmasked as you were mysterious half-concealed. Doris Ann, close your mouth. Your mistress and I are flirting. Aren’t we, Regina?”

“We most certainly are not! And you aren’t to call me Regina, any more than I will agree to continue addressing you as Mr. Robin Goodfellow. What a ridiculous name.”

He put his crossed hands to his breast as if mortally wounded. “You mock my name? My not precisely sainted mother will be devastated, I’m sure, as she so loves it.”

Regina didn’t know if she could believe the man, even if he’d told her the sky was blue. “Oh, she did not. I mean, she does not. Stop grinning like that! You’re an impossible man.”

“Yes, I know. Very well, you may call me Mr. Blackthorn. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn.”

Regina felt hot color flooding her cheeks. “Then you weren’t lying?”

“Not completely, no. And now if you will return the favor?”

“Return the— Oh. Hackett. I am Regina Hackett. My cousin is Lady Miranda Burnham, daughter of Viscount Ranscome and granddaughter of the Earl of Mentmore.”

“E-gods, all of that? And yet we’re still missing one important fact. Two, actually. Where should I be instructing my coachman to drive us, hmm?”

Regina had been giving that some thought. Her mother was less than useless by this time of night, and with luck could be persuaded upon rising tomorrow that she had indeed accompanied Regina and Miranda this evening. She’d feel more confident if she had a few lemon squares tucked up in her reticule, but her mother could be convinced she’d already eaten them. Regina wasn’t proud of these facts or of using her mother’s problem so shamelessly, but these were desperate times, and desperate measures were in order.

“I reside for the Season in Berkeley Square, but we will be dropping my mother off there and continuing on our way, seeing as how the poor woman is completely overset by the recent terrible events and must take to her bed with a strong dose of laudanum. We will then drive directly to my grandfather’s domicile at Number Twenty-three Cavendish Square, where we will explain all to Miranda’s parents. My grandfather, I’m relieved to say, remains in the country, suffering from the gout, so we may see either Aunt Claire or Uncle Seth or, if we are to be extremely unlucky, both of them. What is the other important fact?”

“I’m not sure. I’m still attempting to wade through all those names and titles. Oh, I remember now, and you’ve already answered it. Your mother accompanied you and your cousin this evening? I look forward to hearing how you’ll convince her to go along with your lie.”

Regina shot a quick look at Doris Ann, who was coughing into her fist. “That is my problem, Mr. Blackthorn, and I will handle it. Now, please instruct your coachman, as I wish to arrive in Cavendish Square to hear what information it is you learned at the ball and have thus far refused to share with me.”

“It’s a tale that should not have any telling, not even in Cavendish Square, but if you will allow for some small changes and keep your silence except to sniffle sorrowfully a time or two in the correct spots, it is one I wish to tell only once.”

“I am sorrowful! I’m frantic.”

“You hide it well.”

“I’m used to— Would you please just give the coachman my uncle’s direction!”

He looked at her strangely for a moment before he leaned past Doris Ann, opened a small square hinged door and recited the Cavendish Square address.

Regina thought about her aunt, who adored her only daughter. “It’s that terrible? You know who took Miranda?”

“If I knew the who, Miss Hackett, I would have handed you over to my coachman and sent you on your way, and damn your problems with your respective parents when they discovered you’d been at the masquerade. But I only learned a possible why, I believe, which makes the where immaterial.”

Thoughts no well-bred young lady should know enough about to even consider went flashing through Regina’s head. But her father owned a shipping company, and he had told many stories at the dinner table about mysterious cargos, human cargos, being shipped off to foreign parts, where the men and children were sold into slavery and the most comely women paraded about on stages, for sale to the highest bidder. He seemed to delight in the telling, probably because each only served to make his wife ill and to seek ever more comfort in the contents of a wine decanter.

How she hated her father.

How she feared for Miranda.

Regina put her hand on Mr. Blackthorn’s forearm. “We must find her. We must.”

He covered her hand with his own. “And I will.”

“No,” she corrected him. “We will. This is my fault. I should have said no. Miranda’s incurably silly, but she wouldn’t have gone if I had refused to accompany her. I should have known better. If you will not assist me, I will investigate on my own. I will. Really.”

He looked at her for long moments, saying nothing until the coach drew to a halt outside of Number Twenty-three.

“Very well. Your uncle will call in the Bow Street Runners, I’m sure, but we two can conduct our own investigation if it will make you more comfortable, which it very well may not, not once I’ve said what I have to say to your uncle. Still, if you’re of the same mind tomorrow, I will meet you in Hyde Park at eleven. Come on foot, with only your maid.”

“And you’ll be there? You’re not just saying that now to fob me off? Because I know I have been something of an annoyance to you.”

“Miss Hackett … Regina. It is precisely because you have been, in your words, such an annoyance to me that I can safely promise you that, yes, I will be there. Pour mes péchés.”

“For your sins?”

He stroked one long finger along her cheek and over her mouth, stealing her breath.

“Both committed and contemplated, yes,” he said softly. And then he did something that took her totally by surprise—he reached behind her neck and unclasped her pearls, sliding them into his pocket. “You’ve been robbed, remember? I’ll return them to you tomorrow, when you come to the park.”

“Were you thinking I might not come? That I’ll change my mind?”

“The possibility presents itself, yes.”

“Well, I won’t! I’m going to find Miranda, and since you’re the only person who knows we needs must start with what happened at the ball, you’re the only person who can help me.”

A groom opened the door and put down the steps and Mr. Blackthorn eased past Regina and hopped to the ground before turning to hold out his hand to her. “And we begin….”




CHAPTER THREE


THE FIRST THING PUCK noticed once they’d been escorted into the drawing room at Number Twenty-three was the general shabbiness of the place. He would do some investigating of the Earl of Mentmore in the morning, but for now, he believed he could safely assume that if a ransom were demanded for Lady Miranda, the family would be hard-pressed to comply.

Strange. The family had the name but not the money. He and his brothers had the funds but not the name. Of the two circumstances, he believed he preferred his own, and yet, Society looked down its nose at him and accepted Mentmore and his offspring everywhere. A day would come, he felt certain, when one side would have to compromise with the other, and if he were to project a winning side, he would wager on money over birth every time. For one thing, it kept you warmer at night.

“His lordship and my lady will be down shortly,” the starchy butler pronounced from the doorway as Regina, who had been pacing the carpet in front of the fire these past five minutes, mumbled a brief thank-you to the man she called Kettering, then quickly found herself a chair and collapsed into it.

“Wonderful,” Puck pronounced, as if complimenting the man on some lofty achievement. He walked over to the butler and put an arm around the man’s shoulder confidingly. “Kettering, you look an intelligent man. Can I trust you? Your employers are, I fear, about to suffer a great shock. I say this because I am convinced you will know just how to handle the situation. I would suggest wine for the lady, and perhaps some burnt feathers. Brandy for his lordship?”

“He favors gin,” the butler whispered, frowning to show his own distaste for such a lowly spirit and, it would seem, his employer, as well. “Does this concern Miss Miranda, sir?”

“Oh yes, it does, it does,” Puck said, shaking his head, his sorrowful expression saying more than his words, drawing in Kettering as if he were a fish on the hook. “It will be left to a fine man like you to keep body and soul together under this roof, I’m afraid. But if there is anything, anything at all I can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact me. In fact, I all but insist upon it.” He then handed the man his card and a small but heavy purse.

Kettering slipped both into his pocket, one eye on Regina, who sat contemplating her shoe tops, blissfully unaware of what Puck was about. “It would be my pleasure, sir,” the butler said. “I will see about refreshments for you and the young lady, as well.”

“Again, wonderful. But no gin for me, if you please. Horrid, bitter stuff.”

“There’s a bottle of wine in the cellars his lordship has been saving. He’ll never know.”

Puck patted the man’s back and then asked his question. “I only met Miss Hackett this evening and, unfortunately, under trying circumstances. Do you know her well?”

Kettering looked about, to make sure no one was listening from the foyer and that his employers weren’t on the stairs. “She’s fine enough, sir. Not that it means anything. The mother is sister to the viscount, but the father?” He leaned closer. “In trade. Owns ships. Bought himself his bride, and now he’s trying to sell the daughter to a title. The family’s that embarrassed, sir.”

Puck kept his smile with some difficulty. The butler looked down on Regina Hackett? What a strange world they all lived in. “And yet she’s welcome here?”

Now Kettering looked positively evil. “It’s like I said, sir. The family’s that embarrassed. If you take my meaning.”

“Yes, I think I do. Pays for all of this, does he?”

The butler seemed to realize that he’d been speaking out of turn and to a complete stranger. “Was there anything else you wanted, sir?”

“Thank you, no. You’ve been extremely helpful.” A gold coin appeared in Puck’s hand and also quickly disappeared.

Kettering looked about himself once more, wet his lips and confided, “The mother, Lady Leticia? Poor thing is nearly always three parts over the windmill, and the father is a nasty piece of work. I’d steer clear if I was you, sir. There’s better pickings out there for a fine, set-up young gentleman, such as yourself.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Again, thank you, Kettering. Ah, and I believe his lordship and his lady wife are about to join us. And you have some refreshments to organize. Remember, I’m counting on you to keep me informed. Most especially, I think, about the actions of your master concerning this entire affair.”

“Indeed, sir. He so much as sneezes, sir, you’ll know about it,” Kettering promised, bowing to him before scurrying off, not bothering to announce his employers or their unexpected guests.

Yes, in the end, perhaps in ten years, perhaps not for another hundred, it would be money that would decide who held all the winning cards. Money, and charm. Puck, with all modesty, believed he possessed both in considerable measure.

It was a pity he was bound to be tossed out of this house on his illegitimate ear in the next ten minutes by one of the eventual losers.

“My lord, my lady,” he said, bowing to each of them in turn as they entered the drawing room. “Please pardon the intrusion, but I must tell you that something untoward has occurred. Concerning your daughter, Lady Miranda. Please, I would suggest you both sit.”

“Who the bloody blazes are you?” the viscount asked, his clothing looking as if he’d dressed in haste, a betraying crease on his right cheek announcing that he’d just lately had his head on a pillow.

No, no. I would remain anonymous a while longer.

“The bearer of bad news, I’m afraid. Your daughter has been abducted by brigands.”

Well, that neatly served to distract the viscount from more personal questions, as he was immediately too busy attempting to prop up his fainting wife to ask them.

Regina rushed to her aunt’s side, sparing only a moment to glare at Puck before she assisted her uncle in getting the woman to one of the couches near the fireplace.

The next minutes were spent with the requested burnt feathers being waved beneath her ladyship’s nose by her worried niece while his lordship snagged the decanter of gin from the tray Kettering had produced and drank down two full glasses in quick succession.

Puck stood in front of the fireplace, watching everything, missing nothing, and sipped the wine, which was actually quite fine. Good on Kettering. And good on him, knowing the most direct route to any secret lay with making allies of the servant staff.

At last her ladyship seemed recovered enough to sit up, and the viscount demanded that Puck explain himself.

He, in turn, looked to Regina. “Miss Hackett? If you would be so kind as to get us started?”

The look she shot him this time might have had a less courageous fellow ducking behind a chair, but she didn’t waste more than a few seconds on him before sitting down beside her aunt and taking the woman’s trembling hands in her own.

“We were on our way to the soiree, as you know. Mama was very much looking forward to the lemon squares— Oh, I’m sorry. My nerves are still overset, because that isn’t important, is it? We, that is, the coachman seemed to have gotten lost, turned about in his direction somewhere, I suppose, as he looked for a way around the crush of vehicles on every roadway, and we ended up in a fairly isolated street. Somehow, one of the coach wheels found a hole in the cobbles as we tried to turn the coach, and one of the spokes splintered.” She could not hold back a small sob. “Everything just seemed to go wrong.”

“Incompetent idiot! I’ll have the man’s position!” the viscount bellowed.

And you’ll be within your rights, Puck thought, taking another sip of wine. Can’t blame the coachman for my lies, but he deserves the sack for delivering his master’s daughter to that den of iniquity.

“Yes, uncle, but it would only have been unfortunate save for … for those horrible brigands.” Now she looked to Puck, and there was no mistaking what she wanted him to do.

“Mine own coach was passing by the opening to the street, and I heard a commotion, a woman’s scream. I leaped down from my coach and went hotfoot in pursuit of the source of that scream, mine own coachman and grooms assisting me. We arrived on the scene not able to do much more than take charge after the fact, move the ladies to my coach and offer any other assistance I could. But I can tell you the events that transpired as they were told to me by your coachman.”

“Then tell us, damn it!”

“Yes, my lord, I was about to do just that. It would seem that several creatures of the night saw an opportunity present itself to them and acted upon it, surrounding the coach and demanding all jewelry and money the occupants might have on their persons.”

Lady Claire choked back a sob. “But—but there was no money, and those pearls were paste—”

“Claire, that will be enough,” her husband warned tightly. “Continue.”

Puck bowed, pretending a convenient deafness to her ladyship’s admission. “As you can see, Miss Hackett readily gave over her jewelry—pearls you said, didn’t you? And her mother’s jewels, as well,” he added as an afterthought.

Regina obligingly raised a hand to her bare throat. “We took Mama home before coming here. She was overset. Miranda’s pearls were paste? I didn’t— That is, I don’t believe the brigands knew that. They … they seemed much more interested in Miranda. They seemed very taken with … with her looks.”

“Her hair,” Puck explained, drawing on what he’d learned at the ball and marking, for future consideration, the fact that Regina seemed to have figured out for herself why her cousin had been taken. “Her blond hair, her blue eyes, her fair English complexion, her, Miss Hackett tells me, petite stature. Young women of similar description have been going missing in and around London for months now, I understand. It took only a few questions to learn what I am attempting to tell you. A sad, sad story.”

“But … but what about Regina?” Lady Claire asked, looking to her niece with what could only be termed displeasure that she was there and her daughter was not.

“They did not take Miss Hackett here because she is tall, dark-haired. The others taken have been servants, shop girls, the occasional actress or ballet dancer, which is why there has been no great stir in society. But your daughter? She’d be a real prize, my lord.”

The man looked stricken. “I’ve heard … whispers. At my club, you understand. Young girls disappearing off the streets. Nobodies. But things like this don’t happen to people like us! Damn this city!”

“My baby,” her ladyship whimpered. “A prize? Seth! What is this man saying? What has happened to my baby?”

“And yet it is that, dear lady, which we cannot know,” Puck said. “We can only hope for the best.” And that beautiful young virgins bring a higher price at whatever market the bastards plan to sell her, so that she’ll be relatively safe until we find her.

Puck hadn’t said the words out loud, but he felt certain that the viscount had heard them anyway.

“I’ll … I’ll hire a Bow Street Runner. I’ll hire ten of them! But quietly. No one can know she’s gone. We’ll put it out that she’s taken ill … that her mother has taken ill…. We’ll keep this between ourselves.”

“Yes, my lord, that also would be my suggestion. Second only to your daughter’s safety is her unsullied reputation. And now, if you will excuse us, I should think Miss Hackett desires to return to her home and see to her mother’s welfare.”

“Yes, yes,” the viscount said, looking at Regina angrily, as if he, like his wife, was incensed that she hadn’t been the one who had been taken. “Regina, please inform your father that I will call on him first thing tomorrow. The Runners will demand payment before they’ll help us and … and my funds are currently all tied up in the Exchange.”

“Yes, uncle, of course,” Regina said, getting to her feet with more alacrity than might be seemly. “Aunt Claire, I’m so, so sorry. But we must be brave. We’ll find her. I promise we will.”

The woman nodded and then went back to weeping into her handkerchief.

Puck held his arm out to Regina, but before she could take it, the viscount asked the question Puck had so far avoided.

“I failed to get your name, sir, or to thank you for the assistance you have rendered us this evening.”

“There is no need for thanks, my lord. I was simply fortunate to have come along when I did. Miss Hackett was hysterical and in no fit state to take charge of her mother or anything else.”

Regina’s gasp of outrage was quickly cut off, but Puck felt certain he’d hear her thoughts on this remark on the way to Berkeley Square. In fact, he was rather counting on it. If she agreed to accompany him after what he now had to say. Their acquaintance was short, but he felt fairly confident that she would, if only so that she might berate him for calling her hysterical.

“In answer to your question, my lord, I am the third and youngest son of Cyril Woodword, Marquess of Blackthorn.”

The earl stuck out his right hand, said, “Marquess of—” and then just as quickly drew it back, his expression suddenly so horrible Puck could have thought himself to have just announced that he carried the plague. “You’re one of Blackthorn’s bastards?”

Puck inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am. I am Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, known to my friends as Puck. A bit of nonsense, yes, but many say it suits me. A word in private, my lord?”

“A— No! There are ladies present. You will leave my house at once, sir!”

“Uncle Seth!” Regina stepped between her uncle and Puck, as if to protect at least one of them from the other. “Mr. Blackthorn has been exceedingly kind this evening. The good Lord knows what would have become of me—Mama and me—if he had not come along as he did. Only think how Papa would have seen the thing if any harm had come to us while I was in your coach. You should be thanking Mr. Blackthorn, not ordering him out of the house.”

God, I must know this woman better. For so many reasons.

“Thanks are not necessary, Miss Hackett,” Puck told her. “Although I would appreciate that private word? My lord?”

The viscount seemed to be considering what his life would be like—and what it would be worth—if Regina’s father were to become upset with him in any way. “Very well,” he said, and then walked toward one side of the large room, motioning rather rudely for Puck to follow after him.

“You’ll keep your eyes and hands off that one,” the viscount warned. “Reginald Hackett has plans for her, and they don’t include marriage to some jumped-up by-blow. I know what happened last year with your brother and Brean’s chit, but Brean is an ass. Reg is not. And he’s mean. Mean straight through to the bone.”

“Yes, thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Puck said smoothly. “But I’ve had a thought. Being by inclination a rather observant man, it has occurred to me that being beholden to Mr. Hackett for more than you already might be could be said to hold little appeal. Therefore, I would like to gift you with a sum of money you might use to employ the Runners. Oh, shall we say, two hundred pounds? And as a gift only, my lord. With only one small string attached, that I would be allowed to escort Miss Hackett home this evening.”

Puck knew, and Viscount Ranscome knew. A Runner, three Runners, could not cost more than ten or twenty pounds. Puck was offering the man a bribe—a ridiculously generous bribe—in exchange for his cooperation tonight and in future, if need be. Not that either man would say so. Puck was too smart … and Ranscome too greedy.

The viscount goggled and gasped at Puck, rather like a fish that had just unexpectedly found himself tossed onto the bank of the stream, only to be offered a helpful lift back into the water. “You … a gift, you said? You wouldn’t wish repayment?”

“You insult me, sir. Are we agreed?”

“It’s the girl. You want the girl. I know what you’re doing here. You want my help, or my silence. He’ll kill you. With his bare hands.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, also, but I hardly think so.” Having hatched much of this plan whilst Gaston was fussing over him as he tied his cravat, Puck had put more than one small but heavy purse in his pocket. He extracted the second, heavier purse and, with his back to the ladies, briefly flashed it to the viscount. “Take it. Take it now, or the offer is withdrawn. Ah, very good. You show some small spark of intelligence. The rest, tomorrow, sent over by messenger. Now I shall turn slightly so that the ladies can see, and you will smile and shake my hand. If we meet in public in the days and weeks to come, you will behave likewise. I am your friend, my lord. Your new bosom chum. Even if it kills you.”

“You are a bastard, aren’t you?”

Puck smiled in real delight as the two shook hands. “In every way, my lord, yes, I am.”

REGINA KEPT HER eyes facing toward the front of the coach as Puck sat himself beside her on the seat. “You could have told me.”

He adjusted the lapels of his black evening jacket and shot his cuffs. “Told you what, Miss Hackett?”

Where could she begin?

“You could have told me your circumstances. That would have gone a long way in explaining why … why …” She was suddenly at a loss for words.

“Why I behaved like such a bastard in the gardens?”

She shifted about on the seat to glare at him in the near darkness. “That is not what I meant! Besides, we are both going to forget about that entirely. Is that clear?”

“Clear and yet, I fear, impossible. You have a glorious mouth, Regina. I live only to taste it again.”

She was going to die. She was going to sink straight into these cushions and expire.

“You can’t say things like that to me.”

“I can’t? But I just did.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She felt … she felt so alive. “You’re being purposely obtuse.”

“No, I’m being brutally honest. And, yes, perhaps provocative. I enjoy doing things I’m good at, you see.”

She drew her hands up into fists in her lap. “My cousin has been abducted!”

“Yes, and I am still amazed that you seemed to grasp the why of that abduction so easily. Do a lot of reading of penny dreadfuls, do you? Chaste maidens, snatched from the bosoms of their families for their beauty, carried off to foreign parts, lost forever behind the walls of some harem. Until the hero saves her or she, to preserve her virtue, takes her own life? Only after twenty pages of hand-wringing and virtuous speechifying, of course. Did you ever wonder, Regina—what good is an intact virtue when you’re dead?”

She faced forward once more, not without effort, because it was difficult to look away from his face, those fascinating eyes and their mischievous sparkle that, she was realizing more and more, hid a rather terrifying intelligence. “My father owns ships. Trading ships. Quite a few of them. He has been all over the world and seen things most of us wouldn’t believe. He … he has told us stories, and I see no reason to believe he was lying. But I didn’t think something so terrible could happen here, right in London.”

“Bad things happen anywhere, Regina. One of the servants I applied to with your cousin’s description informed me that a barmaid in a tavern he frequents disappeared last week. And he knows of another girl, a milliner, who went missing a few days ago. He said there were more. All of them looking much like your cousin, all of them small, all of them blonde. You and I saw the state of her mask, the obvious evidence of a struggle. She may have gone out into the gardens willingly enough, but that’s not how she departed them. No, we can’t be completely certain that your cousin was abducted by the same persons collecting pretty, petite blondes, but I don’t think such a conclusion is too far-fetched, do you?”

Regina remembered the ruined mask, the green glass stones in her reticule. “She didn’t go willingly. We were only going to watch, perhaps … flirt a little. It was silly, it was stupid, but it shouldn’t have been dangerous. And Miranda never would have gone off willingly with anyone and left me alone. It … it was only supposed to be a lark. A little … a little fun.”

She took the handkerchief he offered and wiped at her eyes.

“Your uncle will be hiring a brace or more of Bow Street Runners in the morning. Those Robin Redbreasts must have heard about the other disappearances by now and have some idea where to look for her. Nobody can vanish completely.”

Regina turned her head to face him once more, looking deeply into his eyes. “You don’t believe that, do you? She could already be aboard some horrible ship, waiting for the tide so that it can sail to some foreign port. I’ve been to the docks with my father, you know. There are so many of them and hundreds of ships. Miranda could even now be in any one of them. Oh, God,” she said, her voice breaking, “I’m so frightened for her.”

The next thing she knew, Puck had pulled her against his chest, his arms around her as he rested his chin on her hair, rocking her slightly as if she were a child he was attempting to comfort. She wrapped one arm about his waist, holding on, hoping for strength.

And felt something else stirring inside her, something she shouldn’t have felt. Not now, with her cousin in such dire straits. Not ever.

Regina had never had anyone to cling to like this. Certainly not her mother, whom she loved dearly but who was as useless as a parent as ears would be on a turnip. Certainly not her father, who had made it clear he saw her as a commodity to be, as he’d baldly told her, “bought low and sold high.” Why, she’d never even had a pet that she was sure would have loved her unconditionally.

At last, as his coach slowed, she pushed herself away from him. “I have to stop this. I’m feeling sorry for myself, and that’s ridiculous because it is Miranda who’s in danger. Oh, and you’re horrid, Mr. Blackthorn, because you were about to take advantage of my overset state, weren’t you?”

“The thought had danced fleetingly across my mind, yes. Are you certain you’re totally against it?”

Regina glared at him, but then her bottom lip began to tremble, and she laughed. “You’re incorrigible. A true Puck.”

He put his bent index finger beneath her chin to hold it steady and then leaned in and placed a short, chaste kiss on her mouth. “For courage,” he said when he withdrew just far enough to look into her eyes.

Regina realized that the coach had come to a halt. She was home.

“I think I probably need it. Will you come inside?”

He shook his head. “I believe it would wiser if my name were kept out of any explanations you will offer your parents. I’m convinced the viscount won’t be mentioning it, at any rate. But don’t worry. Your father will be much too overjoyed to know that his daughter is safe and will not be asking for too many details. As for your mother …?”

Regina winced. “She won’t be a problem.”

“I’m sorry,” Puck said, stroking her cheek.

“Why? You aren’t the cause of any of this.”

“No. I’m sorry we have to say good-night. By tomorrow, you will have remembered just how unsuitable I am.”

She lowered her head. He was right. He was nothing she could think about the way she was thinking about him now. Her father wouldn’t allow his commodity to be thrown away on a bastard son, no matter that his sire was the Marquess of Blackthorn.

“We … we are only caught up in the moment,” she told him, still not raising her chin. “I have suffered a considerable—several considerable shocks this evening. And you …”

“I am a very bad man,” he finished for her.

“Sir,” a footman said, having opened the door and put down the steps. “We have arrived.”

Puck grinned, looking young and silly, so much so that it startled her. He had so many different sides to him, and she knew she was compelled to learn about all of them. “Some people find it necessary to state the obvious, don’t they? My footman will escort you to your door and make certain it opens to you.”

Regina nodded and then made a decision. She raised her hand to his cheek, lifted her head and kissed him, squarely on the mouth, and then withdrew before he could react.

“Tomorrow at eleven. In the park,” she said, quickly gathering up her reticule and all but stumbling out of the coach, his laughter following her.

She hiked up her skirts rather inelegantly, belatedly remembering that her shawl was still inside her uncle’s coach, but hopeful none of the sleepy Hackett footmen or the butler would notice.

And she probably would have made it to her bedchamber, where she longed to be alone and think back over every moment of the evening, save for the fact that she heard her father’s voice calling to her from the drawing room. The last thing she’d expected, considering what he had been about the last time she saw him, was for him to have returned home so early.

Her shoulders sagged; truly, her entire body sagged, suddenly exhausted. But she dutifully turned and headed toward the sound of his voice.

“Good evening, Papa,” she said, dropping into a small curtsy, because that always seemed to please him for some unknown reason. Besides, it was either that or kiss him on the cheek. After where he’d been tonight and what he had been doing, she would rather kiss the fireplace grate.

“Where’s your mother? No, never mind that nonsense. We’ve more important things to discuss.”

Reginald Hackett was still a relatively young man, and tall, towering over most other men (although not quite so tall as Puck, she realized with a ridiculous spurt of pride). He was thick in his body, most especially in his chest and shoulders, for he had spent many years laboring alongside his crews, climbing rigging, loading cargo. Regina knew this because her father had told her the stories, taken her to the docks, showed her what he had achieved and recounted again and again how hard he’d worked for his success, how grateful she should be for the fine clothes on her back, the food on her plate, the roof over her head.

And then he’d tell her how she would repay him. “Nothing less than an earl, girl, you hear me? Then squirt out a brace of sons for him, make me grandda to the heir, and nobody’ll dare remember Hacketts were ever in trade. Two generations from the docks, girl, that’s all it takes. And you name the first whelp Reginald somewhere in his string of names. I’ll go the blunt for that, as well. I promised m’mother as much, and that’s how it’s going to be, understand?”

His mother. Grandmother Hackett. To her father, everything that was right and good about the world. To her mother, who had been forced to have the coarse, domineering Alice Hackett live in her house until the woman died, the bad angel who sat on Regina’s shoulder. Her mother loved her daughter, but Leticia could never quite hide the fear that Regina had the makings of a lowborn peasant deep inside her, just waiting for some inopportune moment to pop out and sully her and her family escutcheon.

“Papa, I have terrible news,” Regina said as her father had recourse to the gin decanter, the only thing that bonded him to her Uncle Seth. She had hoped to be able to put off the telling until the morning, but that was impossible now. “Our coach took a wrong turn tonight and brigands attacked us. I’m fine,” she added quickly, as her father had whirled about to look at her, his face a thundercloud. “But Miranda was …”

“Well? Spit it out, girl. The idiot girl was what? Beaten? Shot? Raped?”

Regina sought out a chair and sat down. “No,” she said. “Taken. Miranda was taken.”

He raised one inquisitive eyebrow at her. No sign of caring, of compassion. Simply inquisitive. “Is that so? Taken where?”

“She was abducted by the brigands.” Regina hated that her voice was shaking, hated that she was afraid of her father. But she was. He was so large, so physically imposing. She reassured herself that anyone with half a brain in his head would be afraid of her father. “Uncle Seth has already begun making inquiries,” she lied quickly. “There is a great fear that Miranda has been kidnapped in order to be sold somewhere. I was left alone because I’m not what they wanted. It’s just as you told Mama and me. Terrible men, buying and selling people as if they were bolts of cloth.”

“I see,” Reginald Hackett said slowly. “And you’re not lying to me? She hasn’t talked you into going along with some farradiddle about slavers to cover that she’s run off with some idiot young pup who thinks he loves that penniless twit?”

“No! Papa, this is real.”

“And you didn’t help her make up the story, thanks to me telling you about such things? Come on, come on—the truth!”

Regina shot to her feet. “I am many things, Papa, but I am not a liar.”

His enraged shout shook the chandelier above her head. “Damned if you aren’t!”

She sat down once more, hoping to hide her sudden urge to flee the room. She hadn’t realized he knew her that well. “Papa, please …”

“You’re mine, aren’t you? You couldn’t help but lie whenever it suited you. Only good thing about you, other than your worth in the marketplace.”

Regina felt a spurt of resentment. “I also have tolerably good teeth,” she said quietly. But he’d heard her.

He downed the remainder of his gin and deposited the empty glass on a nearby table before spreading his arms wide as if in apology, one he certainly didn’t mean. “You need a thicker skin, that’s what you need, girl. I’m only stating facts. All right, all right, never mind. We’ll put your sad tale of brigands to bed, shall we? You were up to mischief tonight, the pair of you, but you escaped by the skin of those tolerably good teeth while your cousin didn’t. Next time, you might not be so lucky. But there’s not going to be a next time, is there?”

Her shoulders visibly slumped. He knew. How did he know? “No, sir.”

“So your cousin did not involve you in some elopement? She truly was taken. Seth knows?”

Regina nodded. “He’s going to hire some Bow Street Runners in the morning.”

“Another dip in my purse,” Reginald grumbled. “She hardly seems worth it, except to accompany you in the evenings.”

Regina grabbed on to that most important fact. “I can’t depend on Mama to accompany me all the places you wish me to go, no. And if Miranda isn’t recovered, Aunt Claire will be too devastated to chaperone me. No one is to know she’s gone, and once she’s safely recovered, it will be as if nothing has happened.”

“Ha! Believe that, girl, and you’ll believe anything.” He walked over to the chair she sat in and stood directly in front of her. Hovered over her menacingly. “She’s probably on her back in some low tavern even now, being held down, her legs spread wide for her while every last man Jack in the place takes his turn every which way. They’re having her in ways even the devil himself never thought of, and the more she screams, the more they’ll like it. Don’t you go clapping your hands over your ears, girl! You listen to me! I know. Better off dead by morning, that’s how I see the thing, and even your idiot uncle Seth will know it, too, see if he doesn’t. He won’t be looking for her all that long. Dead or a twopenny whore, that’s all your fine cousin has left to her. And you’ll consider twice now before you even think to take another step off the path I’ve put you on, stupid girl, won’t you? Won’t you!”

The image that had formed in Regina’s mind at her father’s crude description tore painfully at her heart, even as she unconsciously squeezed her thighs together. If she hadn’t been lucky enough to have met Puck at the masquerade when she was feeling so adventuresome, rather than someone like her father, where would she be now?

Her father was right. She was stupid. Stupid, and foolhardy and very, very lucky.

“Yes, Papa,” she said quietly.

“Good. Now give me his name.”

She looked up at him in surprise that swiftly turned to horror.

“And don’t lie to me again. Brigands,” he spat. “In Mayfair? I wondered what you’d come up with, and it’s pitiful. Only a brains-to-let looby like my brother-in-law would swallow such a clunker. Then again, he didn’t see you tonight, did he?”

Regina thought she might faint. This was worse than anything she could have imagined. “You knew? You let me go on and on—and you knew?”

“Got yourself a grand eyeful, didn’t you? Yes, I saw you. You and that man you were with, but you were already climbing into his coach and driving off by the time I could locate you again. Followed the pair of you all the way to Cavendish Square, though, figuring the least Seth could do was to see you home safely from there. Now, who is he?”

She ignored his questions because she had questions of her own. “You knew Miranda had gone missing at the ball?”

“You left without her, remember? You two weren’t at a tea party, girl. Things happen. And her disappearance could have been of her own planning. But to answer your question, no, I didn’t know for certain. Not until I returned to the ball and asked a few questions. Now you answer mine. Give me his name. He saw you safe to your uncle. I want to thank him.”

“No,” Regina said, knowing she was visibly trembling now and deathly afraid. Her father had never hit her, never laid a hand on her. He’d always found other ways to control her.

“I’ll have your mother put away. For her own good.”

And that was one of them. But just this one time she’d say to him what she’d always wanted to say, but had never dared. “You won’t do that. It’s bad enough you want to foist the tradesman’s daughter on the ton, Papa. It’s quite another to sell the daughter of a Bedlamite to a title.”

She flinched as he raised his hand, but then he stopped and smiled, which was worse. “Very well, we’ll not bother about the Good Samaritan. Go to bed.”

“Yes, Papa. I’m sorry, Papa.” Regina scrambled to her feet and fled the room, knowing he hadn’t meant what he’d said. Puck had been masked, and apparently no one had recognized him. Still, she couldn’t see him again, for his own safety.

Except that she’d have to see him again, to warn him. Otherwise, she felt certain he was foolhardy enough to come knocking on her door. Or worse.




CHAPTER FOUR


“M’SIEUR PUCK. IF you were to do me the kindness to lift your chin so that I might button your collar,” the valet, Gaston, crooned in that way he had about him, a politeness of expression far from the rough gutter French he’d spoken when Puck first found him, rescuing the slim, slight fellow from a gang of rough men who had been demonstrating their displeasure with what they believed to be his perversion of nature.

Puck liked his servants loyal, and in saving Gaston, he had found a treasure beyond price. He also held an affection for other misfits in this world. With Gaston, he could say what he liked, show what he felt, without fear of being misunderstood, without worrying about possible betrayal.

“She’s magnificent, Gaston. You’ve never seen eyes like that. A mouth so impossible to resist. And spirit! And intelligence!”

“As you’ve said, m’sieur. Repeatedly. I am so happy for you I am beyond words. The chin if you please, m’sieur.”

“I should walk away,” Puck said, at last doing as his valet asked. “That would be the decent thing to do. There’s no reason I can’t conduct my search for her cousin without ever seeing Regina again. None. In fact, it would be pure selfishness for me to involve her at all. I’ll tell her that.”

“When you meet her in the park, having taken such an unconscionable time dressing for this meeting,” Gaston said without expression—which was as good as tapping his employer over the head with a strong mallet.

Puck waved Gaston away and took a step toward the mirror to inspect the man’s handiwork. As usual, the valet’s effort was perfection itself. “Sending a note around to her residence could be risky for her. Anything put to paper can be risky.”

“And I am risky, as well, m’sieur? You could send me in your place, to repeat your words of farewell to her, without need for a note. I can remain committed to my purpose when exposed to magnificent female eyes and mouths.”

Puck eyed Gaston as he was reflected in the mirror. “You make a valid point. I believe I shall ignore it.”

At last Gaston allowed himself a small smile. “I have never before seen you like this, m’sieur. The beautiful women, yes, you like them all, romance them all. And then like a bee always in search of nectar, you fly on to the next flower, and the next. How is this one so different?”

Puck snatched up his gloves and softly slapped them against his valet’s shoulder. “That, Gaston, is what I wonder myself. And what I do believe I have no choice but to find out. Beginning this morning, in the park. Feel free to pray for me. I very well may be human after all.”

His own words still ringing in his ears, Puck then took himself off for the stroll to the park. He headed for the entrance closest to Berkeley Square, careful to arrive well in advance of the appointed time, to look over the lay of the land, as it were. Not that he was overly concerned that Regina had told her father about the scheduled meeting, but one could never be too careful, and Puck wasn’t fond of surprises, unless they were of his own making.

He saw the man immediately. Dressed well enough but appearing to be somewhat uncomfortable in his clothes, his eyes shifting left and right, as if looking for something he did not know but hoped to recognize when he saw it. With every second visual sweep of the area, his gaze would hold for some moments on the female form clad in a light green walking gown and pelisse, a red-haired maid standing just behind her.

So much for the notion of a leisurely stroll with Miss Regina Hackett, who had also seen fit to arrive early. Puck deftly turned and left the park, heading via a slightly roundabout way in the direction of Berkeley Square.

London churches had just completed their noon hour competition of bells when his most recent peek out from his hiding place alerted Puck to the fact that Regina was returning to her residence, her swift steps firm on the flagway, a reflection of her anger and forcing her maid to nearly skip to keep up with her longer strides.

Oh, there was going to be the devil to pay if he didn’t get his apology in quickly!

She and her maid were the only ones taking advantage of the fine, sunny day, save a few nurses and their charges and a spattering of old women out seeking fresh air for their health. The rest of the inhabitants of this exalted area of London were just now waking up to their hot chocolate and newspapers.

“Psst!” Oh, for the love of Heaven, she hadn’t heard him. “Psssst!”

Regina’s steps faltered slightly, and she turned her head toward the narrow alleyway where Puck was standing. But when he commanded her to pretend there was something in her shoe and to tell her maid to bend down and help her remove it, Regina reacted with the sort of alacrity a drill sergeant would admire in his recruits.

“Where were you? I waited for nearly an hour,” she told him quietly as she braced one hand against a nearby railing and stuck her right foot out to the maid, who quickly fell into enacting her role. Clearly, Regina had shared what the trip to the park was about this morning and had enlisted her aid.

“Someone was watching. You weren’t alone. Your father suspects something?”

She bent her head, as if talking to the maid. “My father knows everything. He saw me at the ball.”

“And now you’ve grown a tail.”

She very nearly turned her head to look at him. “I’ve what?”

Puck smiled at her horror. “And it will wag after you everywhere you go. He’s behind you somewhere now—no, don’t turn around. He’ll be much happier and become more lax in his surveillance the longer you pretend to not notice him.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “But what shall we do? He can’t see you with me. I didn’t tell my father your name when he asked.”

“A determined man won’t have much problem finding his own answer. Your uncle will probably be delighted to assist him.”

“Miss?” Hanks, speaking with her position much lower to the ground than she obviously liked, sounded slightly oppressed. “My knees are aching that much.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Hanks.” Regina put her foot down and let go of the railing. “I have to go. If you’ve been waiting for me here all of this time, surely you’ve managed to think of something, some way we can meet?”

“Cheeky. That’s what it is. You’re cheeky. I never knew I admired that in a woman,” Puck said, longing to pull her into the alleyway and kiss her senseless. “Continue back to your residence and go inside. Wait ten minutes, and then come back out, turn to your right and then right again at the end of the building. I’ll meet you there.”

“But—but my tail?”

“He won’t expect you to reemerge quite so quickly, and it’s likely past his lunchtime. He’ll be nipping off to some pub to drink his the moment he feels you’re safely inside. If he hasn’t gone when you stick your pretty head outside—lovely bonnet, by the way, though I’d like to see more of your face—you’ll hear my warning whistle, and I’ll have to think of something else.”

“And what would that something else be?” Regina asked as she rifled inside her reticule as if searching for something.

First, the required action with the shoe, and now, the inspection of the reticule, both executed flawlessly and all the while carrying on a conversation with him. What a quick mind she had. She could have been born for the stage … or simply born to deceive. And to delight.

“Miss, we really must go.”

“I don’t know,” Puck said, unable to resist. “How wide are your chimneys?”

Regina lifted her chin and marched on down the flagway, clearly unimpressed by his answer, leaving him to sink farther into the shadow of the buildings and compliment himself on his good taste. He’d used the correct word to describe her to Gaston. She really was magnificent.

And then he was off, cutting through alleyways until he emerged on the flagway of Berkeley Square, nearly gaining it ahead of the man still following Regina. He watched as the man walked on and determined that the fellow was or at least had been a sailor, forever marked by his rolling gait.

Sailors most often meant knives, not pistols, and they usually kept them tucked into their waistbands. Puck stored the information in his brain and continued walking, following the tail until he’d passed the door that had so recently closed behind Regina, and then continued to keep pace with him as he exited the Square and turned to his left. Another three blocks took them both to a small, discreet basement tavern, patronized mostly by the servants from the local neighborhoods. The tail stepped inside and was greeted by several people who recognized him before the door could close once more.

Clearly, the man was a frequent visitor to the establishment. How nice. Gaston always enjoyed meeting new people. In his previous life, before his encounter with Puck, he had met many new people, most only briefly, deftly relieving them of their valuables as he’d been one of the premiere pickpockets in the city.

Puck wanted a look at the sort of sticker the man preferred, and Gaston would delight in practicing his old skills. It was always the details that lessened the odds.

Puck hastened back to Berkeley Square and the mews behind the Hackett residence, then nipped into the narrow passageway that divided it from the equally impressive mansion directly next door to it. The two residences had been built so closely together that occupants of the houses could have, if they’d so desired, simply opened their windows and indulged in quiet conversations with their neighbor. Or listened to conversations. Or gotten a peek at their neighbor in his or her underclothes or caught them out in some compromising position.

Which were several of the many reasons that these particular windows in both buildings were closed, and the drapes drawn, and both remained that way no matter what the time of day or the weather. The cobbled pathway still wasn’t the perfect meeting place, and a tradesman with a delivery to either house could still appear and discover them, but they’d be here only for a few minutes, and, as Puck reasoned the thing, if he couldn’t stare down a curious tradesman, then he didn’t deserve to live.

And then she was there, and Puck forgot about everything else as he stepped out of the shadows and took her hands in his. “You bring the sun with you,” he told her, “chasing away any shadows.”

She tugged her hands free. “We don’t have time for your nonsense,” she warned him, and then added, “but … thank you.”

“The pleasure, and the nonsense, remain mine. Tell me what happened after you left me last night,” he said, not liking that she looked faintly drawn, even for all her beauty. She could not have passed a quiet night.

“I already told you that he saw me at the ball. I couldn’t believe it! He didn’t realize that Miranda had been taken. He thought perhaps she’d arranged an elopement or something with someone she’d planned to meet there. I told him what we believe, and all he had to say to that was that Uncle Seth will be applying to him for the money to hire Bow Street.”

He took her hands again, and this time she didn’t pull away. “Really? If he does, Regina, please tell me.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Why?”

“Why? Let’s just say that there is no such thing as too much knowledge when you’re … getting to know someone. You should have given your father my name when he asked. I’ll assume your refusal didn’t delight him.”

“He gave up asking quickly enough. But no, he wasn’t happy. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is how to save Miranda before it’s too late. My father says it already is, that she’s either ruined or dead or both, but I refuse to believe that. Why risk kidnapping the daughter of a viscount, the granddaughter of an earl, if you’re only going to … that is, if you only want to—don’t make me finish this sentence, Puck, please.”

He squeezed her fingers. “I won’t. But, informing me of your uncle’s actions to one side, your involvement has to end now, Regina. That’s the only reason I came here today. To tell you that.”

She sighed. “I came here to tell you that you should forget about helping me, because it’s too dangerous for you to continue seeing me. My father would definitely disapprove.”

“Thanks to my parents’ unmarried state,” Puck said, nodding. “I understand that. Your father has set his sights considerably higher for his daughter’s future.”

She seemed relieved that he understood. “Yes. An earl, at the least. He’s never made it a secret that I am the ladder he plans to climb to the next level of London Society.”

“I’m sure he has your best interests at heart,” Puck told her, watching her closely for her reaction to that statement. She simply didn’t seem the sort who took orders cheerfully.




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