Confessions of a Little Black Gown (22 page)

Just as it is madness to continue to stand here, dallying after a woman you cannot have
.

“Miss Langley, about last night—”

“Sir, I think it is better if we didn’t—” she said, not even looking up from her work.

“But I feel compelled, honor bound—”

She stopped her work and looked up at him. “Honor bound? If you had any honor, my lord, you wouldn’t be here.”

T
ally knew she’d waded into dark, dangerous waters the moment she’d called his honor into question. Hadn’t she just read his entry in the
Bachelor Chronicles
this morning? And now she’d put herself in the same league as gossips like Miss Browne and her hideous mother.

But what the devil was she to do? For he’d actually looked quite intent when he’d begun to…

She shivered, for it was an impossible notion to even consider. Was he truly about to do the honorable thing and make an offer for her?

“Miss Langley, I hardly see what you mean by that, especially when our circumstances call for…nay, demand that we—”

“Mr. Ryder
,” she said in a sharp whisper, putting every bit of emphasis on his false name that she could, “I have no idea what you are speaking of, for we have no circumstances—”

Egads! He was serious. Serious about proposing and marrying her. Was he mad?

Well, she knew she was…for a wild, impetuous moment, she considered accepting him before he discovered the truth about her.

And if Dash does escape tonight…if he eludes his hunters and makes it back to his ship…and if there is no connection whatsoever to me and Pippin, then…

Could it be possible?

No. For Tally couldn’t go to him in good conscience.

Botheration, she’d drugged the man last night, and who was to say his impulsive (and incredible) lovemaking, as well as this faltering proposal of his, weren’t but reactions to the powders she’d dumped into his teapot?

She glanced up into his dark eyes and wished she hadn’t. They burned with a furious light, and guilt tugged at her right down to her slippers.

Look what Miss Browne’s story had done to Pippin and Dash. And even though it was that infamous miss’s word against Dash’s, Pippin was furious with
the captain for his gallantries. And Dash? Being as stubborn and unrepentant as any other overly proud man, he’d refused to refute any of it.

And now Mr. Ryder, no, Lord Larken, was one breath away from proposing to her, and she was casting aspersions on his honor and driving him away—the sort of man she’d spent most of her life dreaming about.

Everything was a wretched mess, a dreadful tangle.

“Miss Langley, don’t you see what last night meant?”

She knew what it meant to her. She’d discovered a world of unspeakable passion in his arms. How could she tell him that some time in those wee hours, she’d fallen in love with him?

In love with a man her sister described as “lost” and “embittered.” How could he not be so, when that dreadful Foreign Office had asked so much of him? Sent him to kill a friend. What sort of honor is there in that?

How could it not eat away at a man’s very soul?

Tally, who loved beauty, loved life when it was bright and full of spirit, gazed up at him and wondered what he had seen…and done…and if there was any way to help him ease the nightmares, give him new memories to wallpaper over the blackness that had marred and twisted his features as he tossed and turned in the sheets.

Yes, how could she help him, when she still had to thwart him? Stop him. Deceive him.

“I cannot fathom what you mean, sir,” she said, staring down at her drawing. “Last night? Why last
night was rather uneventful. Hardly worth mentioning.”

Not unless you want to see my heart break…

“As you say, Miss Langley,” he said, letting out a long breath, and glancing up at the other guests. “Your cousin looks rather happy,” he said, nodding toward Pippin and Lord Gossett. “I thought you’d said she was attached elsewhere—”

“Circumstances change,” Tally rushed to say. As hers had the first moment she’d seen Larken. “I believe Lord Gossett has given Pippin’s heart a new direction, now that she knows her destiny cannot follow another.”

His gaze flicked immediately back from watching Pippin to meet Tally’s and so she pressed her point further, since now she had his full attention. Dropped her treasonous crumbs for him to pick up and devour.

“For how can a lady love someone who is lost to her? Gone. Well away and out of her reach.”

She didn’t know how much more clearly she could state her lie, short of saying,
My lord, Dashwell has left. And there is nothing you can do about it.

“My cousin inherited a very practical nature,” Tally added.
Well, more practical than mine
, she would have amended if she’d felt inclined. “And therefore is able to see Lord Gossett’s advantages more clearly than a more romantically inclined lady might. Given her previous entanglement, shall we call it, and that man’s less than honorable nature, she’s come to a new understanding of what love means.”

They both glanced over at the pair, where Lord
Gossett had Pippin giggling as he made a great show of pulling a coin out of her ear with a bit of slight of hand.

“Obviously he is taken with her,” Tally said, forcing a smile on her lips. “And in time…well, I would imagine if Lord Gossett has anything to say about it, she will find her heart turned. For the best, my sister would say.”

“And you, Miss Langley? Do you find your cousin’s change of heart for the best? I can’t see you putting your heart aside so easily if you were in her shoes.” He paused, waiting for her to deny him, to tell him how she felt. And when she remained silent, he finished by saying, “Then again, maybe you already have.”

Tally closed her eyes, but she needn’t have bothered, for he turned on one heel and walked away. Each thud of his boots as they marched over the terrace tiles shot through her breaking heart. She kept her lashes tightly shuttered, to keep the tears from falling and because she knew if she opened them, she’d look for him.

Call him back. Confess everything. Give him the answers that would give her away.

I must do this, can’t you see that, my lord? I must for Pippin’s sake.

And yours as well. For you cannot have need of a traitorous wife, when you have worked so hard to redeem your family’s honor. And what will killing a friend do to your already troubled heart?

Much to her horror, Lord Norridge came bounding back, full of apologies. “I am so sorry, Miss Langley, for I have been completely unsuccessful in retriev
ing your drawing box.” He paused for a moment. “But ah, there it is, at your feet!”

She glanced down at it, and then up at the dark-clad figure disappearing into the house. “I am so sorry, my lord. What a wretched fool I am.”

But she wasn’t saying it for Lord Norridge’s benefit.

Settling into a comfortable chair, Aunt Minty reached for her knitting, marveling at the rare luck that had brought her to this comfortable existence in her dotage, after having spent most of her life as the finest buzman who’d ever picked a pocket in London. Then as age had crept up on her, and she was no longer nimble enough, she’d taken to fencing pocket watches, gems, and other trinkets for some of the most infamous highwaymen who’d plied the trade. Instead of swinging from a noose like so many of her acquaintances, she was safe and snug now.

Aramintha Follifoot was in some regards a legend amongst her Seven Dials and Newgate cronies. Had probably seen more diamonds and emeralds and fine gems pass through her nimble fingers than the queen herself.

Oh, she’d lived her life well, loved once, been married a time or three, once to two fellows at the same time due to some mix-up with the hangman, but that matter had taken care of itself when one of the blokes had been shot while stealing a horse.

The constable’s horse.

“Not the brightest of lads, was Mortie,” she was wont to say.

But Aramintha had never had children, never really wanted them, until she found herself taken in and encircled by the Langley sisters and their fair cousin, Lady Philippa. And with these headstrong, unlikely ladies she discovered what all the fuss was about.

While having a former pickpocket and fence as one’s chaperone would be deemed scandalous and unforgivable by Society, not so to her “diamonds,” as she liked to call them. They loved her as if she were their own flesh and blood.

And in return she loved the three of them as if they were dipped in gold.

“Not like the rest of these rum morts who calls themselves Lady This or Countess That,” she would brag to their cook, Mrs. Hutchinson. “Paste is what all those other fancy birds are, next to me diamonds.”

And her diamonds were what the lively trio was, and if they wanted to find themselves husbands and chase after odd dreams, then Aramintha was going to do everything in her power to see them find their hearts’ desires.

She’d helped Felicity marry her duke, hadn’t batted an eye when Pippin had come to her for help, and now, as the door to the large, airy room swung open, and a pale, teary eyed Tally came barreling in, Aramintha sighed.

So it is your turn, is it, child?
she thought as she took only a glance at the stricken look on the gel’s face.

Red wool laced through her fingers, her knitting pins froze. “Tally-girl! Is that you? Come sit with me, child, and tell me everything.”

Tally shot across the room, the door banging shut behind her. She fell into the lady’s arms and began to cry.

“Ah, there now, Tally-girl, you shouldn’t be crying like that,” Aunt Minty told her, carefully setting aside her knitting. Socks were always needed, but even they could wait when one of her girls needed her.

“I’ve made a terrible blunder of things,” Tally confessed.

Aunt Minty sighed, for she’d heard much the same thing from Pippin not a few hours earlier. She should never have agreed to let them send her off, even though it had only been for a sennight. For as their hearts broke, so did Aramintha’s—though she would have been hung by her heels and dangled over a bear pit before she’d admit to such a thing.

“Tell me all about it,” Aunt Minty said softly.

And Tally did.

By the time she was finished, Aramintha had only two thoughts.

However could this Lord Larken not forgive Tally? And if he didn’t, he’d find himself missing his ballocks.

Anyone who doubted she had the nerve or the hand to make such a shot had only to ask her second husband, the ever-randy Bertram Follifoot, whose eye for the ladies hadn’t stopped wandering when he’d married Aramintha. But seeing as he was roasting with the devil, the one to ask was the undertaker.

“Poor Bertie,” the fellow had joked to the drunken and jubilant crowd at Bertram’s wake. “Gone to hell in his best suit, but without his best parts.”

And that would be this Lord Larken’s fate as well if he was trifling with her wee, dear girl.

Missing his best parts, that is.

Standing before her mirror, Mrs. Browne was putting the finishing touches on her ensemble when the door behind her opened.

“Sarah, dear, is that you? Remember to pay particular attention to Lord Grimston. I have it on good authority his estate in Durham makes this dreary place look quite provincial.”

“You always did have expensive tastes, didn’t you, Aveline?” came the reply.

The voice sent a chill down Mrs. Browne’s spine.

“Aurora,” she whispered. Putting down her brush and turning around slowly, for it never did one good to startle her, Mrs. Browne faced the one woman she wished to perdition like no other.

Her sister. Dressed convincingly as a scullery maid, she’d fool anyone with her disguise. Anyone but Mrs. Browne.

“Get out of here,” the matron told her sister. “You promised me not a month ago that you would leave me alone and now here you are. You’ve bled me dry, Aurora. There is no more gold or money to give you. I cannot get any more funds until this war is over.”

“Aveline, Aveline, we are sisters. What would
Maman
say if she could hear you?”

“That I was a traitor to our family and our traditions, but I care not. The queen was lost nearly twenty years ago, Aurora; there is no need for the Order any longer. Even Josephine, poor consort that
she was, is gone. The France we served no longer exists.”

She turned back to her dressing table, her mind adrift with wild thoughts, but not before she spotted in the mirror the sly, wry tip to her sister’s lips. A feline smile that was her lure, the worrisome clue that Aurora was quite confident in whatever dreadful scheme she’d dreamt up, and was obviously determined to have Mrs. Browne’s help in it.

More money and gold and aid in leaving England, most likely. If only that was what she wanted. She’d happily see her sister and her past sent to the farthest reaches of the world if it meant she never had to see that mad light in her eyes again.

“Aveline,” Aurora whispered, “it is time you repaid your debt to the Order. It is due, and due now.”

Those cold, chilling words brought Mrs. Browne spinning around, caution cast to the wind. For there was only one way a debt to the Order was repaid—with one’s life.

Aurora laughed softly. “Silly woman, I have no intention of killing you…” Her words trailed off, but the last part hung between them.