Too Dangerous For a Lady (27 page)

For a moment her furious purpose had burned through her grief, but it seeped back. No matter what, Thayne was still dead. She'd never see him again.

She poured the last of the port into her glass and took it to the window. There was no one out there amid the pretty lanterns and she saw why. Rain glimmered on leaves and paths. The heavens had wept, but some time ago, for now the moon was shining through scattering clouds.

She put aside her glass and opened the window, welcoming the dampness on the air. But then she heard merriment. There must be windows open in the house, letting fresh air into crowded rooms and letting out music and chatter. She was glad people were happy. It was proof that happiness existed despite the deadness inside that said it didn't.

She'd mourned her parents and Jermyn, though not deeply. She'd grieved more for Roger, but not like this. Nothing at all like this.

Roger had been too young to die, and too full of life, but the Company of Rogues had known him better than she. She and Roger hadn't shared childhood games or secrets. She'd been in her schoolroom world with Polly and Miss Chandler, and he'd been in his with his tutor until going away to school. Jermyn had been an even more distant figure, eight years older and off to school almost before she knew him, then in another sphere when at home. His death,
two years ago, had stung only because it meant the title would go elsewhere, along with their home.

She'd encountered Thayne so few times, but each meeting had been intimate and left a deep impression on her mind and heart, like the mark pounded into silver or gold to prove it true.

The garden below was not a terrace, but it took her back to that first encounter. The moon was almost as bright tonight. How sad that no one was out there to talk and flirt, and perhaps to sow the seeds of love. She supposed that even the most amorous lady wouldn't risk silken dancing slippers for a kiss.

She could go out there. She could wear her leather half boots. Yes, out there, under the moon, remembering.

Where were her own clothes, the ones she could get into and out of easily?

S
he found them in a bottom drawer, but realized that if she was seen in the house so simply dressed, someone might take her for an intruder. She wanted no fuss, which meant she must dress for the party.

She rang the bell again.

Nolly took a long time in coming. “I'm sorry, milady. I was watching the dancing. They were waltzing!”

Waltzing. She'd dreamed of waltzing with Thayne. . . . “I want to walk in the garden. I need an evening gown so I won't look out of place.”

Nolly stared at her. “Are you sure, milady?”

“I'm not out of my wits, I promise.”
Though I may be a little drunk, but it doesn't matter. I need to do this.
“I need fresh air,” she said, trying to sound rational, “but if I leave this room in an ordinary dress, one of the guests might think me an intruder.”

“Oh, I see,” Nolly said, though clearly she didn't. “Right, then, which one? The pink? That's the prettiest, milady.”

“No!” It came out too sharply. “Not pink tonight. The bronze stripe. It has a frill around the hem that can be unpicked for cleaning if soiled.”

As Hermione endured the process of corseting, she knew she wasn't thinking quite as she should. She was tipsy with port, and perhaps still affected by opium, but the greatest disorder was grief. Even so, it would do no harm to
escape into a deserted garden and she wanted it. Perhaps among the simplicity of plants she could mend her mind.

The gown slithered into place, and as Nolly fastened the back, Hermione looked in the mirror. The unfamiliar gown that exposed her shoulders made her seem almost a stranger. That was good. She didn't want to be Hermione Merryhew. Not tonight.

“The slippers, milady.” Nolly was offering delicious confections of silk and lace.

“They'll be ruined in a wet garden. I'll wear my half boots.”

“Brown leather, with that gown, milady?” Nolly was reacting as if Hermione had suggested showing her breasts.

“I hope no one will see me, but if they do, they won't notice my footwear in a moment.”

Once she was shod, Hermione sat before the dressing table mirror to deal with her hair, impatient with the necessity. If she met anyone in the house, she couldn't look disheveled. She gathered her hair into a knot on top, skewering it with pins.

“My trinket box, Nolly.”

She fixed two pinchbeck sprays of flowers in her hair. She needed something around her neck as well. She owned a few good pieces of jewelry, including a string of pearls—the ones she'd worn to her first ball—but she'd left such valuables at Selby. She chose a necklace of quartz beads. At a glance they might even look like pearls. Matching earrings and she should pass muster.

Nolly was offering long white gloves. Hermione almost rebelled, but she pulled them on. Then she surveyed herself in the mirror. “That will do. Thank you, Nolly. You may return to your diversions now.”

“Wouldn't it be best if I come with you, milady?”

“Into the garden? I'll have no use for you there.” She saw the maid was still concerned about her.
Am I mad? Perhaps the deranged don't know.

“At least take a shawl, milady,” Nolly said, offering a rectangular shawl in a bronze paisley pattern and with a deep fringe. Another gift from Beth. “You don't want to catch your death.”

Hermione didn't care if she did and the shawl would be in the way, but she couldn't bear any more fussing. She draped it around herself and sent the maid off, saying only, “Do not tell anyone where I am, Nolly. On your honor.”

“If you say so, milady.”

Once she was sure Nolly had gone, she opened the door and checked the corridor. The coast was clear. The ballroom, the drawing room, and the other more public apartments were on the opposite side of the central hall, but she'd have to go down by the grand central staircase. She knew no other way.

She went to the top of the stairs, but then stepped back. Late guests were still arriving. She remembered that some had been invited to dine before the event, but others would arrive throughout the evening for the dancing. She peered around a pillar and saw two groups of people, four in one and five in the other. A bevy of servants, footmen and maids, were taking cloaks and coats.

One group of two couples began to climb the stairs. One of the men had a patch over one eye, but the patch didn't conceal a scar on his cheek. Wounded in the war, and not neatly, but he was alive. The lady on his arm hadn't lost him to the grave. The two couples turned toward the other side of the house, leaving the coast clear, but the other guests lingered in the hall.

Where were the servants' staircases? There would be some all over this mansion, but she didn't know them, and in any case, with such an entertainment in progress they'd be busy with people going up and down. Perhaps she had gone mad, but now getting outside, into the garden, seemed the most important thing in the world, as if then everything would change. As if then everything would be right.

She headed down the main staircase, attempting a vaguely distracted air, as if on an urgent mission, but feeling like an exposed malefactor. She was braced for someone to call, “Stop, thief!” The party of five began to climb the stairs, still talking. They merely inclined their heads in passing.

Once in the hall Hermione turned quickly toward the back. Beth had said there were doors to the garden somewhere down here. This part of the house was quiet, but when she arrived at a room with glass doors into the garden, she found it lit by lamps and with a fire in the grate. It was set up as a possible retiring room for anyone wanting a peaceful spot.

It was unoccupied now, however, and when she tried it, the door to the garden was unlocked. She was soon outside and could breathe at last. She inhaled cool, damp air full of greenery and the delicate perfume of night-scented flowers that glimmered pale in the lamplight.

Like flowers on a grave.

She wept then and had no handkerchief. She stemmed her tears with the shawl, crying even more over ruining it.

Stop this. Stop this. It does no good.

She inhaled again and became aware of the cold. She pulled the shawl close around herself, grateful for Nolly's common sense. Nolly was a treasure who should have everything she dreamed of. But not wickedly.

But as she'd thought before, why not? No one should go to the grave with dreams unfulfilled, with desires unfulfilled, and death could come in a moment. She remembered Edgar saying that the greatest danger came without warning. How wise he was, and she wasn't wearing the kris!

She wouldn't burst into tears again, but the music and lightheartedness spilling out of the house grated on her. Lamplight and moonlight showed the paths quite well, so she followed one toward the back of the garden, farther from merriment. The paving stones were merely damp, but rain lingered between them, and here and there on leaves
and stones. She was glad of her leather boots, and held up her gown so it wouldn't be too much soiled. The path wove around, creating small, private areas walled with shrubs and bushes thick and high enough to create an illusion of being alone. Some held benches, inviting one to linger, but they were too damp to sit on in silk.

One area held a statue of a woman in classical robes sitting on a rock. Hermione wondered whether it was a memorial of some kind because the woman looked sad and she was surrounded by rosemary. She pinched off a little and drew in the aroma. Rosemary for remembrance. She tucked the sprig down the front of her gown. Perhaps rosemary was also for truth, for acceptance settled in her mind.

Thayne was dead. Dead and cold in his grave. She'd never see his lopsided smile again, never argue with him, never talk, talk, talk throughout a stolen night. She'd never kiss him again, and she'd thrown away their one chance to do more. Truth sat leaden in her heart, but she was sane again. Sane enough to know she should go back inside before she caught a chill. She retraced her steps, and then a turn gave her a view of the lit windows of Belcraven House.

It looked like the fairy palace she'd once thought it. In the brilliance of an extravagance of candles, men in dark elegance and women in a rainbow of colors were talking, laughing, and dancing to the music she could faintly hear. Part of her still wanted to protest, but she pushed that aside. Let them take pleasure in the moment. Let everyone take pleasure in every precious moment, for who knew what might happen in the next?

Some of those cheerful men would have fought in the war. Many of the revelers would have suffered the death of a dear one as she had. She remembered the wounded man she'd seen mounting the stairs. Another of the men entering the house had had an empty sleeve. Their friends and relatives would have suffered over their maiming, but they'd
count themselves blessed because their loved one was still alive.

Behind the windows, the smiling dancers wove up and down a line to a tune she knew. It was one of the two dances she'd enjoyed with Thayne so many years ago. She wouldn't resent the dancers. She'd rejoice that there was still dancing in the world.

One day she would dance again.

Week by week, day by day, minute by minute. She began to find some balm in the dancers' pleasure, but then she frowned to focus. A man had faced her briefly, but then turned so his back was to her. Still, her heart had flashed with recognition.

Now she saw only broad shoulders in a dark evening suit and dark hair that was rather short for fashion. This was indeed madness. The hair was nothing like Thayne's, and Thayne would certainly not be here. Despite a pounding heart, she refused that mad path of grief—seeing him in every passing dark-haired gentleman in London. There must be a thousand.

Turn again,
she willed at him.

Show me you're not Thayne.

Give me back my sanity.

He stayed in position for a maddening length of time, but then went to the middle to dance with a lady, turning this way and that, smiling at his partner.

A lopsided smile?

Stop it! You can't possibly see that detail at this distance.
It isn't him. It can't be him. He's dead and buried.

Her head was buzzing, however, and she had to clutch onto a nearby lamppost to stay upright.
Mad with grief.
Like his mother, she'd gone out of her mind because she couldn't accept the truth. But knowing she was mad didn't cure it. Her mind saw Thayne, moving on along the dance line, and madness conquered sense. Her heart screamed:
He's alive!

She picked up her skirts and ran toward the house, then tripped on a stone and almost fell. Heaving for breaths, she made herself slow, and some sanity returned. It wasn't him. It couldn't be him. Still, she needed to find that man so she could prove that to herself. Otherwise, she'd never be sane again.

She hurried into the breakfast room and froze, fixed by the stares of two older ladies. Was one truly wearing the wide skirts of the past century, or did her insanity extend to everything? Both looked down at her shoes. The strangely dressed lady raised a quizzing glass. At her boots. And at muddy marks on the carpet.

“Are you quite all right?” asked one. The rather gaunt one who was dressed normally.

“Yes, completely!” Hermione said, and fled. Once out of the room she heard low conversation behind her. She was muddying Beth's house. Resenting every moment it took, she untied the ribbons of her boots and took them off.

She dropped the shawl on top of them and abandoned them there to hurry toward the front of the house and the stairs up to the ballroom. Her rational mind knew that the man, whoever he was, wouldn't be leaving at this moment, but the rest screamed to hurry, hurry, or she'd never know.

Some servants were still in the hall. A footman said, “Milady?”

She ignored him and ran upstairs, aware of passing some people on the staircase, but no longer caring. She raced along the corridor in her stocking feet, weaving past startled couples and into the ballroom.

The dance had ended. People were standing, strolling. Where was he? Where was he?

Dark hair. No, that was the man who'd lost an arm.

That other one was too short.

“Hermione?”

She heard Beth's voice somewhere nearby, but she'd
seen him now, across the room, laughing at something a blond lady had said to him. The one in diamonds. He was at ease here and so exquisitely well dressed, with such pristine white linen at neck and wrist and touches of gold and jewels. Even his hair was different. There was a red to it.

It wasn't Thayne.

But her heart wouldn't believe what her mind told her, and when he turned, perhaps alerted by a mood in the room, her heart ruled.

“Thayne!” she cried, and ran to him.